Clarifying 70 Years of Whitewashing and ... - Shelomo Alfassa

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Bulgaria Passes Anti-Jewish Laws Page | 8 In January 1941, to the shock of the well-integrated Jews throughout Sofia and other Bulgarian cities, the ‘Law for the Defense of the Nation’ 30 was passed by the Sobranye (Bulgarian Parliament.) 31 This anti- Jewish set of legal regulations, stipulated, in part, the following: Jews shall not be members of political parties; Jews cannot be elected into any section of national politics, sports, academia, etc.; Jews cannot enter in civil service; Jews shall not serve in the army; Jews shall work in labor camps; Jews may not start any new businesses; Jews must sell their real estate at 50% of the 1932 market price to non-Jewish Bulgarians; 32 Jewish children could not be accepted into institutions of learning; Jews could not own radios or telephones in their homes; food rations for Jews would be a fraction of food rations for Bulgarians; all Jewish associations and organizations must be disbanded; Jews over 10 years of age must purchase (from the government) and wear a yellow Star of David on all of their clothing. 33 In 1941, the Bulgarians mandated that signs indicating “Jew Shop” be hung in the windows of Jewish owned stores, each store soon-after having all of its merchandise registered. 34 The people living in the town had their names registered, and the following year, a sign saying “Jew Home” had to be affixed to residences of Jews. 35 In January 1942, German officials at the Wannsee Conference 36 established that they were ready to deport 48,000 37 Jews from Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian government gave its commitment for the same. 38 By the summer of that same year, Bulgaria would legally allow the full deportation of all Jews from its country, and be ready to absorb all of their property. In May of 1942, Jews were required to declare all of their possessions to the Bulgarian National Bank. 39 30 Browning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy. Yad Vashem: Jerusalem, 2004. 212 31 Chary, Frederick B. The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1972. 39-40 32 Tamir. 170-172 33 Instructions based on Decree No. 4567 by the Council of Ministries. 34 Oren, Uri. A Town Called Monastir. Dror Publications, Tel Aviv, 1971. 184 (After the war, a special commission found that Bulgarians and Germans, together, robbed the Jewish people of Monastir of some 538 millions Yugoslav dollars and another 32 million from five ransacked synagogues.) Oren 185 35 Oren. 186 36 The Wannsee Conference was a discussion by a group of German officials about the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” It took place January 20, 1942 in the Wannsee Villa in Berlin and would lead to the Holocaust. 37 Mendelsohn, John. ed., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol. 11: The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz by the Office of Strategic Services. New York: Garland, 1982. 18-32. 38 Tamir. 185 39 The New York Times “Bulgaria Adds Curbs on Jews” May 16, 1942. Judaic Studies Academic Paper Series / Library of Congress ISSN No. 2156-0390 © Shelomo Alfassa (shelomo@alfassa.com)
Bulgarian Jews Made Slave Laborers Page | 9 Bulgaria didn’t wait for Germany to enter for it to become anti-Semitic. In the summer of 1940, Bulgarian Interior Minister Peter Gabrovsky (1898-1945) 40 had dispatched Aleksandur Belev (1900-1944) to Germany to study ‘the Jewish problem.’ 41 Belev was an attorney who later helped draft the ‘Law for the Defense of the Nation’ to ‘protect’ Bulgaria from the Jews. 42 The following summer, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivan Popov provided lists of names of Bulgarian Jews, living or studying in Germany and its captured territories, to the Nazis. With this official agreement between Bulgaria and Germany, ‘several hundred Jews became immediately subject to extermination.’ Further from this agreement, came the killing of several Bulgarian students in Paris, after the Germans were supplied their names by Bulgaria. 43 In all, at least 140 Sephardic Bulgarian Jews are known to have been deported from France to Poland. 44 On May 3, 1942, The New York Times reported that 3,300 Jews, age 20-46, would be placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Public Works for repair of railroads. Two days later, The New York Times reported that nearly 10,000 Jews would be among 40,000 workmen called upon to build railways connecting Bulgaria with its newly incorporated territories. By June 1942, nearly all Jewish men would be forced into sub-standard camps, working for the ‘glory of Bulgaria.’ 45 Once, well respected men of society with homes and families, these men now worked under the whip as slaves for Bulgaria, 46 building roads that are still in use today. Well educated and not accustomed to such intense work, these men had to endure extensive hours of backbreaking labor, without pay, liberty or any type of recourse. Suffering from the elements, they often were beaten and left to work outside in the cold. They endured these beatings while living in humiliating impoverished conditions, 47 and experiencing malnutrition and despair. The Jewish men forced to work in such horrid conditions, would continually frantically worry and lament about their wives, children and their elderly parents. All of these conditions led to many men dying in the Bulgarian camps. The following is a single example of the experiences Jewish slaves endured at the hands of the Bulgarians: The head of the Ikhtiman labor camp, the engineer Gasharov, frequently roused his Jewish serfs at 3am, and kept working until midnight, using carbide lamps for light, and sometimes forcing them to accomplish the impossible at gun point. Daily he would threatened to send them ‘to the death camps in Poland.’ He would beat the men himself and lock them out on cold winters nights. 48 40 Gabrovsky (aka Gabrovski) was said to be “aggressively anti-Jewish” and his devotion to the Axis was “complete” and that he had an “intimate friendship with an important member of the royal family.” (Intelligence Digest. Intelligence International Ltd; London. Vol.3, Issue 25. - Vol.4. Issue 48., 1940. 16) Note: Both he and Belev were former members of the fascist movement known as the Ratnitsi (Guards). (Rowen, Herbert H. ed. {of Rutgers University} Reviews in European History. Volume 1. Burt Franklin & Co; New York, 1974. 23) 41 Sachar, Howard Morley. Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered. Knopf: New York, 1994. 260; & Tamir. 167; & Azses, Hayim., ed. The Shoa in the Sephardic Communities. Sephardic Educational Center: Jerusalem, 2005. 136 42 Tamir. 167 & Browning 212 43 Anri Asa, “Rolyata na khitleriskata diplomatsiya vusiliyata za unishtozhavane na bulgarskite everi.” In Godishnic, 1968. 38; qtd. in Tamir. 185-186 (281 f.n.500) 44 Levy, Isaac Jack. And the World Stood Silent: Sephardic Poetry of the Holocaust. University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 2000. 8 45 Tamir. 176 46 Tomasevich, Jozo. War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford University Press, 2001. 590 47 Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press: New Haven, 2001. 102-103 48 Tamir. 176 Judaic Studies Academic Paper Series / Library of Congress ISSN No. 2156-0390 © Shelomo Alfassa (shelomo@alfassa.com)
Page 1 and 2: Clarifying 70 Years of Whitewashing
Page 3 and 4: Contents Abstract 4 Background 6 In
Page 5 and 6: Page | 5 partnership with the Nazis
Page 7: Bulgaria Officially Partners with t
Page 11 and 12: Page | 11 These Bulgarian Jews were
Page 13 and 14: Page | 13 their excitement and thei
Page 15 and 16: Page | 15 property was looted and s
Page 17 and 18: Page | 17 journey of great torment.
Page 19 and 20: Page | 19 deaths. These 50,000 Bulg
Page 21 and 22: The Bulgarian Government Propaganda
Page 23 and 24: Page | 23 obtain foreign economic a
Page 25 and 26: Page | 25 Jews of Bulgaria suffered
Page 27 and 28: Appendix 1. Suggested Redress for t
Page 29 and 30: Newspaper Clippings Appendix 2. Pag
Page 31 and 32: Page | 31 Judaic Studies Academic P
Page 33 and 34: Page | 33 Judaic Studies Academic P
Page 35 and 36: Skopje, Yugoslavia, Jews rounded up
Page 37 and 38: Lom, Bulgaria, Bulgarian officials
Page 39: This paper resides at http://www.al

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