site.btaBulgarian Delegation to Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe Lays Flowers at Dimitar Peshev's Bust

The Bulgarian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) laid flowers at the bust of Dimitar Peshev at the seat of the Council of Europe, BTA learned on Wednesday from Latchezar Toshev, a former member and an honorary associate of PACE.

Maria Spasova, Bulgaria's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, lawyer and politician Meglena Kuneva and diplomats from the Bulgarian Embassy honoured the great politician Dimitar Peshev (1894-1973).

He was born in the southwestern town of Kyustandil. As Deputy Chair of the National Assembly between 1938 and 1944, Peshev contributed to the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps during World War II.

Peshev was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Israel in 1973. He was awarded the highest Bulgarian honour, the Order of the Balkan Range, in 1997.

The bust by Ivan Minekov was donated to the Council of Europe on January 25, 2000. Since then, the Bulgarian delegation and the ambassador to the Council of Europe have laid flowers at the bust after the winter plenary session of PACE starts, Toshev said. This is also the time when the role of Dimitar Peshev and 43 MPs for the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews is recalled, he added.

Flowers were also laid at the memorial stone on the forecourt of the Council of Europe.

The UN General Assembly designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day on November 1, 2005. On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. One million Jews died at the camp between 1940 and 1945.