In the same month that the deportation of the 1,500 Jews of the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv began, the local bishop, Metropolitan Kiril, succeeded in halting it. Kiril sent a personal telegram to the king begging for his mercy towards the Jews and contacted the head of the local police, threatening to end his loyalty towards Bulgaria and to act as he wished. Further testimony claims that he threatened to lie across the railway tracks in order to stop the deportation. When told that his actions had proved successful and that this deportation order had been cancelled he rushed to the Jewish school—which the authorities had turned into a roundup point for the Jews—and told them the good news.
Vera Mileva Kocheva was a young mother who wore a yellow star in support of her Jewish friends and who hide her friends during raids.
“Jews were our friends, our close brothers, our soul mates.
My best friend, who has remained my most cherished friend all my life, is Rachelle Alkalai. She is Jewish.
The persecution of the Jews started with banning them from the main streets. I suffered from our government’s attitude towards the Jews.
So, I started going with them to protest meetings. I went to the synagogue.
I even wore the yellow star when I was with Jews— –out of solidarity, out of sorrow at seeing our dearest friends being insulted.”
Penka Kassabova, was a pioneer of early childhood education in Bulgaria. During WWII Penka took to her school four Jewish students, even though the ‘Law for the defense of the nation’ did not allow to admit Jewish students into higher education institutions. One of these students was my mom Ika Comforty who lives in Tel Aviv, and who have stayed in touch with Penka all her life. My mom saw Penka as the most influential person in her life. Penka’s values were passed to me by my mom as a child. They are very important to me today as an adult.
Ms Kassabova, was the sister of Geo Millev, the great Bulgarian poet. In 1925-1928 she came to the US, to Evanston Illinois to study at the National College of Education. It was then called National College of Kindergarten. When she returned to Bulgaria she became a teacher and later the principal of the American Kindergarten in Sofia and the school for kindergarten teachers. The school was shut down by the fascist regime in 1943, because Penka admitted Jewish students to her school, and for her refusal to let the pro-Nazi youth movement ‘Branik’ to recruit and operate in the school. Her school was never reopened. Penka Kassabova died in the year 2000 at age 99.
Anton Kirilov was a judge and friend of Niko Nissimov since their high school times. in 1942 Niko was drafted to serve as a pharmacist in the state’s hospital in Xanti, a territory newly annexed by Bulgaria.
By the summer of 1942, Bulgaria had a Commissariat for Jewish Affairs. It was headed by Alexander Belev, a notorious anti- Semite. He zealously implemented every Nazi order.
Soon after, Bulgaria allowed Nazi Germany to deport to the death camps all Bulgarian Jewish citizens living in other countries under Nazi occupation.
By early February, 1943, Bulgaria signed with Nazi Germany a top secret agreement: 20,000 Jews from both Bulgaria and its occupied territories were to be deported to death camps in Poland.
First,4,000 Jews were to be rounded up from the Bulgarian- occupied territories in Greece.The plan was to transport them by train through Bulgaria. Late in February 1943 many trains loaded with soldiers headed south to implement the deportation. Belev came to personally oversee the operation.
Niko Nissimov:
“I was in Xanti until March 3, 1943. At 3 in the morning, they pounded on the door and said, “Please come down immediately. Bring 40 kilos of luggage.” And they took us, along with all the Jews of Greece, on the way to Auschwitz.” We got on the train in Greece and went to the Bulgarian border town, Petrich. There we were transferred to a narrower Bulgarian train. All along the way we saw Jewish forced laborers.
As we passed by, these Jews threw us money and bread. They understood we had none.
My brother happened to be working there, and he saw me in one of the cars. That same night he managed to go back to Sofia, to two of my friends—Christians.”
Anton Kirilov:
“Niko’s friend, Nasko, told me what happened. We decided to look for Niko the next day. We met at the train station the next morning. We left with the first train.
