Galery

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The fate of the Jews in the part occupied by Bulgaria, namely Drama, Kavala, Xanthi, Komotini, Serres was not happy either. There were small Jewish communities there with a rich cultural tradition. A total of about 4,200 Jews that had been “collected” by the Bulgarian authorities, police and army had been transported by trucks to Bulgaria. They were held in temporary camps there for some time and then subsequently taken to the port of Lom on the Danube River from where they were transported to Vienna by ship. In Vienna, the Bulgarian police delivered them to the German authorities and the Jews were directly transported to Auschwitz and Treblinka, where they were almost immediately liquidated. 98% of this population died.

It is simply unacceptable to say that there was no Holocaust against Greek Jews in the face of these horrific facts.

What is Bulgaria's involvement in these events as an ally of Nazi Germany?

Bulgaria has a seemingly differentiated attitude to the Jews from the "old" and "new" territories and an essential part of my book is dedicated to this issue.

It must be emphasized that the official Bulgarian state in the period 1940-1944 was completely hostile to Jews and persecuted them in different ways: after the vote on the Law on Protection of the Nation (along with a series of laws and regulations for the destruction of all civil and economic rights of Jews) and the establishment of the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs, it had begun a systematic persecution of the Jewish population throughout the old and new Kingdom of Bulgaria, whose ultimate goal was the camps in occupied Poland. The completion of this plan, agreed between the Government of Bogdan Filov and the Germans, and approved by Boris III, Tsar of Bulgaria, had begun from the "peripheral" areas of the Kingdom. Therefore, the first victims were the Jews in the occupied territories of northern Greece, Macedonia and Pirot. They had been "collected" in order to be deported on 4 and 11 March 1943 according to a schedule agreed between Germany and Bulgaria and, respectively, between Filov and Ribbentrop in August 1942 (Bogdan Filov had even then insisted on "solving the issue of deportation of all Jews from the Kingdom of Bulgaria" but the German government had a busy schedule after the Wannsee Conference on the "final solution" and replied that the order of Bulgaria was scheduled for March 1943).

However, being aware of the plan of the deportation and therefore of the probable destruction of the Jewish population, parts of Bulgarian society and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church stood for the Jews from the "old" land, whose deportation should have started on 10 March 1943 according to schedule. It was initially "postponed" because of their protection and logistical problems, but the subsequent attempts to implement it had also been hampered. After the death of Boris III, Tsar of Bulgaria, in August 1943 (when the last date of deportation was), there were significant disturbances in the ruling of the country and the issue was abandoned.

Had Bulgarian Jews been saved through the delivery of Jews from Macedonia and Thrace? Do you agree with this statement?
 
No, I have always been opposed to this thesis. It is artificial and a serious examination of documents and events shows that it is untenable. The deportation of all Jews from the Kingdom of Bulgaria was a well considered government plan, coordinated at all levels, prepared for two years with the help of "legal" provisions and a number of concrete actions for which there are documents and significant evidence. The process had started but it was not completely finished inside the country due to disorders in the system, including logistics and because of the unusual intervention of some prominent figures, including deputies, clergymen and public figures. We must not forget that Bulgaria was a small country and in the absence of political parties suspended by Boris III, Tsar of Bulgaria, it was governed through the intervention of individual authorities. At one point, they had played a positive role as regards the delay of fatal decisions on the fate of Jews which, until the last moment of the collaboration between Bulgaria and Nazi Germany, was not guaranteed. However, these same authorities had not helped as regards the salvation of the Jewish population from the "new" territories, 98% of which was destroyed in the death camps.

How would you comment on the rise and increase in popularity of Golden Dawn in Greece?

Unfortunately, the case with Golden Dawn is not isolated. There are recurrences of nostalgia for Nazism in other former communist countries as well. The SS march is held in Latvia, they celebrate a Nazi general in Lithuania, the Jobbik party in Hungary exhibits definite xenophobic and anti-Semitic behaviour which has made several prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Kertesh leave the country, the Ustasha Party has been re-established in Croatia which is known as the party that had committed the Holocaust against Croatian Jews. In Bulgaria, the so-called Lukov march has been conducted for 10 years already, which is a neo-Nazi march, involving several far-right organizations. Unfortunately, the authorities and the municipality of Sofia are not taking a serious view of this provocative event that has been taking place undisturbed.