Bulgaria's History of Tolerance

At a time when the neighboring Balkans are engulfed in the mire of ethnic hatred, Bulgaria stands as a living symbol of a country where tolerance and human rights are values deeply ingrained in society and culture. Respect for human rights and tolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities has been deeply ingrained in the history and culture of Bulgaria during the 20th century. For example, Bulgarians welcomed thousands of Armenians during the early years of the 20th century, when they were subject to suffering and persecution in any countries.

Then, during the darkest days of the Holocaust, Bulgarians demonstrated a remarkable example of courage and heroism when they acted to save the country’s Jewish population, estimated at 50,000 persons, from deportation to Nazi concentration camps.

Bulgaria was allied with Germany in the Second World War. In 1940, it gave into intensive German pressure to the enact Nuremberg-type racism laws in Bulgaria. In reality, the laws were never really enforced. Adolf Hitler’s doctrine was alien and incomprehensible to the vast majority of Bulgarians. Then, in March 1943, when deportation trains were waiting to take Bulgaria’s Jews to concentration camps, Bulgarians defied Germany and ordered the expulsions canceled. Instead of being sent to the camps, Bulgaria’s Jews were sent into the provinces from the capital city of Sofia. Many were assigned to public works projects. At the end of the Second World War, not a single Bulgarian Jew had been deported or killed in the Holocaust.

Bishop Stefan, leader of the Orthodox Church in Sofia, went to King Boris and told him, “If the persecution against the Jews continues, I shall open the doors of all Bulgarian churches to them and then we shall see who can drive them out.”

His counterpart in Plovdiv, Bishop Kyril, also sent a telegram -- he threatened to lie down on the railroad tracks to block the deportations and to take up arms against the government.

Despite its alliance with Germany, Bulgaria managed to maintain its institutions of government -- the monarchy and Parliament – throughout World War II. This enabled the country’s leadership and people to stand up to Hitler and Nazi Germany.

This remarkable story has recently been reported by Michael Bar-Zohar, an internationally-acclaimed Israeli writer of Bulgarian ancestry, in his latest book, Beyond Hitler’s Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews. Mr. Bar-Zohar reports that the history of Bulgarian Jews would have been very different, were it not for the actions and courage of many civic leaders and intellectuals, the resistance of Bulgarian church leaders, and the decency and tolerance of hundreds of nameless Bulgarians who remained immune to racism, anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism.

At the height of German efforts to deport Bulgarian Jews to concentration campaign, a member of the Bulgarian Parliament, Todor Kojukharov, put the case against giving in to the German demands in terms of Bulgaria’s survival as an independent entity. "The only moral capital a small nation has is to be a righteous nation. Only a righteous Bulgaria can demand that her rights be respected by stronger nations," he said. It remains true to this day.

During the war, Germany began to exert an increasing pressure on the Bulgarian authorities to arrange the so-called "final settlement of the Jewish question". So, in December 1940, the National Assembly adopted the disgraceful Defense of the Nation Act, which initiated a state-organized terror against and persecution of Jews (and freemasons). Intermarriages were contracted only illegally, a ban was imposed on being in practice of certain professions, extraordinary taxes were levied. This is how the everyday consequences of this law were described by Bohor Pilosov from Dupnitza, "the most Jewish of all towns in Bulgaria" (one fourth of its population): "Then we had to wear Davidic badges, we were put under curfew, we could buy bread from only one particular baker's shop, there were streets where we were forbidden to step in. Six or seven months a year the men, starting from pre-recruit age up to 50-55 years old, were sent to "labor camps". Food was enough, but of incredibly poor quality. Among the warders, most of them retired officers and sergeants, there were downright beasts, but also regular Bulgarians, who made every effort to alleviate our plight."

Nevertheless, anti-Semitism, as well as the Defense of the Nation Law itself were utterly alien to the Bulgarian way of life and national mentality. The anti-Jewish campaign met with no understanding by both peasants and city dwellers, by the intelligentsia, the Orthodox church, and the ruling circles. The planned secret deportation of the Jewish population to the German concentration camps was frustrated by the civil protests, as well as by the official counteraction of the deputies. The Deportation Act was repealed by the then deputy chairman of the National Assembly, Dimitar Peshev (even so, after the war, there was not a single person to defend him, and he was sentenced as a Fascist and ... anti-Semite by the communist regime). Apart from this, many Romanian, Polish, as well as Czech, Hungarian and Lithuanian Jews traveled through Bulgaria and Romania on their way to Haifa and Palestine.

In his Francis Boyer Lecture Judge Clarence Thomas (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Washington, D.C., February 13, 2001) says: "Peshev was ... a man like many, simple and straightforward, not a great intellectual, not a military hero. Just a civil servant, doing his job as best he could, raising his family, struggling through a terrible moment in European history."

In present-day Bulgaria there is an ongoing argument as to who is to thank for saving the Jews. There is some evidence that this happened with the help also of some backstairs combinations of tzar Boris III himself. In any case, one thing is beyond question: the local Jews were not sent to the gas chambers owing to the energetic opposition of the majority of the Bulgarian society. Read more about this period of the history of Bulgaria here.

Unfortunately, this did not affect the Jews from Aegean Thrace (now in Greece) and Vardar Macedonia (now Republic of Macedonia), which were then under German occupation and Bulgarian administration . In March 1943, about 11 thousand Jews from these parts were deported and later perished in the Holocaust. It is impossible to find words to express our sorrow about it.

Bulgaria’s actions during the Holocaust are a demonstration of a country that views ethnic tolerance and minority rights as an essential foundation for civilized society. This continues to the present day. During the Communist era, Bulgarians resisted the anti-Turkish propaganda of the ruling regime. Since the fall of Communism in 1989, Bulgaria has taken steps to improve the political, economic and social conditions of the country’s ethnic Turkish population, which today numbers 800,000 persons.

Bulgarian Jews in Israel and at a Sephardic synagogue in Los Angeles mark the rescue each year, and several major Jewish organizations -- including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress -- have recognized Bulgaria’s wartime effort in recent years.

Israel marked the Day of the Holocaust on Sunday, April 30, 2000, and the Knesset paid tribute to the memory 1943 National Assembly deputy chairman Dimiter Peshev, who is believed to have saved the Bulgarian Jews.

Read the story of Albert Alkalai from Plovdiv, Bulgaria. More about the salvation of Bulgarian Jews during World War II here.