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

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)