We arrived in the town of Dupnitza, and we went to the Jewish community. They took us to the tobacco warehouse where Niko was held. In the entrance was a big gate. We were left to wait there.
The yard of the tobacco warehouse of Balkan Tabak where the deported Jews were held. water tanks, guards and a nurse are visible in the yard.
“The yard was an ugly picture: old Jews with beards—poor them!—small children running around, unaware of their fate. We sat there and waited.
And all of a sudden, here comes Niko out of the crowd. He came, we hugged him. I think it was his birthday. We calmed him down: ‘Now that we’ve found you, we will do everything to free you.’”
Niko wearing the yellow star as his friends photographed him after finding him.
Niko Nissimov: “We were eleven Jews from Bulgaria, doctors and pharmacists. My two friends went back to the health department in Sofia, and got us transferred.
Then, my friends returned and gave us the letters of transit. The guards said, ‘Ok, leave. Take a train to where you’ve been stationed.’
That was, of course, March 1943. From March 3rd through the 14th, I was on the train on the way to Auschwitz, none of the others came back, not even one of them.”
Anton Kirilov: “That’s how it was, a terrible period. What a terrible thing, to feel chased and persecuted like a dog, like a wild animal. To be searched at any time . . . .
Yes, everything is behind us—it’s forgotten. In Bulgaria today some people say there was no fascism here during the war. I beg your pardon? There was no fascism in Bulgaria?”
Rubin Dimitrov was a baker whose bakery was in the Jewish neighborhood. He was very helpful to his Jewish neighbor. He bought medicines for the neighbor when the neighbor was interned to
a labor camp and Dimitrov was arrested, beaten up by the police, and accused of being a “Jew lover” for smuggling these medicines to the neighbor. When the police attacked the Jewish demonstrators after the antideportation demonstration, he realized he could help in other ways:
“During the riots of May 24, I saw Jews running from the police. One couldn’t sit idly by, arms crossed, doing nothing. A true human being is obliged to help. I had an idea that I could hide this group of five or six people. So, I opened the door of my bakery oven to hide these people. And what were these people guilty of? Their only guilt in my opinion was that they were Jews, nothing else.”
Two Heads of the Independent Orthodox Church (Bulgaria’s largest Church), who saved Jews during the Holocaust, have been named as Righteous Among the Nations by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.
Metropolitan (Bishop) Stephan, the Head of the Sofian Church, and in practice, the highest ranking Bulgarian Church official during the Holocaust, and Metropolitan Kiril, the Head of the Church in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, vigorously opposed the anti-Jewish policies of the Bulgarian regime and took active steps against its policy of deporting the Jews of Bulgaria and handing them over to the Germans.
Toward the end of 1940 Bulgaria, a member of the Axis powers, made known its intention to pass the “Law for the Defense of the Nation.” The aim of the Law was to limit the rights of minorities suspected of practical subversion; however, its true intention was to deny the rights of the Jews. In November of that same year the Holy Synod (the highest body in the Bulgarian Church, made up of 11 bishops), headed by Metropolitan Stephan, sent a letter to the Bulgarian Prime Minister with a copy to the Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament asking to amend the proposed law. One of the amendments was a separate clause relating to the Jews: “Let no account be taken of laws against the Jews as a national minority, but let purposeful steps be taken against all the real dangers to the spiritual, cultural, economical, public, and political life of the Bulgarian people, from whatever direction these dangers come.”
After the passing of the Law by the Bulgarian Parliament, and its signing by King Boris III in January 1941, Metropolitan Stephan continued to speak out against the persecution of the Jews.
In November 1942 Beckerle, the German Ambassador in Bulgaria, reported to his superiors in Germany on Metropolitan Stephan’s actions against the Bulgarian authorities’ anti-Jewish policy. In a later report to his superiors, Beckerle sent the German translation of an announcement by the Bulgarian Fascist Party, dated July 1943, calling for the liquidation of Stephan “the sooner the better!”
