site.btaVazrazhdane Leader Kostadinov Calls BSP-United Left Floor Leader Kiselova's Declaration Treason

Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov called BSP-United Left Floor Leader Nataliya Kiselova's March 10 Holocaust Remembrance Day declaration an act of very grave treason on Tuesday.

Kostadinov reacted to Kiselova's question over who was responsible for failing to save the Jews from Aegean Thrace, Vardar Macedonia and Pirot.

“As a rule, declarations are not answered, but what Ms Kiselova did here is a very grave act of treason,” Kostadinov said in a declaration from the parliamentary rostrum. He argued that Bulgaria bore no responsibility for the deportation of Jews from Aegean Thrace, Macedonia and Pomoravlje, saying the territories were under dual Bulgarian-German control and that the deportations were carried out by the German authorities.

He said he would send an official letter to BSP Chair Krum Zarkov to establish whether the declaration reflected the position of the parliamentary group, the BSP party, or only Kiselova’s personal view.

Addressing Kiselova, Kostadinov said there had long been a revisionist trend in Israeli foreign policy aimed at undermining Bulgaria’s role in saving its Jews by promoting the thesis that Bulgaria was also guilty for the deportations from Aegean Thrace, Macedonia and Pomoravlje. He warned that such claims could lead to serious demands against Bulgaria, including financial ones.

He added that Bulgaria should be remembered as an example of a nation that saved its Jews and tried to save others, but that the Jews deported from those territories were not Bulgarian subjects.

On March 10, Bulgaria marked the rescue of nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews in 1943 and remembered the victims of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity. In a declaration read in Parliament on Tuesday, BSP-United Left Floor Leader Nataliya Kiselova said Bulgarian society prevented the country from becoming complicit in genocide, while Nazi Germany organized the broader deportations and extermination of Jews under its control. The declaration also said responsibility for the deportation of Jews from Vardar Macedonia, Aegean Thrace and Pirot lay with the Bogdan Filov government and senior Bulgarian officials involved in Jewish affairs, prompting a sharp reaction from Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov.