The Rescue of Bulgarian Jewry

Many know the story of how Denmark rescued 8,000 Jews from the Nazis by smuggling them to Sweden in fishing boats.

Few, however, know the story of how all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved. For decades, all records were sealed by the Bulgarian Communists in an attempt to prevent glorification of the King, the Church, and the non-Communist parliamentarians who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans.

Until the Communist downfall in 1991, the story remained untold, the last great secret of the Holocaust era.

Bulgaria is a small country which, at the outset of World War II, had 7 million people. The Jewish community, having lived in Bulgaria since the 2nd century CE, numbered approximately 50,000.

During the war, Bulgaria aligned with Nazi Germany in hopes of recapturing Macedonia from Yugoslavia and Thrace from Greece, which had been stripped from Bulgaria following their defeat in World War I.

In 1940, Bulgaria instituted social and legal restrictions of its Jewish citizens, in the style of the infamous Nuremberg Laws. Bulgaria also deported non-Bulgarian Jews in those territories it had annexed from Yugoslavia and Greece. Then at the beginning of 1943, the Nazis informed the Bulgarian government that all Bulgarian Jews would be deported to Nazi-occupied Poland.

The news of this inhumanity was a hot topic of conversation, and public opposition began to grow. This was due to the sense of close-knit community in the small Bulgarian population, and particularly the fact that Bulgaria consisted of minorities – Armenians, Turks, Greeks and Gypsies, as well as Jews.

As the date for the deportation drew closer, Parliamentary leader Dimitar Peshev led a coalition of 43 legislators who registered an official protest. Newspapers denounced the deportation. The Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, actively worked against the deportation and issued fake baptism certificates in an attempt to save Jews. Bishop Cyril, who headed the church in Plovdiv, threatened to lie down on the railroad tracks and promised the Jews, "Wherever you go, I'll go with you.”

Finally, under public pressure, King Boris III forbade the deportation.

Since Bulgaria was a German ally, the cost of open resistance could have been total annihilation at the hand of Nazi troops. Yet the Germans were stretched militarily, and had to wrestle with the problem of how much pressure they could afford to apply in the face of this subversion. In the end, the Nazis decided to avoid a confrontation.

Thus Bulgaria became the only nation in Europe to save its entire Jewish population from the Nazi death camps, and King Boris has the distinction of being the only world leader to defy Hitler face-to-face during the war. (King Boris died under mysterious circumstances in 1943.)

Of the 50,000 Bulgarian Jews, some 40,000 went to Israel after the War. Among those was Michael Bar Zohar, who later served in the Israeli Knesset and wrote the remarkable book, Beyond Hitler's Grasp, detailing the rescue of Bulgarian Jewry.

The book was translated into Bulgarian, and the ADL shipped 30,000 copies to Bulgaria, to ensure that the population could learn about this heroic facet of their history.

Visitor Comments: 12

(11) Aron Bally, November 21, 2011 11:20 AM

The truth!!

The article is just another attempt to use the fact of the saving of the jews for political purposes. The fact of the saving is investigated by historians , but always there was the political stamp on the studies. Immediatelly after the end of WWII the book of Nathan Grinberg was published with the protocol , where the government of King Boris had agreed to send to Germany for annihilation 20 000 Jews form Bulgaria- 11700 - from the " new territories" and the rest from Kingdom of Bulgaria.Subject of en exhibition in the Beth Aam and stayed there till end of 1990. . Faximiles the reaction of many organisations like the union of the Bulgarian lawers, writers etc , the Sinod, letters and telegrams from tradeunions and personal declarations objecting to the attempt to send us to the extermination camps. An international conference with participation of historians from USA, France etc took place 1987, as well a traveling exibition on this topic , which was sent to several European capitals. From 1990 there is a pressure from heirs of the former pro Nazi supporters of the government 1939- 1944 and king Boris to whitewash the efforts to implement the adoption and implementation of the copy of the Neurenberg laws, voted in Bulgarian Parliament in 1940 and signed by King Boris. They want the people to forget that Bulgarian police and army gethered the Jews from the ' New territories" of Bulgaria and sent them to Treblinka. So we have to pay tribute to the Bulgarian people, Dimitar Peshev , the bulgarian inteligencia and ordinary people , who stopped this action and always to remember that there were powers in the Bulgarian Government who wanted to send us to the camps. So - honour for those who saved us and shame for those who did all to follow the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews in Bulgaria , as they did to the 11700 jews from the ' New" territrories of Bulgaria

(10) Sharon, October 28, 2011 9:12 AM

interesting point

As the author pointed out, Bulgaria was made up of many minority populations and they had the foresight to understand that when the persecutors come to get one minority it is the first step towards victimizing another and then ultimately they themselves might become the victims. There is also a similarity to the US which is still an "immigrant" society. If a Hitler were to rise there, who would he target? There are so many minorities.