In early March 1943 the Bulgarian Government decided to hand over the first group of 800 Jews from Sofia to the Germans. All the preparations had been made and the cattle cars were waiting in the capital’s train station. The Head of the Sofia Jewish Community, Abraham Alphasy, requested Metropolitan Stephan’s intervention. Stephan immediately traveled to the king’s palace and asked to meet him. The king, aware of his request feigned illness to avoid him, but Stephan refused to leave the palace until he met with the king. The king was forced to receive him and was asked by Stephan to postpone the decision to hand the Jews over to the Germans, or Stephan would instruct all churches and monasteries to open their doors to Jews and give them a place to hide, thus violating the order of the authorities. The king gave into Stephan’s demands, and after additional parties asked the Bulgarian Government to halt the deportation, the decision to deport the 800 Jews was postponed.
In the same month that the deportation of the 1,500 Jews of the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv began, the local bishop, Metropolitan Kiril, succeeded in halting it. Kiril sent a personal telegram to the king begging for his mercy towards the Jews and contacted the head of the local police, threatening to end his loyalty towards Bulgaria and to act as he wished. Further testimony claims that he threatened to lie across the railway tracks in order to stop the deportation. When told that his actions had proved successful and that this deportation order had been cancelled he rushed to the Jewish school—which the authorities had turned into a roundup point for the Jews—and told them the good news.
In April 1943 Metropolitan Stephan convened a special Holy Synod plenary session to discuss the persecution of the country’s converted Jews as well as all other Jews. At the end of the session a general consensus was reached and it was decided among other things that the Bulgarian Church could not accept this racist law. The Church could not agree to the restriction and deprivation of the rights of certain members of the community, which would be in total contravention to the principles of the Christian doctrine. It was also decided that the Church could not deny help and protection to the persecuted and oppressed—both Jews and Christian Bulgarians had asked the Church to help and protect the Jews. Thus the Church called for the cancellation of the restrictions against the Jews and for the protection of converted Jews—allowing them full rights as citizens. The text of the decision was sent to the Bulgarian Prime Minister with a copy to the king, which resulted in the king’s arranging a meeting of the Holy Synod at his palace. At the meeting the king tried to persuade the members of the Holy Synod to support the anti-Jewish policy by using the Church’s love of the Bulgarian Nation. However they continued to insist on the cancellation of the restricting decrees against the Jews and to take converted Jews into special consideration.
As the German pressure to deport the Bulgarian Jews increased, Alexander Belev—the Head of the Commission for Jewish Affairs, responsible for the Jews of Bulgaria— presented two alternate plans for the deportation of the Jews: to hand over the Sofian Jews directly to the Germans or to evacuate them to the countryside. The king chose the second option, which held up the handing over of the Jews to the Germans. When the Sofian Jews received their deportation order the Jewish community’s Chief Rabbi Asher Hananel and Rabbi Daniel Zion contacted Metropolitan Stephan and pleaded for the cancellation of the deportation order. Stephan immediately took active steps and sent a number of messages to the king, including a plea to have mercy on the Jews and a caution “Do not persecute so that you yourself will not be persecuted. Your measures shall be returned to you. I know Boris that from heaven God will keep watch over your actions.” At the same time the Bulgarian authorities—the Ministry of the Interior and the Prime Minister’s Office—informed Metropolitan Stephan that the country would not recognize the Church’s conversion ceremonies (on the Jews) and therefore those citizens were to be considered Jews and eligible for deportation; however, this was not accepted by Stephan. Bulgaria’s Attorney General opened an investigation into Stephan’s suspected handing out of certificates of baptism to all who requested them, and the police raided his office, confiscating all Jewish requests for conversions.
Despite Stephan’s and other public leaders’ignored protests, and the Sofian Jews’ deportation to the countryside, Alexander Belev’s plan did not reach the second stage, and the Jews were not handed over to the Germans. The deportation of the Jews of Bulgaria was postponed again and again until it was finally cancelled with the sudden and mysterious death of King Boris, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the fear of an invasion of the Balkans. In September
1944, with the Red Army closing in on Bulgaria’s borders, the new Bulgarian government declared war on Germany.
