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

Clarifying 70 Years of Whitewashing and Inaccuracies: The Bulgarian 

Government and its Interaction with Jews During the Holocaust 

A Special Report by Shelomo Alfassa 

Founder & Co-Chair, International Committee for Bulgarian Holocaust-Era Truth 

Issued on March 1, 2011, the 70 th Anniversary of the Pact between Bulgaria and Nazi Germany 

A copy of this report has been submitted to 'The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme,' 

a project of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

What are we supposed to be thankful to you for—that you didn't kill us? 

…It is marvelous for people having abstained from killing…but does this make them so morally superior? 

I'm grateful yes, but to thank people for not killing me, I will not bring myself to stand up.” 1 

Norbert Yasharoff, Bulgarian Holocaust survivor 

International Committee for Bulgarian Holocaust-Era Truth 

Mr. Shelomo Alfassa, Co-Chair, Founder (New York) 

Dr Michel Azaria, Esq. Vice-president, Judeo-Espagnol A Auschwitz (JEAA) (Paris, France) 

Rabbi Nissim Elnecavé, Rabbinical Advisor (New York) 

Ms. Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, Co-Chair, President, Association of Friends of Greek Jewry (New York) 

Dr. Yael Kassorla, Clarke-Atlanta University (Atlanta, Georgia) 

Mr. Valery Novoselsky, Editor of Roma Virtual Network (Israel) 

Dr. Eliezer Papo, Rabbi & Vice-Director, Center for Ladino Culture Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel & Sarajevo) 

Ms. Racquel Reinstein, Esq., General Counsel (New York) 

Prof. Sari E. Simon, poet and instructor of Literature and History (Israel) 

Ms. Irina Tsukerman, Esq., General Counsel (New York) 

1 “Empty Boxcars.” A 2010 documentary film by Ed Gaffney about the plight of Bulgaria during the Holocaust. 

Page | 2 

Judaic Studies Academic Paper Series / Library of Congress ISSN No. 2156-0390 © Shelomo Alfassa (shelomo@alfassa.com)

Contents 

Abstract 4 

Background 6 

Introduction 6 

Bulgaria Officially Partners with the Nazis 7 

Bulgaria Passes Anti-Jewish Laws 8 

Bulgarian Jews Made Slave Laborers 9 

Bulgaria’s Intent to Deport Jews - Establishes Camps for its Jews 10 

Bulgaria Sends 13,000 Jews to Their Death 12 

Bulgarian Jews in the Public Eye Today 17 

Israel Strips King Boris III of Honor 19 

The Bulgarian Government Propaganda Machine Lives 21 

Discussion 24 

Conclusions 26 

Appendix 1: Suggested Redress 27 

Appendix 2: Newspaper Clippings 29 

Appendix 3: Photographs 34 

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Abstract 

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Proclamations are oft-repeated in the contemporary media, in books 2 and films 3 such as: “Bulgaria 

became the only Nazi-allied country in World War II to protect its entire Jewish population from the 

death camps…” 4 and “Bulgaria is the only country in Europe, except Denmark, which rescued its Jews 

from extermination during World War II…” 5 however, both of these statements are not accurate. 

While, ultimately members of the Bulgarian government, the Bulgarian public, and the Bulgarian 

Orthodox Church, did in fact take laudable actions which halted the deportation of between 48,000- 

55,000 6 Jews from ‘Old’ Bulgaria to German death camps in Poland—there is no reason why the 

Bulgarian government should continue to cover up the fact that they were indeed directly complicit in the 

dispossession, imprisonment and death of an unknown number of Bulgarian Jews in the major cities and 

slave labor camps of ‘Old’ Bulgaria such as Pleven and Sofia. 

In United Bulgaria aka ‘New’ Bulgaria (Thrace and Macedonia) 7 , the Bulgarians rounded up over 13,000 

Jews from their homes, confiscated their possessions, loaded them into rail cars, and deported them to 

Treblinka where they were murdered. There are different statistics which indicate the number of Jews 

deported from ‘New’ Bulgaria and murdered at 11,000-14,000 Jews. The U.S. National Archives and 

Records Administration states: “It is estimated that some 14,000 Bulgarian Jews of an estimated 64,000 

pre-Final Solution population were exterminated.” 8 For the sake of this paper, the number 13,000, (both 

used by Sir Martin Gilbert and Prof. Howard Sachar 9 ) is used. 10 

These 13,000 Jews, which have too often been overlooked by history, suffered horrible deaths with the 

direct participation and knowledge of the Bulgarian government in their alliance and volunteer 

2 

By way of example: Raikin, Spas T. Rebel with a Just Cause: A Political Journey Against the Winds of the 20th Century. (2 

Vols.) Pensoft Publishers: Sofia, 2001. II:129-130 (This book, published in Bulgaria as late as in 2001, tells that King Boris 

saved 50,000 Jews. The author then down-plays the murder of the 13,000 other Jews (the author minimizes the figure to 11,000) 

indicating Bulgaria had “no jurisdiction” in Macedonian and Thrace—which this report shall demonstrate is not correct; Brustein 

William. Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism In Europe Before The Holocaust. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 2003. 338 

(This book mentions how King Boris saved 50,000 Jews but makes absolutely no mention of how King Boris deported 13,000 

Jews from Thrace in Greece and Macedonia, those Jews are just ‘forgotten’ about.); 

3 

Jerusalem Post (“Exclusive video: ‘Restoring the crown to former glory”) 12/20/2010 

jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=200216 

4 

Molotsky, Irvin. “Film Tells How Nazi Ally Saved Its 50,000 Jews” The New York Times; April 17, 1988. 

5 

"Bulgaria Stands Proud as World Remembers Holocaust." Bulgarian News Agency; March 5, 2003. 

6 

Dear, Ian. ed., The Oxford companion to World War II. Oxford UP, Oxford, 1995. 133 

7 

Officially called the “New Bulgarian Territories” or ‘New’ Bulgaria, it was made up of Thrace which included: Serrai, Drama, 

Kavala, Xanthi, Komotini and Alexandropolis and Macedonia which included: Skopje, Shtip. Veles, Prilep, Ohrid and Monastir 

(Bitola). 

8 

NARA. State Department and Foreign Affairs Records, Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State (RG 

84) “Bulgaria” 

9 

Gilbert, Martin. Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past. Columbia UP: New York, 1999. 334 and Sachar, Howard 

Morley. A History of the Jews in the Modern World. Knopf: New York, 2005. n.p. 

10 

Yitzchak Kerem indicates there were 11,306 (7,123 from Macedonia {Monastir , Shtipo and Skopje} and 4,058 from Greek 

Thrace including 158 Jews from Pirot.) The Shoa in the Sephardic Communities. 144; Itamar Levin’s number is 12,000 combined 

from Thrace and Macedonia. His Majesty's Enemies: Great Britain's War Against Holocaust Victims and Survivors. 38. Cohen in 

Last Century of a Sephardic Community indicates there were 3,276 Jews from Monastir deported to Treblinka. Levy in And the 

World Stood Silent (12-13) indicates there was over 8.000 Jews from Macedonia deported and Martin Gilbert in Final Journey: 

The Fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe (124-125) says that out of 5,000 who were deported from Thrace, several hundred died in 

transit to Treblinka due to horrible conditions enroute. Chary indicates there were 8,000 from Macedonia and 6,000 from Thrace. 

The Bulgarian Jews and the final solution, 1940-1944. 80 


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partnership with the Nazis. 11 The Bulgarian government was the perpetrator in the deportation and 

extermination of 98% percent of Macedonia’s Jews. All of the families were destroyed, all of their 

possessions were confiscated, and their unique living Spanish Sephardic culture was made extinct. 

The Bulgarian government continues to whitewash its responsibility in these tragedies, as it annually 

celebrates saving 50,000 Jews while selectively overlooking the 13,000 lost souls it helped put to death. 12 

When Bulgaria is spoken about in the media in relation to the Holocaust, it is almost criminal to report 

that the Bulgarians ‘saved 50,000’ Jews, while just a few miles over their border in their proud ‘New’ 

Bulgaria—territory they claimed was their ancient homeland, they themselves were conspirators in the 

torture, physical and emotional persecution, and eventual murder of over 13,000 defenseless Jewish men, 

women, and children. 

Fig. 1. Map of Bulgaria during World War II. 

11 For a report on political conditions in Bulgaria and information that Nazi youth organizations persecuted the Jews, see: NARA. 

Interallied and Interservice Military Agencies Records - Records of the Office of Strategic Services (RG 226); Records of the 

Research and Analysis Branch, file #44324. 

12 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration states: “It is estimated that some 14,000 Bulgarian Jews of an 

estimated 64,000 pre-Final Solution population were exterminated.” (State Department and Foreign Affairs Records, Records of 

the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State (RG 84) “Bulgaria”) 


Background 

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Until World War II, there were several organized Jewish communities, some quite large and some quite 

small, spread throughout the various towns and cities of Bulgaria, 13 as well as all of the geographic area 

that made up the Balkan Peninsula from today’s Albania in the west to Turkey-in-Europe to the east. 

These communities were made up of both Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, but primarily the 

overwhelming majority were Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) speaking Jews that had settled in the Ottoman- 

Balkans after Spain expelled them, subsequent to the implementation of its Inquisition in the 15 th 

century. 14 These Jews remained proud of their Spanish roots yet were quite devoted to their Turkish 

traditions and culture, which were established living over three centuries among the Muslims of the 

Ottoman Empire. In the 1820’s, after Greece fought its war of independence and became liberated from 

the Ottoman Empire, the Jews quickly demonstrated they could now live in the Balkans, among Greek 

Orthodox (Christian) society. 

