site.btaMPs Commemorate Victims of Communist Regime, Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria Call for Preserving Historical Memory

The Bulgarian Parliament Thursday kept a moment of silence for the victims of the communist regime. The MPs of Vazrazhdane did not rise to their feet, which led to recriminations of manipulation of historical truth.

February 1 has been marked as the Day of Homage to the Victims of the Communist Regime since 2011 on the initiative of former Bulgarian Presidents Zhelyu Zhelev (1990-1997) and Petar Stoyanov (1997-2002).

On February 1, 1945, three regents, 22 ministers of five governments (in office between February 11, 1940 and September 8, 1944), 8 royal advisers, 67 MPs of the 25th Ordinary National Assembly and 47 senior military officers were executed at Sofia's Central Cemetery after being sentenced to death earlier that day by the People's Court. In four months, the People's Court issued nearly 11,000 sentences, more than 2,800 people were sentenced to death and more than 300 to life in prison.

Parliament's Deputy Chair Nikola Minchev read out a declaration on behalf of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), recalling all the innocent victims of the communist regime. The second largest parliamentary group called for preserving the historical memory so that "we would not fall into the same traps under a different guise but of an identical nature".

By comparison, 24 people were tried at the Nuremberg trials against the Nazi regime and some of them were acquitted, said Minchev. The People's Court is not a precedent for post-war Europe, but the Bulgarian case is unique. Its very existence as an extraordinary court was against the Tarnovo Constitution, and its political purpose was criminal, CC-DB said.

The extraordinary "efficiency" of the People's Court is a clear sign that defendants were presumed guilty by default. Minchev recalled that Dimitar Peshev, who, as Deputy Chair of the National Assembly between 1938 and 1944, contributed to the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps, was convicted of fascist activity and antisemitism.

Minchev stressed the importance of keeping the truth alive, as there can be no reconciliation without truth and memory. "We must reaffirm our resolute united stand against any form of totalitarian rule, regardless of the ideological context," he said.