Bulgarian parliament commemorates salvation of country's Jews

AP / The Jerusalem Post ^ | 11 March 2003 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Mar. 11, 2003
Bulgarian parliament commemorates salvation of country's Jews
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgarians can be proud of their ancestors, who helped rescue the country's Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps, parliament said in a declaration adopted Tuesday.

The declaration was passed during an extraordinary session that marked the end of a week of events memorializing the 60th anniversary of nationwide protests that helped rescue the country's Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps.

The pro-fascist government in 1943 issued a deportation order that would have sent the country's Jews to the Nazi death camps. The order was rescinded by King Boris III following a deluge of protests and appeals from parliamentarians, clergymen, intellectuals and ordinary Bulgarians.

In a speech to parliament on Tuesday, President Georgi Parvanov honored the memory of the 6 million Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and the Bulgarian people who saved its 50,000-strong Jewish community.

But Parvanov also stressed "the responsibility of the government for the death of 11,343 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace," regions that were then under Bulgarian administration.

Bulgaria had aligned itself with Germany to reclaim its former territories of Thrace - now part of Greece and Macedonia, which it had lost during World War I. The pro-fascist majority in parliament passed anti-Semitic laws and the government of Bogdan Filov devised a plan for the deportation of all Jews.

By the time King Boris III rescinded the deportation order, the Jews in Macedonia and Thrace had already been deported.

Israel's former President Itzhak Navon attended Tuesday's parliamentary session, during which lawmakers said they wanted to contribute to the international efforts to fight xenophobia, anti-Semitism, prejudice and international terrorism.

About 45,000 Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel after that country was established in 1948. Now the Jewish community numbers about 5,000, most of whom live in Sofia.