The Twenty Classes

The incident of the Twenty Classes (Turkish: Yirmi Kur'a Nafıa Askerleri literally: "Soldiers for Public works by drawing of twenty lots" or Yirmi Kur'a İhtiyatlar Olayı literally: "Incident of the Reserve soldiers by drawing of twenty lots") was a so-called conscription used by the Turkish government to conscript the male non-Turkish minority population mainly consisting of Armenians, Greeks and Jews during World War II. All of the twenty classes were consists of male minority population including the elders and mentally ills. They were given no weapons and quite often they did not even wear military uniforms. These non-Muslims were gathered in labour battalions where no Turks were enlisted. They were allegedly forced to work under very bad conditions. The prevailing and widespread point of view on the matter was that wishing to partake in the World War II, Turkey gathered in advance all unreliable non-Turkish men regarded as a "fifth column".

One of the main intention of the Turkish government was to seize the assets of the minority population. The enslaved minorities bankrupted since they could not manage their business during the event and as a result they had to sell their companies and assets for almost free. After this event, two major events followed with almost same intentions Varlık Vergisi and Istanbul Pogrom.