Introduction 

During World War II, Boris III, King of Bulgaria (1893-1943 15 ), felt that the war could be used to expand 

his country’s geographical borders, which had been diminished after humiliating losses during WWI. 16 

Expecting the Germans to win the war, Boris agreed to enter into a pact with Hitler. 17 As a result of this 

Pact, the Jews of Bulgaria suffered a most humiliating and degrading existence, with many of them dying 

directly as a consequence of Bulgarian governmental anti-Jewish laws, deportation to slave labor camps 

and all the dread that is associated with the latter. In ‘New’ Bulgarian-occupied territory (land Bulgaria 

pompously claimed was their ancient homeland) Jews were sorrowfully led to their death by Bulgarian 

officials who put them into the hands of the German army, very often after torturing the Jews first. 18 

13 The Jewish population of Bulgaria, prior to the war, was said to be about 50,000. 

14 After falling almost completely under Turkish rule in the end of the 14 th century, the Bulgarian state ceased to exist as an 

independent entity and remained part of the Ottoman Empire for nearly five centuries until 1908 (though de-facto independent 

was declared from 1878) 

15 After a stormy meeting with Hitler he returned to Bulgaria and died on August 28, 1943, he was possibly poisoned. 

16 Humiliated in WWI, Bulgaria lost Aegean Thrace to Greece, the southern Dobrudzha to Romania and was burdened by 

crippling war reparations of $400 million U.S. dollars (~roughly five billion dollars in 2009 value {Consumer Price Index}) after 

the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919. The results of this Treaty is popularly known in Bulgaria as the ‘Second National Catastrophe.’ 

(The ‘First National Catastrophe’ was the defeat of Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War in 1913, in which a good deal of territory 

from southern Dobrudzha was annexed to Romania. Furthermore, it ceded a great deal of the Aegean coastline, including 

Bulgarian ports to Greece. 

17 Tripartite Pact - March 1, 1941 (The Kingdom of Bulgaria had been on the losing side in World War I, losing territory to 

Serbia and Greece. During World War II, Germany needed military access through Bulgaria in order to capture Greece. Hitler 

promised King Boris III, that Bulgaria would receive all the territory it had lost in return for Bulgaria joining the Axis. Boris 

agreed and Bogdan Filov, the Prime Minister, entered into the Pact. (Boris died in 1943 leaving the Prime Minister, Bogdan 

Filov, as the effective ruler of Bulgaria. 

18 Paldiel, Mordecai. Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans, and Reconciliation. Ktav: Jersey City, 

2005. 306 


Bulgaria Officially Partners with the Nazis 

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On March 1, 1941, pro-fascist Bulgarian Prime Minister Bogdan Dimitrov Filov (1883-1945), a 58 year 

old former archaeologist and art historian who was educated in Germany, signed a pact with German 

Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), 19 a hard-line Nazi and former journalist who once 

lived in New York City. With the stroke of a pen, Bulgaria and Germany were formally united. 20 The 

signing of this pact would have iniquitous ramifications that would lead to the destruction of the lives of 

well over 13,000 Jewish people and would completely extinguish a thriving and unique culture that had 

grown out of religious, intellectual and cultural seeds carried with Jewish refugees from the Iberian 

Peninsula some 450 years earlier. 

Almost immediately after signing the pact with Germany, Nazi soldiers entered Bulgaria. 21 Soon after, the 

Germans transferred 120 22 airplanes into Bulgaria and within a short time there were 355 23 bombers and 

dive-bombers in the country. 24 During this period, all telephone service in the country was cut, and calls 

only came and went through military phone connections. 25 On April 6 of that year, the Luftwaffe launched 

from Bulgarian bases, striking Belgrade in a massive attack which inflicted up to 25,000 casualties. 26 

Simultaneously, the Germans took control of the air space over the whole of Yugoslavia 27 and Greece. 

From the same Bulgarian bases, the Nazis then spread over Skopje and Monastir to Salonika, plundering 

the homes and destroying the lives of the Jews in those cities. The Germans were able to do this with the 

whole-hearted support of the Bulgarians. 

In Sofia, a second Kristallnacht occurred, with members of the fascist Bulgarian group the Legioneri 28 

attacking Jewish institutions, smashing windows and painting swastikas and obscenities on Jewish 

homes. 29 

19 He was hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials. 

20 Bulgaria was formally an ally of Germany—it was the only country that was a full ally in all of Europe. (See Chary, Frederick 

B. The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1972. 129-132 for details on a conversation 

between Filov and Swiss ambassador Redard who told Filov the Jews were going to their death if they went to Poland, and Filov 

responded that they were only going to “work.”) This is mentioned in Rosen 255 

21 Tasovac, Ivo. American Foreign Policy and Yugoslavia, 1939-1941. Eastern European Studies No. 11., College Station, Texas, 

1999. 98 

22 Tantum, William; Hoffschmidt, E.J. The rise and fall of the German Air Force, 1933 to 1945. WE, Inc., 1969. 123; Dear. 80 

23 Mitcham, Jr., Samuel W. Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in World War II. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, 

1988. 115 

24 The New York Times March 7, 1941 

25 The New York Times March 7, 1941 

26 Tamir, Vicki. Bulgaria and Her Jews: The History of a Dubious Symbiosis. Sepher-Hermon Press for Yeshiva University 

Press: New York, 1979. 165 (Also see: UK Air Ministry. The Rise and fall of the German Air Force, 1933-1945. (formally 

restricted publication #248) re-published by St. Martin’s Press, 1987. 120-123 

27 In Yugoslavia the Ustasha, a Muslim-Catholic alliance of Nazi killers murdered almost all of the Jews in Bosnia and 

Herzegovina. (Hirsch, Herbert. Anti-Genocide: Building an American Movement to Prevent Genocide. Praeger: Westport, CT: 

2002. 77) Holocaust expert and author Edwin Black describes them: “[the Ustasha were] so beastly that even Nazi officials in 

Berlin were horrified. The Ustasha and three related crack divisions of Arab-Nazi Waffen SS comprised of tens of thousands of 

Muslim volunteers and terrorized people of all faiths in Yugoslavia. 27 In large measure, these murder machines emerged through 

the efforts of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The grand mufti was on a mission to accelerate the 

extermination of all Jews everywhere.” (“The Holocaust's Most Vicious Killers” The Jewish Press. January 19, 2011 ) [For more 

on the Ustasha see Black’s Farhud. Dialog Press: Hilton Head Island, 2010.] 

28 The Union of Bulgarian National Legions (Saiuz na Bulgarskite Natsionalni Legioni ‘SBNL’), or the Legionnaires’ 

Association, a nationalist Nazi style organization, was established about 1933. 

29 Tamir. 166 (In the former Greek lands of Thrace and Macedonia, Bulgarian fascism was ruthless) 


Bulgaria Passes Anti-Jewish Laws 

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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. 


Bulgarian Jews Made Slave Laborers 

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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 


Another accounts further describe life for Jews in Bulgarian slave labor camps: 

Page | 10 

“Would send them to work hungry,” “Warm clothing was prohibited,” “Men were kept standing 

on their feet in front of food laid out before them,” “Beatings were the order of the day,” Men 

were forced to face the blazing sun, for several hours at a time with heavy loads on their backs,” 

“Malaria victims, numerous in almost all camps, were ordered to work at the peak of their 

fever,” “The cases of abuse and sadism were legion.” 49 

On August 29, 1942 Aleksandur Belev sent an ominous letter to Bulgarian Interior Minister Peter 

Gabrovsky advising, “The radical solution of our Jewish Question will be their emigration, which will 

have to proceed hand in hand with the confiscation of their property…For the present time, until such 

time as conditions arise that would enable the emigration of Jews to proceed, it is imperative to toughen 

the measures against them.” 50 

Bulgaria’s Intent to Deport Jews - Establishes Camps for its Jews 

Between May 23 and June 23, 1943, all the Jews from Sofia 51 were deracinated and shipped like cattle by 

Bulgarian police and soldiers from their homes to outlying provinces, 52 a total of 23,000 helpless people. 53 

Many men were taken as slave labors to the towns of Rupel, Kresna and Iskar Gorges. 54 Relocation from 

their homes meant the looting of their personal property such as jewelry 55 and belongings, their 

commercial property and their communal property such as their synagogues. The removal of the Jews 

from their homes caused “chaos” as the Jews were “horrified.” 56 From a 1963 memoir comes a firsthand 

account: 

The horror petrifying the otherwise lively street was incredible. Relatives, friends, full of anxiety 

and in tears were running from house to house to say good-bye. I went to many houses. The 

mothers and the fathers, brothers and sisters, stayed embraced for hours, parted with sobs, and 

went with heads turned toward their dears and then again with loud cries ran back, embraced 

them once more and sobbed in the arms of those whom cruelty wanted to separate them forever. 57 

49 Tamir. 177 

50 Savich, Carl. “Greater Bulgaria, Macedonia, and the Holocaust.” Serbianna.com October 24, 2004 

51 On May 26, 1943, The New York Times reported that 25,000 Jews in the “three ghettos of Sofia,” received orders from the 

government to evacuate their living quarters within 24 hours to “specified places of residence where they will be employed on 

work of national interest.” 

52 When a contingent of Sofia Jews was sent to Dupnitsa, the mayor complained there were too many Jews there to feed and that 

“Bulgaria should be completely cleansed of its Jews” and that the “Jews be liquidated without delay.” (Tamir. 179) 

53 They were taken and placed in isolated towns such as Belogradcik, Ferdinand, Lukovit, Bjala, Razgrad, Targoviste, Novi 

Pazar, Petric, Sveti Vrac, Melnic, Breznic, Ihtiman and Novoselci. (Annual. Vol. V 19) 

54 Annual. Vol. V 19 

55 Anti-Semitic legislation enacted in Bulgaria facilitated the looting of gold from the Jews. The legislation, modeled after 

Germany's Nuremberg laws, limited the right of Jews to participate in Bulgaria's economy and political life. See: Toshkova, Vita. 

"Bulgaria: Anti-Semitic Legislation in Bulgaria, 1940-44: A Case Study of Some Aspects." In Nazi Gold: The London 

Conference. 2-4 December 1997, 73-77. London: HMSO, 1997. 

