Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Bulgaria Opposed Deportations
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project (CANADA)
Keywords: Bulgaria,Dannecker,Macedonia,Thrace

Holocaust denial is always accompanied with the insistence that there
existed no deliberate government plan or involvement with regard to the
extermination of the Jews and other victims of mass murder. Those
interested in exploring the massive evidence of German (Nazi) government
involvement in forced deportations might begin with "Holocaust in History,"
from which the citation below was excerpted. In Chapter 4, "Allies,
Vanquished States, and Collaborators," Marrus deals with how the satellite
states reacted to Nazi pressure to deport their Jews; it is such a well
documented reality that one can only wonder how anyone could deny that such
organized pressure existed....

"Bulgaria is of special interest since ... there were more Jews alive there
after the war than before.<50> Unlike other states of southeastern Europe,
anti-semitism seems to have played only a small part in local politics, and
the small Jewish community of under fifty thousand, mainly Sephardic in
origin and well integrated into the country, was not widely perceived as a
threat. There was considerable opposition to the anti-Jewish regimen of
1941, and little interest in surrendering the country's Jews to the Nazis
later when the latter applied pressure to this end in 1942. Jewish refugees
even managed to trickle into Bulgaria. Like their Rumanian neighbors, the
Bulgarians dithered and delayed, holding the Germans off. In early 1943 the
Germans sent an SS expert, Hauptsturmfuehrer Theodor Dannecker, to Sofia to
try to speed things up.  

"By that point, however, the Bulgarians too were
tiring of the war and cooled their affections for their Axis ally. To
appease Berlin, the government did deport some eleven thousand Jews from
newly occupied Macedonia and Thrace, territories that were being forcibly
integrated into their country. At home, however, the feeling against
deporting Bulgarian Jews strengthened. Metropolitan Stefan of Sofia, the
Bulgarian patriarch, spoke out, togther with other prominent Bulgarians.
Allied victories now strengthened the Bulgarians' hand. Finally, the
deportations were halted. By the spring of 1943 the Germans doubtless
realized they could achieve no more, and they abandoned their efforts to
pressure their erstwhile cooperative ally.<51>"

<50> Chary, Frederick.  The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution,
     1940-1944.  Pittsburgh, 1981.  p.  xiii 

<51> Chary, Bulgarian Jews; Nisan Oren, "The Bulgarian Exception: 
     A Reassessment of the Salvation of the Jewish Community," Yad 
     Vashem Studies 7 (1968), 83-106; Vicki Tamir, "Bulgaria and 
     Her Jews: The History of a Dubious Symbiosis," New York, 1979

Exerpted from----------------------------------------------
The Holocaust in History. Michael R. Marrus. 
Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys Limited, 1987          p. 80
-----------------------------------------------------------

Other Marrus titles listed in our Holocaust bibliography:

Marrus M. & Paxton, R.O. 
                   "Vichy France and the Jews" New York: Basic Books, 1981
Marrus, Michael R., and Paxton, Robert O. "The Nazis and the Jews in
                   Occupied Western Europe," Journal of Modern History 54 (1982)
Marrus, Michael R. The Holocaust in History. Toronto, 1987
-----------------. The Theory and Practice of Antisemitism. Comentary, 
                   August 1982
-----------------. The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century.
                   New York, 1985

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor