“To most people my age, born in other European countries, such a return meant a heart-rending meeting with the graves of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. I, who was born here, whose childhood passed in this wonderful country am visiting it for the second time with much love and affection. You, Bulgarians were different compared to any other European nation. It is thanks to this historical difference that we are here today, at this international event, marking the rescue of Bulgarian Jews. There were nations who tried to help the Jews persecuted by the Nazis. There were nations, who did rescue some of their Jews, but it is a historically acknowledged fact that most European nations acquiesced to Hitler’s monstrous “final solution” and frequently helped put it through.”

These words belong to Shulamit Shamir, wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The recording was made 45 years after an event of epic proportions from the time of World War II – the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews.

The adoption of anti-Jewish laws and the persecutions started in Europe in the mid-1930’s. After Germany, anti-Jewish laws were adopted by Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, occupied France and Belgium and the concentration camps were created. In 1942, at a conference in Berlin, the infamous “final solution” for the extermination of the Jews in Europe was adopted, opening the floodgates for deportation to the death camps from all occupied countries and the Axis powers. 48,000 – this is the number of Jews that have to be exterminated in Bulgaria, in the list compiled by countries.

“It is an established fact that out of all countries, crushed beneath the Nazi jack boot – the darkest times in the history of Europe and of the Jewish people – Bulgaria was the only country to have saved its Jews. Honour and glory to the noble Bulgarian people,” Shulamit Shamir says. “Not that the Nazi butchers didn’t want to take the Jews of Bulgaria to the slaughter. It is a well-known fact that the transport barges were standing at the ready in the ports of the Danube. Hundreds of thousands of Jews had been herded to be transported to the ports of exit on the Danube. The plans for the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews were finalized; the trains for the transportation of the human cargo were ready and waiting at the railway stations. And that was when history witnessed a miracle - one whole nation: intellectuals and labourers, people from the villages and from the towns, the church, the Holy Synod, men and women, all rose as one to rescue their compatriots, the Jews from the fascists in those infernal times.”

Bulgaria’s policy of joining the Tripartite Pact, as well as on the Jewish question was dictated by the government and the monarch’s desire to see Bulgaria re-united after the fiasco of World War I and by fears that the country would be trampled underfoot by the Wehrmacht as so many other European countries had been. So, at the end of 1940, around two months before the country joined the Tripartite Pact, parliament adopted the infamous Law on the protection of the nation. Despite protests that it is anti-constitutional, the law was promulgated and a number of prohibitions put in place for the Jewish community and a huge tax was imposed on their property. In February 1943, after pressure from Germany, the Belev-Dannecker agreement was signed, envisaging the deportation of some 20,000 Jews from the so-called new territories - Vardar Macedonia, Aegean Thrace and Pirot. However, they in fact numbered no more than 14,000. This prompted the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs, headed by Alexander Belev to include another 6-8,000 from the “old territories”: from Kyustendil, Doupnitsa, Plovdiv, Pazardjik. The sinister plan fell through, foiled by parliament’s deputy chair Dimitar Peshev and Bulgarian MPs who found out about it. With the aim of putting a spoke in the wheels of any deportation plans in the future, Peshev took things into his own hands and wrote a letter that was to become famous, denouncing the government’s covert intentions; under this letter he collected the signatures of 43 MPs. As a result he was ousted from the position of deputy chair of the National Assembly but his actions proved crucial in the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews.

Another attempt was made that same year to “solve the Jewish question” – Germany demanded the deportation of all of the almost 50,000 Bulgarian Jews. Tsar Boris III was given two options – either that or interning 20,000 Jews from Sofia to the country. He gave his approval to the second plan. After the latest in a series of meetings with Hitler, when he once again refused to dispatch Bulgarian troops to the Eastern front and to have the Jews deported from Bulgaria, the Bulgarian monarch died. But to all intents and purposes, the active persecution in Bulgaria had stopped after August 1943. Meanwhile the most influential figure in the Bulgarian Orthodox church – metropolitan bishop Stefan sent a letter to all churches asking them to do what they can to facilitate the lives of the people subjected to persecution.

“That is a wonderful chapter in the history of the Bulgarian people and in the history of the Jewish people. And it can serve as the basis for a powerful spiritual bond between them.”

These words were spoken by Shulamit Shamir 45 years later and they come as confirmation of the words of the German ambassador to Bulgaria – yes, there is no way to prevail on Bulgarians to hate Jews.

English version: Milena Daynova