56 Testimony before the 7 th People’s Court by defendant Ivan Mitsev, reproduced in Annual. Vol. V 36 

57 Testimony of Dimo Kazasov about the Jews in Juch Bunar from the newspaper Evreisky Vesty, No. 8(494) May 17, 1963 

reproduced in Annual. Vol. V 36 


Page | 11 

These Bulgarian Jews were deported out of homes in the city to remote towns in the countryside, so they 

could be hidden from the public-eye in preparation of later being deported to death camps in Poland—and 

that was indeed the ominous plan. 58 

From a May 15, 1943 cable 59 sent to Berlin from the German embassy in Sofia, we see the clear intent 

and true reason why the Bulgarian government forcefully transported their Jewish citizens to outlying 

towns: 

I. To deport out of the kingdom all Jews…Final date for the deportation September 30. The Jews 

will be deported to Germany—the East regions. II. a) To be deported – 25,000 Jews from Sofia 

and 23,000 from the provinces, total number – 48,000. b) The handling will be at the ports on the 

Danube river, Lom and Somovit in the first place. c) Sixteen thousand Jews will leave the country 

monthly. d) It is not advisable for the deportation to be carried in separate parts. From the fixed 

date onward, for instance May 30, 1943, all Jews should be in camps. e) Sending the Jews from 

Sofia to the provinces will divert the suspicion for deportation to Germany. 60 f) The deportation 

of the Jews from the provinces will include those from Sofia…. 61 

For those that did not abide by the new anti-Jewish laws or those that attempted to flee or did not comply 

with slave-labor requirements, concentration camps were set up in the towns of Somovit, Enikjoi, Kajlaka 

and near Pleven. 62 These Bulgarian camps, surrounded by entanglements of barbed wire and complete 

with wooden barracks, 63 were deplorable; life was a miserable existence for those locked inside. 64 In the 

camps, these Jews suffered starvation, disease, humiliation, and severe conditions with no soap and one 

water hose to serve up to 1,500 people. 65 Many died from malnutrition and physical exhaustion to 

frostbite and even being burned alive—when the vicious Legioneri burned a building down with Jews 

inside. 66 

For these Jews who went overnight from well-established and productive Bulgarian citizens to 

incarcerated victims, there was no illusion they would be spared from tragedy. 67 The Jews protested their 

forced removal, many fought back very strongly, yet many of them were beaten and arrested by the 

58 

Wyman, David S; Rosenzveig, Charles H. The World Reacts to the Holocaust. The John Hopkins Univ. Press: Baltimore, 

1996. 266; and Chary. 69 

59 

Cable No. 726 (Yad Vashem K208523/24) 

60 

Emphasis added 

61 

Annual. Vol. V 35 

62 

Annual. Vol. V, Social Cultural and Educational Association of the Jews in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Central Board: 

Sofia, 1970. 19 

63 

Annual Vol. 28. Organizataia na evreite v Bulgaria “Shalom.” 71 

64 

Throughout the war years, Bulgaria illicitly collected funds from the Jews, this included progressive taxation on community 

bank accounts, confiscation of Jewish synagogue and school property, confiscation of Jewish philanthropic organization funds 

and taxes and confiscation of levies collected by the Jewish communities of the various cities. These funds, stolen by the 

Bulgarians, were used both to transport Jews to labor and/or concentration camps within the country and to maintain those 

camps. (Tamir. 174-175) 

65 

Tamir. 194 

66 

Annual. Vol. V 19-20 

67 

For excerpts from letters relating to the fate of Bulgarian Jews: NARA. Interallied and Interservice Military Agencies Records 

- Records of the Office of Strategic Services (RG 226), Formerly Security-Classified Intelligence Reports ("L" Series) 1942-45 

(Entry 21) File #53337, December 1944. 


Page | 12 

police. 68 Mass protests and violent clashes developed by Jews and non-Jews against King Boris. A leaflet 

against the Bulgarian government said, “Stand in front of the houses of your Jewish neighbors and don’t 

let them be taken away by force. Hide the children and do not give them to the assassins.” 69 Ultimately, 

while all of the Bulgarian Jews suffered significantly, and even though an unknown number 70 were killed 

or died because of their abuse and mistreatment, the greater bulk of the Jews were eventually not deported 

to Poland. 71 

Yet, while the Bulgarian government ultimately did the right thing by not sending the Jews from ‘Old’ 

Bulgaria to their deaths, they were undeniably complicit in sending over 13,000 other Jews to their death, 

from ‘New’ Bulgaria,’ the area they so proudly reacquired during the war. 

Bulgaria Sends 13,000 Jews to Their Death 

Bulgaria joined the Axis on March 1 1941, explicitly requesting German support for its territorial claims 

in regard to lands it (humiliatingly) had lost just a few decades earlier. 72 A month later on April 6, 

Germany invaded Greece, prompting an immediate Bulgarian annexation of Eastern Aegean Macedonia 

and part of Western Thrace. Thrace and Macedonia quickly became known as Bulgaria’s ‘New 

Territories.’ Even so, Bulgaria simply looked at these ‘New’ areas as reclaiming what was originally 

theirs. 

On April 13, 1941, The New York Times reported that Bulgaria launched a massive celebration in 

“Gratitude toward Germany for the liberation of Macedonia and Western Thrace, as well as other 

Bulgarian lands.” 73 It was reported that the streets were lavishly decorated with German, Italian and 

Bulgarian flags for the “festive occasion” while patriotic students, Macedonian and Thracian refugees, 

numbering up to 100,000, were going to march to the German and Italian Legations, passing by the Royal 

Palace yard where King Boris would receive the ovations of the crowd. The Bulgarians demonstrated 

68 During the war, it’s known that at least 123 Bulgarian Jews, men and women, were killed fighting as partisan soldiers against 

the Bulgarian government and that over 1,100 Jews were detained as political prisoners in concentration camps. (“The situation 

of the Bulgarian Jews during the Fascist governments and after 9th September, 1944.” Statement. Central Consistory in Bulgaria. 

Sofia, May 1946. 4) 

69 Leaflet issued by the Borough Committee of the BCP of Juch Bunar. Annual. Vol. V 41 

70 Carl Savich, a historian with an M.A. in History and a J.D. in Law, says that approximately 5,000 Jews were killed during the 

Holocaust in ‘Old’ Bulgaria-proper between 1941 to 1944. Savich, Carl. “Greater Bulgaria, Macedonia, and the Holocaust.” 

Serbianna.com October 24, 2004; Savich’s work has been cited on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website in Washington, 

DC and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies website of the University of Minnesota. 

71 There is information on the investigation of atrocities in Bulgaria located in: NARA. Records of the Foreign Service Posts of 

the Department of State (RG 84). Records of the Moscow Embassy Confidential Records 1941-1955 (Entry 3313A). Boxes 1-214 

- 1944. #711.6. 

72 The Bulgarians surrendered both Thrace and Macedonia, their beloved ‘New’ Bulgaria, with the signing of the Armistice 

Agreement with Bulgaria and Russia (representing the Allies), on October 28, 1944. Article Two of that agreement read: 

“Bulgarian armed forces and officials must be withdrawn within the specified time limit from the territory of Greece and 

Yugoslavia in accordance with the pre-condition accepted by the Government of Bulgaria on October 11; the Bulgarian 

authorities must immediately take steps to withdraw from Greek and Yugoslav territory [all] Bulgarians who were citizens of 

Bulgaria on January 1, 1941, and to repeal legislative and administrative provisions relating to the annexation or incorporation in 

Bulgaria of Greek or Yugoslav territory.” 

73 (April 13, 1941) The Times reported patriotic students, Macedonian and Thracian refugees, numbering up to 100,000 would 

march to the German and Italian Legations, passing by the Royal Palace yard where King Boris would receive the ovations of the 

crowd. It was reported the streets were lavishly decorated with German, Italian and Bulgarian flags for the “festive occasion.” 


Page | 13 

their excitement and their loyalty to Germany by renaming streets in Sofia after Adolf Hitler and his top 

military generals. 74 

A massive campaign of ‘Bulgarisation’ soon followed. The Bulgarians quickly deported Greek officials, 

they changed the names of towns and places to Bulgarian spellings, they swiftly invested large amounts 

of money into infrastructure changes including the introduction of all-Bulgarian courts of law, schools, 

churches and made Bulgarian the only legal language to be spoken. They also commissioned, printed and 

issued nearly 7,000,000 commemorative postage stamps in 1941, recalling the ‘recovery’ of Macedonia. 75 

The Bulgarians proudly made Thrace and Macedonia, their ‘New’ land, their own. 

Simultaneously, the Nazis, in their zeal to kill all of the world’s Jews, had requested that King Boris 

deport Bulgarian Jews to Poland. Yet, there was popular uproar on the streets of Sofia not to deport the 

Jews, and while King Boris felt the political pressure to not deport Jews from ‘Old’ Bulgaria, he wanted 

to show gratitude to Hitler for liberating their old territory, so he was agreeable to deporting Jews from 

that area, ‘New’ Bulgaria, from Thrace and Macedonia. 76 

On February 3, 1943, Bulgaria prepared deportation lists of the names, sex, profession and exact home 

addresses 77 of Jews in their ‘New’ lands. 78 The agreement of February 22, 1943 between a former textile 

merchant, Nazi Hauptsturmfuher (captain) Theodore Dannecker (1913-1945), and the Bulgarian 

Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, Alexander Belev, provided for the deportation of the Jews from Thrace 

and Macedonia. 79 In their great fear, some Macedonian Jews sought Bulgarian citizenship to save them 

from deportation to Poland, but the Bulgarian government denied their request. 80 Some managed to 

escape across the border to Albania, while others committed suicide to mitigate against having to endure 

suffering in the feared death camps of Poland. 81 

On March 3, 1943, the Jews of the Thracian cities 82 of Kavala, Drama, Komotini, Seres, Xanthi and 

Alexandroupolis, were dragged from their beds at midnight, barely dressed, in sub-freezing conditions 

and placed into warehouses in their respective cities. Three days later they were all brought to Drama on 

the old Greek Bulgarian border. 83 These Jews were then forced to walk, for many miles, being whipped 

by troops eager to see them arrive in Bulgarian cities which had railroad links, many Jews died along the 

74 

Chary. 19 and Tamir. 166 

75 

These stamps (as seen in the appendix of this document) were issued to commemorate the acquisition of Macedonian territory. 

These stamps include a Macedonian Woman, View of Aegean Sea and Tassos, Outline of Macedonia and Tsar Boris III, 

Poganovski Monastery, and the City of Ohrid. (Images of stamps: philatelicmarket.com {Bulgaria 1939 – 1948} 1941-10-03) 

76 

Todoro. 23 

77 

Oren. 190 

78 

Chary. 79 

79 

For specific details of Jews living under Bulgarian occupation in Macedonia, who were originally taken for forced labor and 

were later deported to Auschwitz (by the Bulgarians in March-April 1943), see Yad Vashem Central Archives: Collection of 

Documents on the Destruction of Yugoslavian Jewry (Record Group 0-10). This is referenced in Catalogue No.5 of Guides of the 

Yad Vashem Archives, compiled by Bronia Klibanski, Jerusalem 1976. 

80 

Eskenazi, Zhak; Krispin, Alfred; Barouh, Emmy. Jews In The Bulgarian Hinterland: An Annotated Bibliography. International 

Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations: Sofia, 2002. 527 (Because the Thracian Jews were refused Bulgarian 

citizenship, and because Yugoslavia was dissolved as a country, all of these Jews were essentially ‘stateless,’ thus becoming an 

easy target for deportation, a group which did not have much political capital.) 

81 

Rodogno 387 

82 

The 4,706 Jews of Thrace came from the cities of Kavala, Drama, Gyumyurdzhina, Seres, Xanthi and Alexandropils. (Tamir. 

193) 

83 Tamir. 193 


Page | 14 

way from cold, malnutrition and beatings. They were placed in tobacco warehouses and in the last week 

of March they were locked inside freight trains as human cattle for the dreaded voyage to the port of Lom. 

One account tells how a train stopped by a labor camp, where early in the morning Jewish slave workers 

awoke to what sounded like the “wailing of caged birds.” A witness told that he saw a white-bearded old 

Jew, a Sephardic elder who was sentenced to death, crying: “No vos spantes, hermanos, la salvacion 

viene!” 84 [Have no fear, brothers, salvation is coming!] On that dark day of March 11, 1943 other Jews 

were rounded up and taken prisoner: 186 from Pirot in Yugolslavia; 3,500 from Skopje; 550 from Shtip; 

and 3,100 85 from Monastir (aka Bitola). 86 

The Jewish community of Monastir, 87 historically the largest Jewish community in Macedonia, was 

deported. 88 The terror started at 2am when officials gathered at police headquarters across Macedonia. 89 

The Bulgarian military established a blockade around the city to prevent escapes. At dawn members of 

the KEV– Komisarstvo za Evreiskite Vaprosi (Bulgarian “Commissariat for Jewish Affairs”), 90 which had 

been established to institute anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria, broke into Jewish homes and hauled out 

their inhabitants. The Jewish quarter of Monastir 91 was divided into ten parts, with each assigned a 

contingent of police officers and soldiers. Once the Jews of Monastir were locked into ghettos, their 

84 Tamir. 194 

85 Mark Cohen in his extraordinary book (Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943. 

Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, New York, 2003.) details the name and occupation of every 

single victim from Monastir. 198-250 

86 All counted, some 7,315 Macedonian Jews put to death. See: Pandevska, Maria. “The Rescue of the Jews of Macedonia (1941- 

1943): Options and Opportunities.” in Rozen, Minna. (ed.) The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond: The Jews in Turkey and the 

Balkans 1808-1945. 2 Vols. Tel Aviv:Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, Tel Aviv Univ., 2005. II:257 

87 This community was up almost exclusively of Judeo-Spanish speaking Jews who, in their historic allegiance to Turkey, 

continued to call their city ‘Monastir,’ the name it bore during centuries of Ottoman rule, even though since 1913 it was known as 

Bitola. 

88 In the year prior to the deportation, the Bulgarian government had demanded that all Jewish households hand over 20 percent 

of the value of all assets, including property, furniture, cash, and household items. Committees were established to assess the 

value of the Jews’ property. The possessions of those who did not have the money to pay the tax were sold at auction. The 

Bulgarians collected photos of all registered Jews and if one had no photo then the photo would be taken by a commissioned 

photographer hired by the Bulgarian government. (Cohen 173 - These photos and registration books are in the custody of Yad 

Vashem) All of these degrading, restrictive measures halted normal Jewish life in Monastir, even before the deportations. Zamila 

Kolonomos, a local Jewish woman, lived through these years of occupation in Monastir. She recalled, “Ansina la vida si truko i 

no avia mas ni enkontros, ni fiestar, ni bodas, ni aligrias” [Thus life was so greatly changed and there were no more gettogethers, 

no festivals, no weddings, no celebrations]. (USHMM Website “The Holocaust In Macedonia: Deportation Of 

Monastir Jewry” which quotes: Cohen, Mark. Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943. 

Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, New York, 2003.) 

89 See Cohen. 176-177 for full accounting of this process 

90 The aims of the Commissariat were to implement and enforce the anti-Jewish legislation (removal of their basic rights, 

imposition of economic and social restrictions, liquidation of businesses, confiscation of property and imposition of penalties, 

including the establishment of the concentration camp). In regards to economic affairs and the recruitment of men for the forced 

labor battalions, the KEV was assisted by the police force and other government institutions. The main purpose of the 

Commissariat was to prepare the deportations of Bulgarian Jewry and to provide aid to, and coordinate with, the Germans. (Yad 

Vashem Website: ‘Monastir During the Holocaust’). 

91 The occupations of the Jews of Monastir can be shown from a report of 1940: There were 80 shop assistants, 63 unskilled men, 

70 porters, 57 cobblers, 54 vegetable vendors, 43 used clothing men, 43 merchants, 42 daily workers, 34 peddlers, 29 bakers and 

flour merchants, 29 beggars, 26 assistant tailors, 24 small grocers, 22 butchers, 21 domestic servants, 17 tinsmiths, 16 poultry 

dealers, 14 fruit growers, 14 tanners, 11 café owners, 10 carters, 9 money changers, 9 clerks, 8 vegetable growers, 8 milkmen, 8 

rabbis, 8 sanitation workers, 7 students, 6 glaziers, 6 commercial agents, 6 barbers, 5 metal workers, 4 owners of small 

restaurants, 4 coke-men, 4 exporters, 3 physicians (not local), 3 tailors, 3 inn owners, 2 carpenters, 2 firefighters, 1 decorator, 1 

lawyer (not local), 1 dentist (not local) and 1 engineer (not local). Oren, Uri. A Town Called Monastir. Dror Publications, Tel 

Aviv, 1971. 179 


Page | 15 

property was looted and stolen. 92 A curfew was imposed on the city and all movement forbidden. After 

the residences were evacuated, the police checked, house by house, to ensure that all the family members 

had left. The Jews were marched from the assembly points and frisked – all valuables were confiscated. 

The Jewish families were marched down muddy snow covered lanes of their villages and by 7am they 

arrived at the railway station where they were crammed into trains fit for animals. 93 No food, no water, no 

light, no bathroom facilities, many having to stand the entire way, they were locked inside wooden and 

iron boxcars for a 17 hour ride to holding facilities, tobacco warehouses in Skopje. 94 There, a temporary 

detention center was established in a large tobacco warehouse known as the ‘Monopol.’ This place was 

utilized for it had a railroad spur adjacent to it. Albert Sarfati, a survivor of the Monastir deportation 

recounts: 

They loaded us and our luggage onto wagons, 60 people in each, many of them standing. There 

was no water. The children were crying…a woman crouched down to give birth… at midnight we 

arrived at Skopje. The wagons were opened and we were pushed into two large buildings… 

inside the Bulgarian soldiers beat us relentlessly... 95 The weather was cold, there was little food 

and few blankets, and the Jews were continually searched, beaten, and humiliated…Women and 

girls were raped. 96 

Mr. Sarfati added: “We did not know what awaited us, but the dreadful treatment we received from the 

Bulgarians, showed the value of the promises given us, that we would only be taken to a Bulgarian work 

camp.” Upon arrival, they locked 500 people in per room, with no latrines, no water and no food. One 

could not look out the window without risk of being shot. The people were forced to strip out of their 

clothing on the pretext of government-men looking for hidden valuables. 97 The Jews were held there for 

10 days then transferred with enormous cruelty via train. 98 Historian Mark Cohen reports the railroad 

transports took the Macedonian Jews from Monopol to Treblinka. The journey typically took six days, 

and during this time the Jews were locked in cattle or freight cars. Several Jews died during each 

transport. 99 

Until that very moment we believed we would be sent to the central areas of Bulgaria as 

promised us. But, when we saw the Germans, we grasped that our die had been cast , and that the 

92 On March 2, 1943, Bulgaria passed a law granting Jewish property to the state. This Jewish communal and private property left 

behind in Monastir was sold for 19,564,486 Bulgarian lev. (For information on Jewish property values in ‘Old’ and ‘New’ 

Bulgaria see: Yahil, Leni. Friedman, Ina. Galai, Haya. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945. 586) 

93 Oren. 195 

94 Even the eight sick Jews from the hospitals were taken and placed inside the rail car. 

95 Testimony of Albert Sarfati, survivor from Monastir; Yad Vashem Website ‘Monastir During the Holocaust.’ Also see Sarfati 

in Oren. 212 

96 USHMM Website “The Holocaust In Macedonia” (Also, Oren in A Town Called Monastir; reports the rapes of young Jewish 

girls by Bulgarian and German policemen, 197) 

97 Arad. 143 

98 IBM’s subsidiary, Watson Business Machines Corporation, Ltd. had opened in Sofia in 1938 and their single largest customer 

was the Bulgarian Railroads. Using IBM Hollerith punch card tabulating machines (the forerunner to the modern computer) at 

every major railroad stop, train authorities could precisely schedule trains, whether they were for passengers, freight, or genocidal 

purposes. For a full accounting, see IBM and The Holocaust. (Black, Edwin. IBM and The Holocaust. Crown (Random House) 

New York, 2001) 385 

99 Cohen, Mark. Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943. Foundation for the Advancement of 

Sephardic Studies and Culture, New York, 2003.178-179 


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German railway would take us to Poland, A dreadful cry burst forth. The train moved out. Out of 

the narrow windows of the wagons could be seen the fluttering hands. We, who stayed behind in 

the building, burst into bitter tears… 100 

A contemporary report from the World Jewish Congress, enlightened the world to the Bulgarian peril: 

…We only know that the attitude of the Bulgarian authorities towards the Jews, and above all 

towards those Jews of the Greek provinces that are provisionally being controlled by the 

Bulgarians, has been inhuman and ferocious as that of the Nazi authorities themselves…Let’s on 

this occasion remark once more that the measure of Jewish deportation to Poland has been 

applied just as vigorously in Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, which are being 

administered, as we have already said above, by the Bulgarians. 101 

On the morning of March 22, 1943, some 2,300 Macedonian Jews 102 from the Monopol were forced to 

board a train consisting of 40 cattle cars. From the trains could be heard the cry in Judeo-Spanish, 

“Ayudo, Agua” (Help, Water). 103 Families journeyed together, and the transport included at least 134 

small children no more than four years old, and at least 194 children between the ages of four and 10. 104 

The train arrived at Treblinka six days later, several people died enroute. The overwhelming majority of 

these Jews were from Skopje. On March 25, German and Bulgarian soldiers loaded about 2,400 

Macedonian Jews onto a train made up of freight cars. All the Jews from Shtip, who numbered 550, were 

on this second transport, as were about 2,000 Jews from Skopje and Monastir. Each wagon carried 

between 60 and 70 people with all their baggage. The people came out of the building carrying their 

belongings on their backs. Everyone was carrying things, from the oldest person to the youngest. With 

bowed heads, all approached the black train. In front of each wagon stood a German and a Bulgarian 

policeman checking off a list. 105 It was impossible to sit down in the freight cars. As soon as the 

‘livestock’ had been loaded into a car, it was locked and sealed. The last train carried around 2,400 Jews, 

approximately 2,300 of whom were from Monastir. The Jews began boarding the freight cars at 6am on 

March 29 and by noon the train was full and enroute to Treblinka. Not long after the deportation, an edict 

from the Council of Bulgarian Ministers ordered the liquidation of the property left behind by the Jews, 

this would include personal property as well as communal. 106 

On March 22, 25, and 29, 1943, Jews from Thrace 107 were deported. The Jews had a Bulgarian police 

escort to the port town of Lom on the Danube River 108 where they were then placed on boats for Vienna, a 

100 

Albert Sarfati’s testimony in Oren. 198 

101 

Letter by A.L. Molho, Cairo October 12, 1943; “Notes on the Present Situation of Greek Jewry” from a February 1944 WJC 

Report, in Documents on the History of Greek Jews: Records from the Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

University of Athens: Kastaniotis: Athens, 1999. 283 

102 

Macedonia included: Skopje, Shtip. Veles, Prilep, Ohrid and Monastir (Bitola). 

103 

Kolonomos, Jamila Andjela. Monastir Without Jews. New York: FASSAC, 2008. 67 

104 

USHMM Website “The Holocaust In Macedonia” 

105 

From the testimony of Albert Sarfati 

106 

Cash and valuables were given to the Bulgarian national bank, and moveable assets were gathered in special warehouses. The 

Jewish property was sold for pennies, and the money collected was handed over to the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs. (Yad 

Vashem Website ‘Monastir During the Holocaust’) 

107 

Thrace included: Serres, Drama, Kavala, Xanthi, Komotini and Alexandroupolis 

108 

Yad Vashem. “Bulgaria” The Fate of the Jews Across Europe Murder of the Jews of the Balkans and Slovakia. 2010 

www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/09/balkans.asp. 


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journey of great torment. 109 Once in Vienna, they would be reboarded onto trains and further shipped to 

Treblinka, 110 where upon their arrival they were immediately gassed. 111 One deportation from Lom, 

Bulgaria never made it to Vienna, and while there are two different accounts of its demise, what we know 

for sure—is that all the Jews onboard perished. The boat was the Karageorge, and all 1,100 Jews were 

killed, either when the ship overturned (or on some accounts) they were shot to death by Bulgarian and 

German soldiers while in the water. 112 

In total, Jewish men, women and children from 23 different Balkan communities of ‘New’ Bulgaria, 

Thrace and Macedonia were murdered. 113 

Bulgarian Jews in the Public Eye Today 

Several bills and resolutions have been entered into the United States Congress which have marked 

Bulgaria ‘saving 50,000’ but these Congressional actions never mention what Bulgaria did to its the Jews 

in ‘Old’ Bulgaria or ‘New’ Bulgaria. Often, they go unchecked, as this the one did on March 4, 2003: 

“Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the historic rescue of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from the 

Holocaust and commending the Bulgarian people for preserving and continuing their tradition of ethnic 

and religious tolerance.” 114 

In regard to this resolution, Prof. Israel Borouchoffa, 115 an American citizen, and one of the Holocaust 

survivors from ‘Old’ Bulgaria, wrote an impassioned letter to Congressman Tom Lantos saying: 

The above resolution specifically names and glorifies King Boris III, head of the fascist 

Bulgarian government, an anti-Semite and staunch ally of Hitler, as savior of Bulgaria’s 

Jews…In December of 1941, Bulgaria, with Boris III at the helm, declared war on the United 

States of America. He signed the agreement of February 22, 1943 to send to the gas chambers of 

Treblinka 11, 343 of our brethren from Thrace, Macedonia and Pirot, lands that comprised and 

integral part of Bulgaria…The claim that “old” Bulgaria rescued all of her 48,000 Jews, and 

that the size of the country’s Jewish population actually increased, as stated in the resolution, 

could not be further from the truth! It is a grave insult to the descendants of the victims, as well 

109 Kohen, Hayim Vedat. “The Jews of Bulgaria During the Shoa.” in Azses, 136 

110 Treblinka was a German extermination camp in occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka. Between July 1942 and 

October 1943, around 850,000 people were killed there, more than 800,000 of whom were Jews. (Niewyk, Donald L; Nicosia, 

Francis R. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. Columbia University Press: New York, 2000. 210) 

111 Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 

1987. 143 

112 ‘Confirmed at the German post-WWII trial of Beckerle, German Ambassador to Bulgaria’ (Yitzchak Kerem in The Shoa in 

the Sephardic Communities. 141) 

113 Dear. 80 (The Thracian and Macedonian old-time Sephardic religious communities and their numerous synagogues and 

priceless books were all destroyed forever. The unique Spanish culture of these Jews, as well as their unique Spanish folklore 

with its Turkish admixture became extinct as a living culture.) 

114 H. CON. RES. 77 - Whereas the people of the United States and the Republic of Bulgaria respect all faiths, including Judaism 

and Jewish culture... - Mr. WILSON of South Carolina (for himself, Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania, Mr. LANTOS, Mr. 

BEREUTER, Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN, and Mr. ROHRABACHER) 

115 Borouchoff, retired Professor of Music from Michigan State University, was born in Kiustendil, Bulgaria, in 1929. His father, 

Yako Baruch, was a successful lawyer. In 1943, his father was instrumental in convincing Dimitar Peshev, former deputy 

chairman of the Bulgarian National Assembly, to prepare a letter of protest to Prime Minister Bogdan Filov – signed by 42 of his 

colleagues – which helped successfully stop the deportation of Jews from ‘Old’ Bulgaria. 


Page | 18 

as blatant denial of the Holocaust! According to official diplomatic correspondence between the 

Bulgarian and German governments, the 170 Jewish Bulgarian citizens (from old Bulgaria) 

living in France were abandoned and sent to Auschwitz!...It is indeed hard to believe that the 418 

congressional representatives voted in favor of H.2 CON. RES.77, while completely ignoring the 

aforementioned historical facts. 116 

A further US resolution, telling only part of the truth, was passed on September 9, 2008: “…Whereas the 

Bulgarian Parliament, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, King Boris III, politicians, intellectuals, and 

citizens all played a part in the resistance to Nazi pressure to carry out the deportation of Jews living in 

Bulgaria by preventing the deportation of 50,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps’" 117 

Prof. Borouchoffa, told Rep. Lantos that he had delivered a speech on May 1, 2003 for the 10th Annual 

Federal Observance Program as part of the Holocaust Days of Remembrance at the Lincoln Theater in 

Washington, DC. There, Ambassador Poptodorova also spoke, however Prof. Borouchoffa states what 

Poptodorova said was far from being accurate: 

…In addition to her repeating the false claim that the Jewish population in Bulgaria increased, 

introduced a newly conceived tall tale that gentile Bulgarian people wore the Yellow Star of 

David as a token of solidarity with us! Ms. Poptodorova was born in 1951. I was born in 1929 

and was there, wearing the Yellow Star of David, and never saw, heard or read any evidence 

about gentile Bulgarians, not even our closest friends, wearing it! I challenge any one to find 

genuine historical evidence that this was indeed true. Nevertheless, it certainly shows the efforts 

of the Bulgarian government, which has never apologized for the genocide, destruction of our 

lives and pilfering of our properties as Hitler’s ally, to ingratiate itself in the eyes of 

Americans. 118 

The myth that Bulgaria’s population grew during the war years was repeated in 2007 by then UN Under- 

Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Shashi Tharoor at the “Partners of Hope 

Concert” at Carnegie Hall in New York: “...48,000 Bulgarian Jews were rescued from certain death, and 

Bulgaria was the only country that fell under Hitler’s jackboots that emerged with a Jewish population 

that was larger at the end of the war than it was at its beginning.” 119 

Official Bulgarian publications continue to report the same single approach on how Bulgarian saved 

‘50,000’ but make no other mention of the impact the Bulgarian government had on any other Jews: 

“…The Jews of Bulgaria were saved during the war. Several forces within the country refused to 

allow deportation to Auschwitz where they would undoubtedly been marched straight to their 

116 Letter dated May 16, 2003 on file with the author of this paper. 

117 H. Res. 1383 - Recognizing the 100th anniversary of the independence of Bulgaria. - Mr. WILSON of South Carolina (for 

himself, Mr. WEXLER, Mr. GALLEGLY, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Ms. BORDALLO, Mr. MCINTYRE, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of 

Texas, Mr. FORBES, Mr. DAVID DAVIS of Tennessee, Mrs. MUSGRAVE, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. HAYES, Mr. 

MILLER of Florida, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of 

Florida, and Mr. CUELLAR) 

118 Letter dated May 16, 2003 on file with the author of this paper. 

119 un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/2007/tharoor2.shtml 


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deaths. These 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved through delaying tactics on the part of some 

government officials until the tide of war turned against the Nazis.” 120 

“… [Bulgaria] prides itself for saving 50,000 Jews from the Holocaust only 60 years 

earlier…” 121 

In an interview with King Boris III’s son (Prime Minister of Bulgaria 2001-2005) Bulgaria Air, 

the official airline of Bulgaria, writes in its InFlight magazine, "Bulgaria celebrated the 65th 

anniversary of the salvation of 50,000 Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin from deportation to 

Nazi death camps" 122 

Under “Historical Facts” about Bulgaria, a European Union publication produced in Sofia says 

only, “Bulgaria remarkably managed to protect its Jewish population of about 50,000 from the 

Holocaust by refusing to deport the country’s Jewish citizens to concentration camps.” 123 

In the archives of the documents which helped Bulgaria build their case in the world’s eye to be 

accepted into the European Union, is a core document which makes mention of the intruth, that 

Bulgaria: “successfully resisted the deportation of Jews from its territory 124 ” during WWII. 

Not one of these above publications discuss the harsh persecution of Bulgarian Jews in ‘Old’ Bulgaria or 

the deportations from ‘New’ Bulgaria. It is as these historic atrocities against the Jewish people never 

happened, a total whitewash of history. 

Israel Strips King Boris III of Honor 

Too often, generalizations have been made, that if it was not for the ‘humility’ of King Boris III of 

Bulgaria, that the Bulgarian Jews would have been killed. Yet, the facts paint a different picture. King 

Boris, the man who met with Hitler and his Nazi officers on many occasions, had a plan and implemented 

it to make Bulgaria, Judenrein, free of Jews. If it was not for an outpouring of support, in the newspapers 

and in the streets, from non-Jewish citizens of Bulgaria, then it is without doubt that these Jews would 

have been deported to Poland by the Bulgarian government. 

Crediting King Boris with blocking the deportations was first put forward in the Bulgarian émigré press… 

in 1952 by one man—Benjamin Arditti, a Bulgarian Jewish expatriate who had emigrated to Israel…but 

also, after 1990, in Bulgaria itself.” 125 Even if Boris was responsible for blocking the deportation of one 

group of Jews, he certainly bore responsibility for the deportation of another group of Jews, those from 

120 

Andersen, Amy. “Fulbright-Hays Bulgaria 2008: A Life Changing Visit.” Newsletter. Bulgarian-American Commission for 

Educational Exchange. Sofia. No. 53, April-June 2008. 

121 

Shkodrova, Albena. “Minorities Report.” Vagabond. Sofia. n.p. December 2010. old.vagabond.bg 

122 

No. 58 November 5, 2008 

123 

Human Resource Development Centre. “Bulgaria in the European Union.” Euro Guidance: Sofia, 2007. 4 

124 

European Union website (EU-Bulgaria, Key documents) DOC/97/11 Brussels, 15th July 1997. "Commission Opinion on 

Bulgaria’s Application for Membership of the European Union" 

125 

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 18 (Bulgarian Jewish historian Vicki Tamir 

blamed the lack of suspicion of King Boris and his intent, on the “myopia” of the Bulgarian Jews—a myopia that “would soon be 

remedied.” Bulgaria and Her Jews. 160) 


Page | 20 

‘New’ Bulgaria, the Thracian and Macedonian Jews. While he did not initiate these deportations, he did 

nothing to stop them, even though he had the means to do so. 126 Boris seems to have been truly motivated 

by what he believed was good for Bulgaria: 

His actions were guided by self-interest, or rather, by what he saw as Bulgaria’s interests; for 

someone like Boris, who identified completely with his country, the two were indistinguishable. 

What motivated him was national interest as he understood it, not humanitarian principles. 127 

A glimpse into the mind of King Boris may be seen from this forceful statement made in his name by 

Premier Filov: “We should not be influenced by our feelings or sympathies or desires. We must remain, 

before everything else, Bulgarians, and work only for Bulgaria, to be ready to make sacrifices only for 

Bulgarian interests...” 128 

In 1996, Bulgarian Jews living in the United States joined with the Jewish National Fund (JNF), to thank 

King Boris for his role during WWII. They planted many trees in a rural area in Israel and wanted to call 

it the ‘Forest of Boris,’ but this was met with resistance from Jewish Holocaust survivors, as well as Mr. 

Zisman, chairman of the Knesset’s Israel-Bulgaria Parliamentary Friendship League. Eventually, a 

forest was planted without the King’s name, and simply called “The Bulgarian Forest.” 

There, several monuments were built, including those for King Boris and his wife Queen Giovanna of 

Bulgaria. In 1999, after the erection of the memorials was publicized, a committee was established that 

included some former Monastir residents, formerly persecuted Holocaust survivors. The committee 

elected to have the monuments removed—there would be no honor for King Boris—for it was known 

Boris knew Jews from Thrace and Macedonia were getting deported and would be exterminated, as it was 

reported to him by Prime Minister Filov. 129 

The JNF immediately responded by establishing a public committee to review the issue, headed by former 

Chief Justice Dr. Moshe Beiski. 130 A protest began against King Boris deserving a monument began, and 

resulted in a July 2003 decision by the committee to remove the memorials to King Boris and his wife. 131 

126 Todorov. 20 

127 Todorov. 23 

128 Bogdan Filov in a speech at Russe on the Danube, in which he voiced the sentiments of King Boris; “World War: Lowlands of 

1941.” Time Magazine January. 20, 1941 

129 Steinhouse Carl L. Wily Fox: How King Boris Saved the Jews of Bulgaria from the Clutches of His Axis Ally Adolf Hitler. 

AuthorHouse: Bloomington, 2008. 215-216 

130 Ofer, Dalia. “Tormented Memories: The Individual and the Collective.” Israel Studies 9:3, 2004. 137-156 (This article sets 

out to probe the public debate that evolved in Israel over the dedication of a forest to the memory of King Boris III of Bulgaria. It 

will also address the image of Bulgaria in Israel’s collective memory in relation to the rescue of Bulgarian Jews and to the 

deportation of the Macedonian and Thracian Jews to the death camps.) 

131 Before its removal, the marble memorial for King Boris was vandalized and covered in tar. (Raikin 130) 


The Bulgarian Government Propaganda Machine 

Page | 21 

With no other explanation, the 2011 official government website of the Council of Ministers of the 

Republic of Bulgaria, provides nothing more than a simple 18-word sentence in regard to the Jews, 

“King Boris III supported the public pressure and did not allow the deportation of about 50,000 

Bulgarian Jews.” 132 There is an even shorter sentence on the government website of the Bulgarian 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Tsar Boris III stood by public pressures and did not allow deportation of 

about 50,000 Bulgarian Jews.” 133 The Bulgarian government websites are silent about their brutal 

treatment, forced relocation and imprisonment of the Jews of Sofia and other ‘Old’ Bulgarian cities, and 

remains quiet about the 13,000 deported Jews from ‘New’ Bulgaria. 

In 2002, appearing in Washington DC before the US Congressional Commission on Security and 

Cooperation 134 on a human rights matter, Elena B. Poptodorova, 135 the Ambassador of Bulgaria to the US, 

read from a prepared statement. Her remarks were made before Commission Co-Chair, Congressman 

Christopher H. Smith and several other US Representatives and Senators; 136 here, are Poptodorova’s 

verbal remarks, as recorded by a Congressional transcriptionist: 

In these days in your country, Bulgaria is being commended for being a role model in the years of 

the Holocaust when it saved its 50,000 Jews, and this is the largest rescue in the Holocaust and 

that was as a result of a complete unity of parliament, King Boris III, the Orthodox Church and 

the people. This legacy has not been wasted. It is still there and because of it we realize even 

more that we have to live up to this understanding of preserving human life and human 

dignity… 137 

In Poptodorova’s original officially prepared statement, which was provided to the Commission, and 

which was republished—verbatim—by the US Government Printing Office, we see a slightly different 

version of her remarks: 

These days the Bulgarian nation is being commended as a role model in the years of the 

Holocaust—when the Bulgarian Parliament, the Bulgarian King Boris III, the Bulgarian 

Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian people rescued their 50 000 Jews (the largest rescue in the 

Holocaust!!). [sic] They did not let a single Bulgarian Jew to be deported to the gas chambers of 

132 

Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria “About Bulgaria: History” September 27, 2005 Accessed January 2011 

http://www.government.bg 

133 

Republic of Bulgaria Ministry of Foreign Affairs “History and Geography.” Accessed January 2011 

http://www.mfa.bg/en/pages/view/45 

134 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an 

independent U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage compliance with the Helsinki Final Act and 

other OSCE commitments. The Commission contributes to the formulation of U.S. policy. 