Metropolitan Stephan passed away in 1957 and Metropolitan Kiril in 1971
Source: Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority
Dimo Kazasov was a prominent parliamentarian who tried to prevent the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews. He did this primarily by stirring large sections of the public to rise up against the persecution of Jews. Kazasov was a publicist and the editor of Bulgaria’s largest newspaper. Between 1918 and
1935, with brief interludes, he had been a representative
in Bulgaria’s Assembly, until the democracy became a dictatorship. In 1940, discussions began regarding “the Law for the Defense of the Nation”—an imitation of Germany’s anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws. Kazasov wrote an open letter to the prime minister, copies of which were sent to the king and to the legislative assembly: “You have fallen low! In the past you fought at international conferences for the rights of Bulgarian minorities to live in peace in their countries of residence. And now you attack the Jewish minority in your own country. In so doing, you dishonor the entire Bulgarian People. ‘The law for the protection of the nation’ is a disgrace. You are attacking a minority which lives among us and which has sacrificed itself for this country. How dare you place them outside of the law? Whom are you trying to buy with the lies you are spreading regarding the riches which the Jews have amassed? This is not Jewish money, but Bulgarian money, since they are a part of the Bulgarian People. You have but one means by which to cover up your deceit—the whip and the censor. But the truth—whether you like it or not—will win. . . .” The letter shocked the regime. Kazasov was arrested by the political police. He was imprisoned for a number of days, but his standing and popularity prevented the authorities from extending his detention. He was explicitly warned that if he should again intervene on behalf of the Jews, he would be sent along with them to a concentration camp. His letter, however, had caused a chain reaction. Now other individuals and organizations no longer hesitated to publicize their opposition. Kazasov himself remained undeterred and did not give in to threats. He took advantage of every opportunity and every medium to protest the persecution of the Jews. When expulsions of Jews to the rural regions began, Kazasov took a further risk and hid the leader of the Jewish community and two other Jewish leaders. In late 1943 Kazasov went underground, from where he continued to write pamphlets against the persecution of Jews.
Source: Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority
Dimiter Peshev was a prominent politician in Bulgaria of the period before and during World War Two, and in 1936 he served as Minister of Justice. On the international scene, he favored Bulgaria’s alliance with Nazi Germany, in the hope that it would help the country recover the territories lost in the Balkan wars of 1912–13.
When, in March 1943, he learned that the government intended to hand over to the Germans for deportation some 8,000 Jews from Kyustendil, a town on the border of Macedonia, he decided to oppose this vigorously. Rushing into Parliament, he gathered a few members, and burst in the office of Gabrovski, the Bulgarian Minister of Interior, with a demand that the order be rescinded. After a dramatic confrontation, Gabrovski ordered that the deportation be postponed. Peshev personally called the local prefect’s office to make sure that the counter-order was being obeyed. Not satisfied with this, Peshev decided to publicly denounce this and further deportations from the podium of the Parliament, where he served as vice chairman. Drafting a letter of protest, he collected the signatures of over 40 members of Parliament, addressed to the government and the king, in which he pleaded not to disgrace the name of Bulgaria by consenting to the deportation of its own citizen- Jews to Nazi concentration camps. The public protest occasioned by Peshev’s posture caused the government to back down on its plans to deport the country’s 50,000 Jews. Peshev, however, was penalized by his dismissal as vice chairman of the Parliament. After the Communist takeover, at the end of the war, Peshev was placed on trial for his participation in the previous pro-German government. His role in the saving of the country’s Jews swayed the court in reducing his sentence, and he was freed after one year’s imprisonment. In January 1973, Yad Vashem awarded him the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” for his role in halting the deportation of Bulgaria’s Jews at considerable risk to himself. He died that same year.
Source: Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority
