PRINCE ABDULKERIM
The Prınce Who Was Kılled ın a New York Hotel
When the Ottoman Dynasty was sent into exile in 1924, Prince Abdülkerim was 18 years old. Who was Abdülkerim Efendi?
HIH Prince Abdülkerim Efendi (1906-1935), married at Aleppo on 24 February 1930 with HH Nimet Hanım Efendi (1911-1981), and had two sons: HIH Prince Dündar Aliosman Efendi (1930) and HIH Prince Şehzade Harun Osmanoğlu Efendi (1932).
O
n August 4, 1935, the front-page headline of newspapers throughout the United States announced that Prince Abdülkerim had committed suicide in a room in the Cadillac Hotel, located on 43rd Street and Broadway in New York.
What was he doing in New York in 1935?
The young Prince had 75 cents in his pocket, the newspapers said, and claimed that he had left a letter in Turkish to the New York’s chief of police. The police did not show the letter to the press; only later was it allegedly translated into English by an official of the Turkish Consulate in New York and presented to the media. This news also hit the front page of the New York Times. In this letter, the young Prince was said to have claimed that he had fallen ill trying to regain his dynasty and throne; he had proposed marriage to a rich woman from the Bronx, Alice De Stefano, believing that such a marriage would allow him to realize his dreams. Her rejection caused him to fall into a depression and, as a result, he could not think of any other way out except by committing suicide.
Though 80 years have passed since the Prince Abdülkerim’s death, questions about his suicide are still being raised.
plumbing store on Stebbins Avenue in the Bronx, near Ms. Kadire’s house. It is interesting that the Prince would have allegedly written a letter such as this neither to his father Prince Mehmet Selim, who was living in Beirut, nor to his cousin Prince Mehmed Orhan, who was in New York, nor to his friend Şah Mir, who had been the Consul General in New York for 20 years during the Ottoman rule, but to Sergeant Valentin of the New York Police Department. And he had written the letter in Turkish! Detective Robert Rehman from the 47th Street Precinct arranged for a “verbal” translation of this letter to Sergeant Valentine to be made at the Turkish Consulate. That is how the media got to know the content of the letter. Prince Abdülkerim had come to the hotel at around 12:30 after midnight, and allegedly sent a messenger to the Bronx at 2 a.m. to the woman he loved, to inform her that he would kill himself. At the same time, he had also told the receptionist that he wanted to be woken up at 5 in the morning. When the clerk then knocked on his door at 5 a.m. to wake him and there was no answer, the
The New York Times claimed the Prince had met Ms. De Stefano while he was staying at the house of a woman by the name of Kadire. The woman’s father had a 26 • TurkofAmerica
hotel staff had the door opened. The Prince was found on his bed in a sitting position with his feet tucked under him, and a 32-caliber bullet hole in his head.