site.btaVazrazhdane Calls for Day of National Reconciliation for Homage to Victims of Pre- and Post-1944 Regimes

Kostadin Kostadinov, floor leader of the nationalist Vazrazhdane party, Thursday said Bulgaria needs a day of national reconciliation when all together will pay homage to the victims of the regimes both before and after the 1944 communist takeover. He made this statement on the Day of Homage to the Victims of the Communist Regime, marked on February 1 since 2011.

Earlier in the day, the Bulgarian Parliament kept a moment of silence for the victims of the communist regime but the MPs of Vazrazhdane did not rise to their feet, while BSP for Bulgaria walked out.

"Now we have to ask ourselves if, by honouring people who cut off heads, we are not actually rehabilitating fascism. Perhaps what has been happening in recent years is precisely this - a rehabilitation of fascism," Kostadinov said. "That is why we call for a day of national reconciliation and commemoration of all victims of the bloody, albeit undeclared civil war in Bulgaria, which began in 1918 with the Soldiers' Uprising and ended with the sentences passed by the People's Court."

"This is whom we have commemorated now - the murderers who killed or condemned to death 3,055 people between 1941 and 1944," Kostadinov said and showed graphic photos allegedly of beheaded partisans. "By comparison, the People's Court sentenced to death 2,730 people."

"We can argue whether there was classical fascism in Bulgaria or not (...) but one thing is clear - there was a fierce civil war and there were victims on both sides. If a nation wants to heal the wounds of the civil war, it must honour all victims," Kostadinov said.