135 

Poptodorova is a well seasoned politician who started her career in Bulgarian politics in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 

1975, before becoming a Member of Parliament. She was made Ambassador of Bulgaria to the US in 2002, and as of 2011, her 

official title is “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to the United States of America.” 

136 

At the time, Commission legislative members included: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rep. Frank Wolf and 

Rep. Steny Hoyer. 

137 

Transcript: Hearing before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: 107 Congress, Second Session: April 9, 

2002. (CSCE 107-2-1) US GPO, Washington, 2002. “Romani Human Rights: Old Problems, New Possibilities.” 31 


Page | 22 

Nazi Germany. This dramatic historic legacy has far from been wasted. Moreover, we realize we 

must live up to it and keep up the respect for human life and human dignity. 138 

While testifying as a witness in regard to human rights matters in front of a Congressional Commission, 

this politician, a shining star to the Bulgarian government, a person of many awards and distinctions, 

committed a shame of great enormity. Remarking about how Bulgaria somehow was responsible for “the 

largest rescue in the Holocaust!!” [sic] she selectively suppressed another piece of history—that her 

country was directly responsible for the incarceration, torture and a number of deaths of Jewish 

Bulgarians during WWII, and that her country deported to their deaths, over 13,000 Jews from their proud 

land of ‘New’ Bulgaria. 

Poptodorova addressed students and faculty at Cornell University in 2004, again repeating that, 

“Bulgarians were responsible for saving the lives of approximately 50,000 Jews...” with nothing further 

mentioned about Bulgaria’s reprehensible interaction with the Jews. 139 In 2004, appearing before a subcommittee 

of the US Committee on International Relations in the House of Representatives, Poptodorova 

said upon closing, that she would like to, “…Remind everybody of the years of the Holocaust when 

Bulgaria saved its 50,000 Jews and not a single one was deported to the gas chambers." 140 

There is only one way a politician of such stature can continually omit atrocities and responsibilities of 

her country, and that is by intentionally overlooking them. 

The Bulgarian-born writer Shlomo Alboher, author of the 2010 book: The Jews of Monastir Macedonia: 

The Life and Times of the Departed Jewish Community of Bitola, tells: 

The Bulgarians began denying the holocaust, for which they themselves were responsible. They 

would make assertions as if the Jews belonged to the Germans and they could not prevent the 

deportation. But it is known that the German army and these areas were under full Bulgarian 

control and not annexed by the con- quering Germans.These areas were part of the “United 

Bulgaria” of 1943 at the time of the holocaust. By creating and spreading the false myth that 

Bulgaria saved its Jewish populace, when in reality 20 percent were sent to the death camps, 

Bulgaria has been helped by Jews, including those from Bulgaria, who know the truth and thus 

are aiding the Bulgarian holocaust deniers… 141 

In 2010, Rossen V. Vassilev, a former diplomat with the Bulgarian Mission to the United Nations in New 

York City (1980-1988), who is today a lecturer in political science at the Ohio State University in 

Columbus, Ohio, wrote: 

All of Bulgaria's post-Communist governments have shamelessly exploited these grisly events 

[death which came to Jews through Bulgarian interaction] either to score political points at home 

or to ingratiate themselves in the eyes of their Western mentors and patrons in a campaign to 

138 Transcript: Hearing 60 

139 “Ambassador Visits Cornell” The Cornell Daily Sun. February 12, 2004 

140 NATO Enlargement: A View From the Candidate Countries. Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Europe of the Committee 

on International Relations in the House of Representatives. 107 Congress / Second Session May 1, 2002 Serial no. 107–81 

141 Published in Hebrew in Jerusualem. (Skopje: Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia, 2010.) 


Page | 23 

obtain foreign economic assistance and investments as well as membership in coveted Euro- 

Atlantic institutions such as NATO and the EU. 142 

Many Bulgarian-born Jews were outraged when Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova 

falsely claimed in a May 1, 2003 speech delivered during the Holocaust Days of Remembrance at 

the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C. that Bulgaria's Jewish population actually increased 

during World War II and that in those years many Slavic Bulgarians wore the yellow Star of 

David in a show of solidarity with their Jewish friends and neighbors. 143 

Bulgaria’s suppression of the truth makes a mockery of the 2005 United Nations General Assembly 

resolution (A/RES/60/7) 144 which designated an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory 

of the victims of the Holocaust. 145 This resolution—which, ironically, Bulgaria was a co-sponsor of— 

called for UN Member States (including Bulgaria) to “develop educational programmes to instill the 

memory of the tragedy” as well as take “measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance 

and education.” Conscious suppression is a form of denial—and on the eve of the second International 

Day of Commemoration, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, declared that denying the Holocaust is 

tantamount to approving genocide. Wolff, acting head of the U.S. delegation, said: “Those who will deny 

the Holocaust -- and sadly there are some who do -- reveal not only ignorance but their moral 

failure….To deny the events of the Holocaust is tantamount to the approval of genocide in all its 

forms.” 146 

The European Commission has also condemned attempts to deny the Holocaust. In a statement to mark 

the 2007 International Day of Commemoration of victims, European Commissioner Franco Frattini said 

on behalf the Commission: 'I want to restate the Commission's firm condemnation of any attempt to deny, 

trivialize or minimise the Shoah, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These views constitute an 

unacceptable affront not only to the victims of that tragedy and their descendants, but also to the whole 

democratic world. 147 

While the US, UK, Israel, Germany, Greece, Romania, Croatia, Denmark and other countries are 

members of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, an organization 

affiliated with United Nations, Bulgaria is not a member state nor has it ever been. Membership in the 

Task Force is open to all countries as long as they are committed to the Declaration of the Stockholm 

International Forum on the Holocaust, and must accept the principles adopted by the Task Force 

regarding membership. They must also be committed to the implementation of national policies and 

programs in support of Holocaust education, remembrance, and research. Why Bulgaria has elected to not 

participate, remains a mystery. 

142 

Vassilev, Rossen. "The Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews in World War II." New Politics. Vol:XII-4; Winter 2010. n.p. 

143 

Vassilev, Rossen. "The Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews in World War II." New Politics. Vol:XII-4; Winter 2010. f.n.9 

144 

GA 60th Session, 42nd plenary meeting, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 New York 

145 

January 27 

146 

“United Nations Condemns Denial of the Holocaust.” January 26, 2007 America.gov - The US State Department’s Bureau of 

International Information Programs. 

147 

ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/news_en.htm#13 


Page | 24 

Until it finally gained membership status in 2007, Bulgaria desperately sought to be accepted into the 

European Union, 148 but their poor human rights record often presented a problem. Prior to their 

acceptance into the E.U., the U.S. State Department reported that Bulgaria continued to have “problems in 

several areas” relating to the human rights of its citizens. This included: 

Law enforcement officers beating and mistreating suspects, prison inmates, and minorities, along 

with arbitrary arrest and detention. Problems of accountability persisted and inhibited government 

attempts to address police abuses. Conditions in some prisons and detention facilities were harsh. 

The executive and judicial branches continued to struggle with wide-ranging systematic problems 

and suffered from serious corruption…There were restrictions on freedom of the press. The 

Government restricted freedom of religion for some religious groups and societal discrimination 

and harassment of nontraditional religious minorities persisted…Societal violence and 

discrimination against women were problems… 149 

To counter this, on the world stage, on more than one occasion, it revisited the claim that it had “saved 

50,000 Jews” and that Bulgaria was “humanitarian” and that they must keep up their “respect for human 

life and human dignity.” 150 On at least one occasion, ex-president Peter Stoyanov said that the Jews’ 

rescue from deportation was “the best answer to the constantly asked question ‘What have you 

contributed to European civilization?’” 151 

The Bulgarians used the story of the Jews they elected not to deport to their deaths as part of their 

supporting evidence that they were “humanitarian.” What the Republic of Bulgaria suppressed is that they 

directly sent 13,000 Jews to their deaths when they deported them to Treblinka. Suppression of the truth 

continues to undermine the legitimacy of the Bulgarian government in their sincerity on human rights 

issues, even today, as it remains a member of the European Union. Failure to disclose the truth, at every 

opportunity, will forever damage the legitimacy of any current or future Bulgarian government. 

Discussion 

After the war, several Bulgarians were pronounced “enemies of the people” and before a jam-packed 

square at Sofia’s ‘Palace of Justice’ a crowd of 150,000 wildly cheered the news that the 100 death 

sentences were “without appeal,” would be carried out “immediately.” Those executed by firing squad 

included the Jew hating ex-Prime Minister, Bogdan Filov, who had signed the original pact with the 

Nazis. 152 

The current generation of Bulgarians has been brought up with the ‘hero story’ about King Boris III while 

not being taught about their government’s persecution of the Jews in both ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Bulgaria. Still, 

Ambassador Poptodorova knows better, yet fails to ever publicly acknowledge that during WWII, the 

148 

An invitation for NATO Membership had been extended to Bulgaria during the Prague NATO Summit in November 2002. On 

April 2, 2004 Bulgaria become a member of NATO. 

149 

US State Department. "Bulgaria: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2004." February 28, 2005 

150 

Transcript: Hearing before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: 107 Congress, Second Session: April 9, 

2002. (CSCE 107-2-1) US GPO, Washington, 2002. “Romani Human Rights: Old Problems, New Possibilities.” 60 

151 th 

“Bulgaria Marks 60 Anniversary of Bulgarian Jews' Rescue from Nazi Death Camps in WW II.” Bulgarian News Agency; 

March 10, 2003. 

152 

“The Balkans: 100 Death Sentences.” Time Magazine. February 12, 1945. 


Page | 25 

Jews of Bulgaria suffered under the iron hand of their government; that they had their property 

expropriated; that they were striped of a means of livelihood; that many were killed; that they were 

dismissed from public posts and schools; that they were mandated to wear yellow Star of David which led 

them to often falling victim to violent crimes; that they suffered arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and 

eventually were forcefully resettled into slave labor or concentration camps where they were denied 

human and civil rights. 153 All of this, falls quiet on the lips of Bulgarian officials, it remains completely 

trounced in silence at all public memorials. 

