How Plovdiv Dignitary Obreiko Obreikov Helped Save Jews from Deportation to Nazi Death Camps

Lalka Obreikova is the granddaughter of Obreiko Obreikov, a respected public figure in his home city of Plovdiv in his day. She told BTA she is proud that her family was involved in the rescue of Jews in Plovdiv during WWII. Obreikov was among the authors of a proclamation against the deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps.

"What I know from my father, who was a child during those events, is that on March 9, 1943, in a telephone conversation, the Deputy Chair of the National Assembly, Dimitar Peshev, a close friend of my grandfather, informed him of the upcoming deportation of Jews and asked for his help," Lalka told BTA.

Her grandfather sought out Metropolitan Kirill and together with the members of his company and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which he chaired, they began elaborate planning to organize a meeting in the Chamber. He made a list of the people to be invited and they started reaching out to people: by phone, visiting their homes or writing them letters. The most active people in the campaign were clerks from his own company and his sons, Licho and Stefan Obreikov. The meeting was held in the evening of the same day. Speeches were delivered by Metropolitan Kiril, Obreiko Obreikov, Angel Stankov, who chaired the Plovdiv Bar Association, Yordan Kovachev, Georgi Krastev, Georgi Shivachev, Nedko Kableshkov, all of them lawyers, and Luka Govedarov, a journalist, Dr. Theophil Gruev, Dr. Todor Bliznakov, as well as a number of cultural figures who were against the deportations and insisted that this shameful act should stop immediately. "They wrote a proclamation, undersigned it and took it to the post office to be sent to Sofia," Lalka said.

"This letter, however, never reached Sofia and cannot be found. It was left in the post office to be sent to the capital, but the postal clerks informed the authorities and the letter disappeared," she told BTA.

The next morning a police officer went to Obreikov's home and ordered him to report to the municipality. There, they tried to force him to relinquish his signature. "My grandfather flatly refused," said Lalka.

"Early the next morning, aunt Ivet Anavi came to our house. She was then a little girl. She told my grandfather that they were rounding up the Jews in the yard of the Jewish school. More than 1,500 Jews – men, women and children, gathered there to await their departure for the death camps. tens of intellectuals, neighbours, friends, all kinds of people, rushed to the school to protect their Jewish fellow townsfolk. There is the well-known story about Metropolitan Kiril jumping over the school fence to join the Jews, and threatening that if the trains depart, he would be on them as well. We know about the petition of the members of Parliament in defence of the Jews, about Dimitar Peshev visiting King Boris III the same night and the promise the King same that not a single Jew would be deported from Bulgaria," Obreikova said. 

She added that it was thanks to "very many people and the Church that an anti-democratic act was stopped" and the deportation of Jews from Bulgaria failed.

Lalka remembers her father telling her that Dimitar Peshev confided with her grandfather that certain people wanted to remove him from Parliament and threatened his seat as Parliament's Deputy Chair. Obreikov told him that he should present his reasoning in writing and offer to resign. 

Peshev did write a speech to set out his reasoning. He did not offer to resign as Deputy Chair but was removed nonetheless.

For his noble work for the rescue of Bulgarian Jews from being deported to the Nazi death camps, Obreiko Obreikov was honored posthumously in 2018 by the organization of Jews in Bulgaria and the Union of Bulgarian Jews in Israel with a certificate from the project titled "75 Years. The Unforgotten Faces of Salvation".

Every year on March 10, as Plovdiv remembers the salvation of Jews, members of the Obreikov family are invited to share their memories of those days.

Alberta Alkalai, the chairperson of the Alef Centre for Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation, says: "Obreiko Obreikov remained forever in the memory of generations of Plovdiv Jews. His resolute and courageous opposition to the deportation of his fellow townsfolk is a bright example of moral values and humanism."

Obreiko Obreikov was born June 7, 1891 in Plovdiv. He graduated in law (1912) and earned a doctoral degree in Montpellier, France (1914). He fought in WWI as a reserve officer and was decorated with an Order for Valour, Fourth Class. He then went on to study and graduate in finance in Paris. After that enrolled as a medical student in Vienna but his father asked him to go back home to take over the family business. between 1930 and 1943, he was President of the Plovdiv Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  Between 1933 and 1940, he was the first Director of the Plovdiv Fair and played a key role in its establishment as a major annual international exhibition. He also played a big role in modernizing the food canning and chemical industry in Plovdiv. After the 1944 communis coup d'etat, he remained on the Board of Director of the Plovdiv Fair. He died on March 12, 1969. A monument in the Plovdiv Fair campus honors his life and work.