site.btaControversial Conference on Bulgarian Jews' Rescue in WWII Cancelled on Security Grounds

A controversy over the role of the Bulgarian State in treating the Jews under its control during World War II was rekindled by a discussion that was planned to take place in Sofia on Wednesday evening. The event, due to be hosted by Sofia University's Cultural Centre, has been cancelled on security grounds, the organizers said on Wednesday morning. The Centre decided to reformat the event, titled "The Pathology of a Commemoration", and postpone it indefinitely. The announced topic was "abuses surrounding the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews from the Holocaust in 1943".

The participants in the cancelled conference represent a vocal minority of scholars, journalists and public figures who argue that while Bulgaria did rescue close to 50,000 Jews within its borders of 1941 from the Nazi death camps, the Bulgarian anti-Semitic legislation was deeply discriminatory and practically crippled, economically and socially, the Jewish community in Bulgaria. They assert that, instead of assuming a hypocritical posture of regret that Bulgaria was willing but 'unable' to save 11,343 Jews in parts of Yugoslavia and Greece that were occupied by Bulgaria between 1941 and 1944, who were deported to the Treblinka death camp and perished there, the Bulgarian State must publicly, sincerely and unconditionally admit its responsibility by offering an apology for the persecution and deportation of Jews during World War II.

This school of thought claims that the survival of the Jews in 'old Bulgaria' did not result from a nationwide movement but from an effective and timely reaction by a small number of individuals." They deny their opponents' arguments that King Boris III's decision was decisive for the ultimate salvation of 47,250 Bulgarian Jews.

According to the press release, the discussants in the Wednesday conference were to consider "the distinct regression" in the official celebrations of the anniversary for at least a dozen of years now "towards solidifying the myth about the rescue and an apology of real and sham rescuers, towards a complete exculpation of the Bulgarian State for the anti-Jewish policy pursued; towards aggressively rejecting any critical opinions as 'anti-Bulgarian propaganda'." The discussion was planned to address a number of questions including: "How specifically the official positions became more retrograde? What was the contribution of academe to this? How does this negationism intertwine with the surge of nationalism, with other political uses of the past along the Right-Left axis and with the exacerbated relations with North Macedonia? It is linked with growing anti-Semitism?"

During Wednesday's event, economist and historian Rumen Avramov was to talk about "State vs Truth," historian Alexander Vezenkov was to focus on "Academic Negationism", archivist Ivanka Gezenko was to provide details about the messages of the initiative committees for marking the anniversary between 2003 and 2023, journalist Emmy Barouh was to talk about "Media and Mediators: Memory and Amnesia", historian Stefan Detchev was to present "The Deportations of Jews from Macedonia in 1943 and How they Fit in Bulgarian-Macedonian Relations in 2013-2023", and philosopher Stiliyan Yotov was to discuss "Heroes, Slaves and Soldiers of Labour."

The Cultural Centre noted that a number of in-depth studies of the fate of Jews under Bulgarian control in that period, which have appeared in recent decades, have presented more comprehensively, more accurately and more fairly "the policy of State-sponsored anti-Semitism and deportation of Jews from Bulgaria," arriving at "some uncomfortable facts and observations." 

Parliamentary Parties Brand Event as "Anti-Bulgarian"

Earlier on Wednesday, the Vazrazhdane Party issued a declaration describing the organizers of the conference as "a mob of impostors" and insisting that the event would "sling mud at the name of Bulgaria". "We believe that the Bulgarian services should address the issue of whether this campaign against Bulgaria has received foreign funding," the party leader Kostadin Kostadinov said, reading the declaration in Parliament. Vazrazhdane called on the Sofia University Rector and the Shalom Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria to distance themselves from "such attempts at falsifying history".

Kostadinov noted that what was referred to as pathology is "one of the greatest contributions of the Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian State in the history of mankind in the last hundred years, namely, the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews". "The history of Bulgaria is sacred and should not be touched with dirty fingers," he added. In Kostadinov's words, the organizers of the conference took the liberty to openly accuse the Bulgarian State of failing to assume responsibility for the deportation of Jews from "Aegean Thrace and Aegean Macedonia". He said that, according to them, the Bulgarian Jews were not rescued and "we as a nation should apologize to the Bulgarian Jews for the persecution to which Bulgarian Jews were subjected during World War II." Kostadinov called this "an anti-Bulgarian" and "anti-humane" lie.

Kostadinov insisted that history was being falsified. He listed Bulgarian Jews, including Michael Bar-Zohar and Colonel Samuel Rafael, whose works have demonstrated the enormous contribution of the Bulgarian people, the Bulgarian state, the Bulgarian church, and King Boris III to the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews, "an event unparalleled in the history of mankind".

Responding to the Vazrazhdane leader's statement, Daniel Lorer MP of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) said that it contained "outright threats to the organization of Jews and to Jews in Bulgaria regarding the way they should think". Lorer added that Kostadinov had openly insulted both the Jewish and the academic communities and stressed that what Bulgarian services should address was Vazrazhdane.

Also on Wednesday, There Is Such a People (TISP) also issued a declaration regarding the conference.

Reading the declaration, the party's Floor Leader Toshko Yordanov said that the planned discussion was about the "manipulations of the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews". "Each of the participants in the discussion is an apologist for the idea that Bulgaria did not save the Bulgarian Jews during World War II but committed systemic, state anti-Semitism," Yordanov said.

Yordanov said that none of the organizers of the discussion had condemned the assault on the Secretary of the King Boris III Bulgarian Cultural Club in Ohrid, Hristijan Pendikov, the arson of the Ivan Mihaylov Culture Club in Bitola, nor a fake rail car destined for the death camp inscribed "Bulgarian State Railways" displayed in Skopje's Holocaust Memorial Complex.

Yordanov quoted Israeli parachute troops founder Sami Rafael as dismissing as a blatant lie the claim that Bulgaria turned over 11,734 Jews from Aegean Thrace and Vardar Macedonia to the Hitlerites for deportation to death camps.

He described the organizers of Wednesday's discussion as "pseudo-intellectuals who are not only liars but also moral traitors to both Bulgarians and Jews."

A signed item which appeared in www.faktor.bg last week and has now been apparently taken off said that "the tenets held by all participants in the discussion completely coincide with the anti-Bulgarian theses of Serbian propaganda, which are official policy of the authorities in Skopje. In North Macedonia, the tragedy of the Jews deported from Skopje, Bitola and Stip is used to project an image of all Bulgarians as occupiers, Nazi, fascists and murderers."

The author wrote that those same historians and public figures "cynically ignored the contribution of Bulgarian statesmen, politicians, public figures, intellectuals, priests and members of the public, and of Bulgarian society as a whole, thanks to which Bulgaria uniquely succeeded in saving all its Jews."