Detailed accounts of the suffering endured by the Jews of Bulgaria under the pro-German regimes are being disclosed here at the trial of members of the former governments as “war criminals.”
One witness testified that the late King Boris made an arrangement with the Germans under which 20,000 Jews were deported to Poland, with Bulgaria bearing the expenses of their deportation. All Bulgarian Jews would have suffered the same fate but for the resistance of certain anti-Fascist members of the Sobrajne, the Bulgarian Parliament, the witness said.
Communist Deputy Dyukmedzhiev, who was expelled from the Sobrajne by the fascists, related how prior to new elections several years ago a member of the former government summoned the leaders of the Jewish Consistory and warned them of “grave repercussions” if the country’s Jewish population did not vote for the government candidates.
A Jew named Cholebi polikar described how he and his family, together with other Jewish families, were interned near Somovit. Here 120 people were crowded into one hut, which was set afire at the direction of a 20-year-old Bulgarian storm trooper. Eleven people were burned to death and 20 severely injured.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