(9) wieder, October 27, 2011 7:47 PM

it was actually 40,000 of 50,000 who were saved

i believe that these are the actual facts

(8) Ronnen, October 24, 2011 10:43 PM

Grandson

I have met King Boris' grandson living in Toronto, Ontario Canada. He actually works for the "Royal" Bank of Canada! G-d bless him and his family and the good bulgarian people.

(7) Abraham, October 24, 2011 12:26 AM

another (earlier?) account exists.

I have in front of me "the Saving of the Jews in Bulgaria" by Albert Cohen and Anri Assa published by the State Publishing House of Bulgaria in 1977. This book credits, among others, with the saving of Jewish lives, Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov (all members of the Peopl;e's Assembly), Metropolitan Kiril (Bishop Cyril), and Prof. Staynov and mentions also Rabbis Erenprais (sic) and Daniel Zion. Prof Staynov is stated to have protested to the Bulgarian Minister of Home Affairs against the deportation of Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia. The book has many photographs including of the two rabbis and the Metropolitan and facsimiles of letters and documents (some of which I unfortunately cannot understand as they are in Bulgarian or German). Assuming the reproduced documents do in fact bear out what the authors say, it seems that your article’s statement that “all records were sealed by the Bulgarian Communists in an attempt to prevent glorification of the King, the Church, and the non-Communist parliamentarians who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans.“ may go too far. I acknowledge that almost certainly the book came out with State assistance as Communist propaganda (certainly the king’s role is not given much importance and the monarchical government of Filov is accused of being fascist and collaborating with the Germans), but the role of Bishop Cyril is not played down. I do not know whether Messrs Peshev, Michalev, Suichmezov, Momchilov and Prof. Staynov and others mentioned were communists or not.

Anonymous, January 8, 2012 8:57 AM

Prof. Staynov was cetrainly not communist. He and his family suffered greatly from the communist government aftrewards and have been persecuted till 1991 when the communist fall from power. I believe same is true for the other families mentioned by you.

(6) syd, October 24, 2011 12:18 AM

What a marvelous fact. Should be spread far and wide. How we all should be.....

(5) Ana Lebl, October 23, 2011 8:18 PM

I would like to share some links in memory of the killed Jews from Macedonia, East Serbia and Greece

I would like Aish.com to share the following links with the Aish readers, so that they get a chance to add this knowledge to the posted article about saved Jews in Bulgaria. Thank you! Also,in the year 2000 Israeli government and Yad Vashem agreed to remove the monument to the Bulgarian king Boris. Deportation and murder of Macedonian Jews by Bulgarian Nazis in Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia www.youtube.com Macedonian Jews, Major deportations to extermination camps, 1942-1944 by BULGARIAN-NAZI www.youtube.com Empty Boxcars Documentary Movie by Ed Gaffney www.youtube.com http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/bulgaria-accepts-blame-for-11-000-holocaust-deaths-1.242878#.TpiUvKk-5wk.facebook Bulgaria accepts blame for 11,000 Holocaust deaths www.haaretz.com See and write to "The Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia" (facebook)

(4) Alex, October 23, 2011 6:59 PM

Bulgarian pride

The company I work for has a branch office in Bulgaria, and I've worked closely with a lot of the people there. Some of them have told me that they are indeed proud of their compatriots' heroism in saving Bulgarian Jewry during the war, as described so well in this article.

(3) ljiljana, October 23, 2011 6:32 PM

www.holocaustfund.org.

(2) Jack, October 23, 2011 4:23 PM

Culpability

I have been living in Germany off and on for 20 years now. Many Germans who lived through the war say that they knew about the persecution but didn't know about the Final Solution. I don't believe them, because the man on the street in Holland, France and Bulgaria knew. So why wouldn't the Germans know?

(1) Anonymous, October 23, 2011 3:31 PM

moving story

several years ago i saw an interesting documentary on the subject of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews. I think it was called "The Optimists." It was made by a film-maker who resides in the U.S., but was born and raised in Israel. His parents were Bulgarian immigrants. Bulgaria is not a high-profile country, and the community was small, so the story is not well-known. The most famous Bulgarian Israeli that I know of is former prime minister Yitzchak Shamir.