Bulgaria Saved Its Jews Because Its People Are Tolerant and Compassionate, Says Bulgarian-born Israeli Citizen Erna Tomova

Bulgaria saved its Jews because its people are tolerant and compassionate, Bulgarian-born Israeli citizen Erna Tomova said in a BTA interview on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews, marked in 2023.

The 85-year-old woman was born in Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in 1938. She has lived in Israel for many years now but her love for her motherland has remained intact and she regularly returns home. She is among the few living witnesses of the events following the adoption of the antisemitic Protection of the Nation Act in 1941.  

She says that even though she was very young, many things are "etched in her memory". "Things you cannot forget even if you want to," Tomova says. 

One of her most haunting memories is of two men who came to her home to take away a radio set. "They were like characters out of a movie: with their collars up and caps on their heads," she says. She remembers them using the word "Yid" when they spoke to her mother - a Christian who converted to Judaism out of love for a Jew - and lashing out at her for "disowning her mother and father to marry a Yid". 

The young Erna did not understand the meaning of the words at the time. "I didn't understand why some people talked like that, because on Fridays we would go to grand mama's, and on Sundays we would go to grandmommy's - the two different words that she used for her maternal and fraternal grandmother - and no one insulted anyone," Tomova adds.

After 1941, her father, Solomon Shabbat Hasid, was sent to a labor camp for Jews. "First he was in Atia, where they drained swamps, and there he got sick with malaria," Tomova says. Sometimes they would allow her father to take a leave, and one of her painful memories is of him shaking with fever when he had malaria. After Atia, he was sent to another camp near Pleven, where the inmates quarried stones.

Before that, her father worked as a chief accountant in the glass factory in Gebece (present-day Beloslav). "After 1941 he was immediately fired and sent to a labour camp," she remembers. Her mother remained in Varna, but was not allowed to work. "When we were left with no income, Mom started selling my father's suits," Tomova recalls. After a while, the Gebece factory hired the woman as a sorter. "I went with her sometimes, it wasn't easy," Tomova said. Her mother also relied on help from her parents and friends as she raised her young daughter.

Her paternal uncles were also sent to a labour camp.

Erna said she was never beaten or chased or being a Jew but remembers being called "Yid".

Her father died in 1943 in the Pleven camp when he was only 36 or 37. He was back home in Varna on a leave. The day he returned her mother was canning roasted peppers. Her father wanted to visit his parents and the two of them went to Targovishte where they lived. There her father had a seizure and became feverish.

"A doctor came and my grandparents begged him not to sent Dad to the labour camp but he said he could not do that because they would sent him to a military tribunal," 

So, her father headed back for Pleven with 40C fever. He rode in a truck, there was torrential rain on the way that must have finished him. The camp management sent him to hospital where he had a heart attack and died. 

Tomova remembers that her father had several gold teeth and all of them had been removed by the authorities. "Other than being humiliating, it speaks tons of the mentality of these people," the daughter says.

Today, the name of Solomon Shabat Hasid is on the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

Erna Tomova has her own explanation for why only Bulgaria was able to save its Jews during the war. "I believe it is a matter of the genes of the nation. We, Bulgarians, are more tolerant, more compassionate than the other European nations," she said.

Asked if she believes that the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during World War II deserves larger publicity, she said: "It does. I don't know why they deny the role of the King [Boris III]. Actually, I know why they do. We cannot deny his role. He stood at the helm of the country and he made all decisions. One of reasons he died was his defiance [of the Nazi demands], because he did not allow the deportation of Jews to the death camps. I understand why his role was denied in the early years [after the war, when Bulgaria had a communist government] but this policy should have changed in the past 30 years. The communist party would never admit that the King played a role in the rescue of Bulgarian Jews from the death camps.

Erna Tomova says that Bulgarian people should be proud of what they did during the war and how they saved 50,000 lives. "I don’t know why but there are many other things we should be proud of, and we are not," she says.

"People say they want freedom but when they get it, they start missing an iron fist," Tomora says.  She is adamant that everyone has to find a way to shed the shackles that hamper the spiritual and cultural development of themselves, their nation and the world. "And let me say again, Don't forget those who sacrificed their life for the future generations."

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), in partnership with the Alef Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation Center, set itself the task to recall the events of the past and the participants in them, and to present the importance of the rescue and the rescuers. Nearly 50,000 lives were saved in Bulgaria. According to information on the website of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center, Bulgaria had 50,000 Jews before World War II and zero victims. It is the only country with zero victims.