site.btaJews’ Rescue Spared Bulgaria from Complicity in Genocide, Socialists Say

The BSP - United Left parliamentary group said in a declaration on Tuesday that the rescue of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from the Holocaust 83 years ago “spared Bulgarian society the shame of being complicit in a genocide.” The declaration was read out in the Assembly’s debating chamber by the group’s Floor Leader Nataliya Kiselova.

According to the group, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question — the plan of the Nazi government of Germany to exterminate all European Jewry — failed in Bulgaria.

“The Bulgarian Jews were saved by the entire Bulgarian society,” emphasized the declaration, read by Kiselova.

She added: “Periodically, the question arises of how the failure to save the Jews from Aegean Thrace, Vardar Macedonia, and Pirot should be assessed, and who is ultimately responsible for it.” “The specific assignment of responsibility for this terrible act falls primarily on the government of Bogdan Filov, personally on Filov himself, and his interior ministers — first Gabrovski, and later Docho Hristov,” the declaration said. Kiselova added that the fundamental truth is that Nazi Germany was the initiator and organizer of the deportations and extermination of Jews in countries under its control.

“The fair conclusion is that in Bulgaria, the Jews were saved by Bulgarian society. However, the deportation of Jews from Vardar Macedonia, Aegean Thrace, and Pirot was carried out under the leadership and supervision of senior officials of the Bulgarian Commissariat for Jewish Affairs, and personally by the commissioner, Alexander Belev,” the statement, read by Kiselova, continued.

Some of the wording in the declaration drew a negative response from the Vazrazhdane parliamentary group, which issued its own statement read out by the party leader, Kostadin Kostadinov.

The Day of Rescue of Bulgarian Jews and of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust and of the Crimes against Humanity has been marked on March 10 by a government decision of February 13, 2003.

On this date in 1943, the deputy chair of the 25th National Assembly Dimitar Peshev wrote a letter of protest to Prime Minister Bogdan Filov against the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews. The letter was signed by 43 lawmakers. With the actions of Metropolitan Cyril of Plovdiv and Exarch Stefan of Sofia and the intervention of the public, nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved from deportation.