Poptodorova was invited and addressed the annual 96th meeting of the American Jewish Committee in 

May of 2002 where participants in a forum paid tribute to Bulgaria for saving Jews during WWII, 154 she 

said nothing other than Boris saved ‘50,000.’ Over subsequent years, she and other Bulgarian officials 

have attended memorials and ceremonies promoted by Jewish organizations—which they themselves may 

be culpable for being too quick to thank Bulgaria, while being too slow in taking the time to fully 

investigate her interaction and treatment of Jews. 155 Add to this the existence of institutional biases, 

political correctness, political sensitivities, academic biases (especially of historiography which can be 

hard to eradicate), and it is no wonder why this topic of Bulgaria and her interaction with Jews is 

presented so skewed. In addition, since 98% of the population of Macedonian Jewry was destroyed, there 

are not many people left to speak for them. 

The facts are: 

• There is a reason why an Israeli committee ordered the memorial to King Boris III and his wife 

Queen Giovanna removed from its place in the ‘Forest of Bulgaria.’ 

• There is a reason why Greek and Macedonian Jews, such the Monastirlis, continue to get angry, 

as well as saddened, year after year, when Bulgaria’s former king is praised, while their families 

continue to be forgotten about. 

153 This is one of the primary reasons more than 35,000 Bulgarian Jews fled to the new country of Israel in 1948. 

154 “American Jewish Committee Paid Tribute To Bulgaria For Saving Its Jews.” Novinite - Sofia News Agency. May 11, 2002 

155 In 2010, Bulgarian authorities and representatives had increased interactions with leading US Jewish advocacy organizations. 

In April, two representatives of the Bulgarian Jewish community, Maxim Behar and Victor Melamed, were notable guests at the 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s dinner with the American Jewish Committee in DC, with Bulgarian Foreign Minister 

Mladenov also attending. In August, the Chair of the American Jewish Committee David Harris visited Sofia stating that 

Bulgaria has the full support and affection of the American Jewish community; Harris was received by the highest Bulgarian 

state figures. David Harris was conferred with Shofar, the greatest award of the Bulgarian Jewish community, for his contribution 

to the development of the relations between the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria Shalom and the American Jewish 

Committee. Bulgarian President Parvanov awarded Harris with the Madara Horseman state order to his contribution to 

Bulgarian-US ties. In September, Bulgarian Prime Minister Borisov had a meeting with the major US Jewish organizations in 

New York City. The meeting in the building of the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the United Nations in New York was 

attended by Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Daniel Mariaschin, Executive VP of B’nai 

B’rith International, David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, Richard Gordon, President of the 

American Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, Richard Stone, President of the Jewish 

Council for Racial Equality, and Steven Schweiger, the General Director of the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. 

(blog.sabdesi.net) 


Conclusions 

Page | 26 

1. Ultimately, the problem remains: While the Bulgarian government remains quick to mention they 

“saved” 50,000 Jews, they continually neglect to mention that they intentionally sent over 13,000 

Jewish men, women and children, young and old, to their deaths. 

2. In Bulgaria, the Jewish community suffered, lived in tremendous fear, and many indeed died— 

just like their brethren in other parts of Europe. Yes, it was in lower numbers, and yes, there was 

intervention, but the outright untruths saying that Bulgarian Jews were unharmed during the war 

and during the Holocaust is an injustice. 

3. It is incorrect to state things such as: ‘Bulgaria refused to surrender a single Jew,’ 156 or ‘The 

Bulgarian Jewish community thrived while across Europe Jews were persecuted.’ 157 These short 

comments are all too often repeated without revealing in full disclosure that Bulgarian Jews were 

indeed rigorously persecuted by Bulgaria during the war, and that while Bulgaria resisted 

deporting 50,000 Jews from what was considered ‘Old’ Bulgaria, it deported 13,000 Jews from 

‘New’ Bulgaria 158 to death camps in Poland. 159 In the latter, ‘New’ Bulgaria, Thrace and 

Macedonia, it was Bulgarian soldiers and Bulgarian police officers who handed the Jews over to 

the Germans, 160 who then deported these defenseless people who ultimately were killed. 

156 

Flannery, Edward H. The Anguish of The Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism. Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ, 1985. 

223 

157 

Jerusalem Post (“Exclusive video: ‘Restoring the crown to former glory”) 12/20/2010 

jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=200216 

158 

Rodogno, Davide. Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War. Cambridge University 

Press, 2006. 387 

159 

Cohen, Sharon Kangisser. Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Israel: Finding Their Voice. Sussex Academic Press: Brighton, 

2005. 31 

160 

Paldiel, Mordecai. Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans, and Reconciliation. Ktav: Jersey City, 

2005. 306 


Appendix 1. 

Suggested Redress for the Republic of Bulgaria 

In regard to their failure to continuously and openly disclose that they deported 13,000 Jews 

to their death from their territory of ‘New Bulgaria’ during World War II. 

Issued by The International Committee for Bulgarian Holocaust-Era Truth – March 1, 2011 

A copy of this document has been submitted to 'The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme,' 

a project of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 

Page | 27 

Suppression of the truth continues to undermine the legitimacy of the Republic of Bulgaria in their 

sincerity on human rights issues, even today, as it stands as a new member of the European Union. 

Failure to disclose the truth, at every opportunity, damages the legitimacy of any current or future 

Bulgarian government. The following are suggested measures Bulgaria should take to correct this long- 

standing historic injustice: 

1. The intended exclusion and/or conscious denial of Bulgaria’s role in the harsh treatment, 

collection, incarceration and deportation of 13,000 Jews from then United Bulgaria aka ‘New’ 

Bulgaria (Thrace and Macedonia) should become a frequent and recurrent matter of public 

record—as much so as the often made ‘heroic’ (‘Bulgaria saved 50,000 Jews’) claim, repeatedly 

mentioned by Bulgarian government representatives and officials. 

2. During any and all discussions in which explicit reference is made in regard to how Bulgaria 

“saved” tens of thousands of Jews, there should be a parallel reference to how Bulgaria deported 

13,000 Jews from ‘New’ Bulgaria—Thrace and Macedonia—and how this Jewish population was 

sent to Treblinka where they were killed. This includes in all official documents and on all official 

Websites of the Bulgarian governement. 

3. Bulgaria should use its voice, vote, and participation in matters relating to Holocaust education 

which would be consistent with the 2005 United Nations General Assembly resolution 


Page | 28 

A/RES/60/7 (which Bulgaria was a co-sponsor of). This Resolution calls for UN Member States to 

“develop educational programmes to instill the memory of the tragedy” as well as take “measures 

to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education.” 161 

4. Through the leadership of an independent international body, Bulgaria should consider 

conducting a Truth and Reconciliation Forum where victims of gross human rights violations in 

both ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Bulgaria—witnesses who were persecuted and survived—would have the 

opportunity to give statements about their experiences in regard to Bulgaria and its interaction 

with the Jewish people during the era of the Holocaust. 

5. Alongside any physical monument which makes reference to Bulgaria “saving” Jews, should be 

placed a monument to the 13,000 Jews Bulgaria deported from ‘New’ Bulgaria. Such a 

monument should contain the names of the victims which were deported to Treblinka (which are 

on record). 

6. The names of the Jews killed, or who died by extension, due to Bulgarian policies and treatment, 

in ‘Old’ Bulgaria (i.e. the cities of Sofia, Plevden, etc.) or other locations in Europe (such as the 

case of the murdered Bulgarian students in France), should also be listed. 

Justice means the remembrance of all the victims, not just the one group which the Bulgarian 

government elected not to deport. Where there is no remembrance, there is no truth, where there is no 

truth, there will be no justice, for both the survivors and the sacred memory of the men, women and 

children who were murdered because of Bulgaria’s partnership with Nazi Germany. 

161 Conscious suppression is a form of denial—and on the eve of the second International Day of Commemoration, U.S. 

Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, declared that denying the Holocaust is tantamount to approving genocide. Wolff, acting head of 

the U.S. delegation, said: “Those who will deny the Holocaust -- and sadly there are some who do -- reveal not only ignorance 

but their moral failure….To deny the events of the Holocaust is tantamount to the approval of genocide in all its forms.” 


Newspaper Clippings 

Appendix 2. 

Page | 29 

“Soldiers of the Bulgarian Army march through a street in Sofia. These troops are trained along 

the same lines as the German Army and are equipped with armaments made in the Reich” 


“Boris shaking hands with General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel 

as Adolf Hitler looks on. The meeting took place in Berlin.” 

Page | 30 


Page | 31 


Page | 32 


Page | 33 


Photographs (Source: Yad Vashem) 

Appendix 3. 

Jews boarding a deportation train during the deportation of 

Macedonian Jews from ‘New’ Bulgaria, Mach 1943. 

Page | 34 

Skopje, Yugoslavia, Bulgarian commissioner for Jewish Affairs Aleksander Belev (3rd from left 

with hat) oversees the deportation of Jews near the "Monopol" tobacco depot, March 1943. 


Skopje, Yugoslavia, Jews rounded up by Bulgaria about to board a deportation 

train for Treblinka next to the "Monopol" tobacco depot, March 1943. 

Jews rounded up by Bulgaria about to board a deportation 

train for Treblinka 

Page | 35 


Jews from Skopje arrested by Bulgaria await deportation to 

the Treblinka deathcamp, March 1943. 

Page | 36 


Lom, Bulgaria, Bulgarian officials and policemen inspecting the deportees' documents 

before they board a barge headed toward Treblinka, March 1943. 

Lom, Bulgaria, Jews being deported from Macedonia and Thrace aboard 

the boat "Karadorde", March 1943. 

Page | 37 


Page | 38 

Lom, Bulgaria, deportees boarding a boat, overwatched by Bulgarian policemen, March 1943. 

A Bulgarian policeman watches over Jews being deported to Treblinka, 1943. 


This paper resides at http://www.alfassa.com/bulgaria.html 

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

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