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BULGARIA

On the quiet bank of the Volga river lie the ruins of Velikiye Bulgaria, once the capital of the renowned and mighty state that has gone down in history under the name of Bulgary.

Bulgaria is located in southeastern Europe and is bordered by the Black Sea, Romania and Turkey. The area is slightly larger than the State of Tennessee. The total population today is approximately 8.2 million. This is one of the poorest countries of central Europe with an unemployment rate of 14% (1997 estimate). Jews represent today only 0.8% of the various religions as compared to 85% of the Bulgarian Orthodox.

All about Bulgaria

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~radev/bulgaria/

A great many Jew knows the story of how the Danes rescued 8,000 Jews from the Nazi's by smuggling them to Sweden in fishing boats.

Very few Jews know the story of how all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved. Not a single Bulgarian Jew was deported to the death camps, due to the heroism of many Bulgarians of every walk of life, up to and including the King and the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

In 1999, Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti Defamation League flew with a delegation to Sophia to meet the Bulgarian Prime Minister. He gave the Prime Minister the first Bulgarian language copy of a remarkable book, "Beyond Hitler's Grasp," written in 1998, by Michael Bar Zohar, a professor at Emory University. (A Bulgarian Jew who had migrated to Israel and then to the USA)

This book documents the rescue effort in detail. The ADL paid for and shipped 30,000 copies to Bulgaria, so that the population could partake in the joy of learning about this heroic facet of their history.

This story is clearly the last great secret of the Holocaust era. The story was buried by the Bulgarian Communists, until their downfall in 1991. All records were sealed, since they didn't wish to glorify the King, or the Church, or the non Communist Parliamentarians, who at great personal risk stood up to the Germans. And the Bulgarian Jewish Community, 45,000 of whom went to Israel after the War, were busy building new lives, and somehow the story remained untold.

Bulgaria is a small country and at the outset of the War they had 8 million people. They aligned themselves with the Nazi's in hopes of recapturing Macedonia from Yugoslavia and Thrace from Greece. Both provinces were stripped from them, after W.W.I. In 1942, Alexander Belev, the anti-Semitic Bulgarian commissar of Jewish Affairs, signed a plan to deport 20,000 Jews to Germany, beginning with those in the occupied territories of Thrace and Macedonia. At the time, 11343 Jews were arrested and sent to the death camp Treblinka, and more deportations were scheduled for March 1943. But Parliament members petitioned the prime minister and the Jews were sent home. King Boris withdrew the expulsion decree and in May 1943, the plan of delivering 50,000 Jews to the concentration camps was stopped. Though some Jews stayed in Bulgaria until 1948, others made Aliyah to Israel after its establishment in 1948.

In late 1942 the Jews of Salonika were shipped north through Bulgaria, on the way to the death camps, in sealed box cars. The news of this inhumanity was a hot topic of conversation. Then, at the beginning of 1943, the pro Nazi Bulgarian government was informed that all 50,000 Bulgarian Jews would be deported in March. The Jews had been made to wear yellow stars and were highly visible.

As the date for the deportation got closer, the agitation got greater. Forty-three ruling party members of Parliament walked out in protest. Newspapers denounced what was about to happen. In addition, the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Kirili, threatened to lie down on the railroad tracks.

Finally, King Boris III forbid the deportation. Since Bulgaria was an ally of Germany, and the Germans were stretched militarily, they had to wrestle with the problem of how much pressure they could afford to apply. They decided to pass.

Several points are noteworthy. The Bulgarian Jews were relatively unreligious and did not stand apart from the local populace by virtue of garb, or rites. They were relatively poor by comparison to Jews in other countries, and they lived in integrated neighborhoods.

Additionally, Bulgaria had many minorities, Armenians, Turks, Greeks, and Gypsies, in addition to Jews. There was no concept of racism in that culture.

The bottom line here is that Bulgarians saw Bulgarian-Jews as Bulgarians, and not as Jews. And, being a small country, like Denmark, where there was a closeness of community, that is often missing in larger countries. So, here was a bright spot that we can point to as example of what should have been.

The most famous of those saved was a young graduate of the Bulgarian Military Academy. When he arrived in Israel, he changed his name to Moshe Dayan

There are 9 provinces (oblasti, singular - oblast)

Burgas, Grad Sofiya, Khaskovo, Lovech, Montana, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sofiya and Varna.

The National Capital is Sofia.
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publicatons/factbook/bu.html

An excellent site to find information about most European countries is at http://searcheurope.com
and type in the name of the country you wish to research in the search field. This site is a great source to find information for almost every European country. Another valuable site to help find a person, maps, etc. is
http://www.webhelp.com/home
and type in the name of any country you wish to research. This service is free.

Global Gazetteer is a great web site. It is a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town. A tab separated list is available for each country
www.calle.com/world/

Books

Most books, CDs, etc. can be ordered through my link to Amazon.com.

"The Balkan Jewish Communities: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey", authored by Daniel J. Elazar and published by University Press of America in Lanham, Maryland and London, England in 1984;

"Beyond Hitler's Dream" - authored by Michael Bar Zohar. This is about the Jews of Bulgaria survival from the Nazis.

"Bulgaria and her Jews: The History of a Dubious Symbiosis" - authored by Cicki Tamir and published/Created in New York by Sepher-Hermon Press for yeshiva University Press in 1979.

"Les Juifs de Bulgarie" Bibliographie" - authored by Mathilde Tagger and published by ETSI in 1998 is an article about Bulgarian Jewry. Additional references about Bulgarian Jewry include:

"Project to Document Jews of Turkey, Salonika, Bulgaria and Belgrade", authored by Sallyanne Amdur Sack, and published in Avotaynu, volume 14, no. 2, page 40 in 1998; and "A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe: The Autobiography and Journal of Gabriel Ari, edited by Esther and Aron Rodrigue Benbassa and published by the University of Washington Press in Seattle and London in 1998.

General
Bulgarian
Information

Interested in a fascinating article on the how and why Jews came to Bulgaria? FYI, Jews were in the Balkans as early as the 2nd century.
http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/037/7.html

Bulgarian Jews who moved to Israel - if interested in these Jews who have established the community of Hartuv Israel in 1895, email Carol Rombro Rider CRomRider@aol.com who offers her help. Some of the family names are Levi, Giron, Ben-Bassat, Garti, Ben-Arova, Cohen, Tzarfati, Bechar and Rubissa.

Diplomatic representation in the US: Chief of Mission: Ambassador Philip Dimitrov, Chancery: 1621 22nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20008 Phone: 1 202 387 7969 Fax: 1 202 234 7973. There is a consulate in New York.

Europages - business 2 business company directory and business in Europe, yellow pages access, international and European business directory (professional services, addresses and business classifieds
http://www.europages.net

"Hartuv" - this is a kibbutz that was founded by Bulgarian Jews. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the first agricultural settlement on the Judean Hills -- the settlement which was destroyed in the War of Independence, a small booklet ("Zichronnot Hartuv") was published and translated into English. It is a description of the 'before' and 'after' of this kibbutz and can be obtained from The Afikomen Company, 1503 East Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21231 bookthingbaltimore@hotmail.com Carol Rombro Rider CRomRider@aol.com provided me with a copy and I must say it is fascinating reading.

Jonava (Yanovo) - located in the Kovno Uezd. In JewishGen's ShtetlSeeker, there are Yanovo's/Janowa's in Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Russia. There are also many towns named Janow in Poland, including a Janow Podlaski and a Janow Lubelskie. There is even another Yonavo in Lithuania other than the one in Kovno Uyezd - today it is called Jokavai. Ada Green offered a listing of Jonava Societies and Associations associated with the JGSNY Cemetery Project in a message to the JewishGen Digest group on December 10, 2000.

The LDS currently has no Jewish Records from Bulgaria on microfilm.

Maps

Art Source International offers a selection of antique maps, prints and globes at Art Source International

Newspaper Links
http://newslink.org/eubulg.html

Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria-Shalom
Sofia 1303, Bulgaria

Plovdiv Synagogue Photo courtesy of Heritage Films

Plovdiv - to see a larger photo
http://www.heritagefilms.com/Synagogues.htm

Search Engines for Bulgaria
Scroll down to 'Search Engines'
http://slavic.ohio-state.edu/people/yoo/links/default.htm

Sephardic Jewish Community

Introduction to Sophia; Bulgarian Jewish (Sephardic) Soldiers Killed 1912-1918 and more at Sephardic House - Institute for Researching and Promoting Sephardic History and Culture for information
http://www.sephardichouse.org/

http://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/
BulgarianSurnamesSrchFrm.html

Slavophilia

A comprehensive guide to Internet resources on Russia and Central/Eastern Europe
http://www.slavophilia.com/

Sofia Synagogue Photo Courtesy of Heritage Films

Sofia

or a larger photo
http://www.heritagefilms.com/Synagogues.htm

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/sofia.html

http://www.mavensearch.com/synagogues/
C3364Y41881RX

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/
vjw/bulgaria.html

Translation Service

A commercial site offering many language translating programs
http://www.worldlanguage.com

Translating Services - Click Here

Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged.

Veliko Tarnovo

Located along the Yantra River by the 12th century it ranked second only to Constantinople as a regional power. Later, the town became an artisans center and a university town.

See also Croatia and Arbanasi for more information

more to come ...

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