On 27 January the world remembers the victims of the Holocaust

With commemorative events in Sofia and in Russe with the participation of officials from Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry, public administration, academia, members of the public and Jewish organizations, Bulgaria is joining the world on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The UN designated 27 January as an annual International Day of Commemoration because it is the day on which the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. One million Jews were killed in that Nazi death camp alone in the period from 1940 until 1945. The lessons of the Holocaust, which took the lives of more than 6 million people, must never be forgotten so that such a crime against the human race may never be repeated.

• Dimitar Peshev’s Kyustendil house keeps memory of Bulgarian Jews’ rescue
• An English play tells about the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews
• 1943: “No one can prevail on Bulgarians to hate Jews”

In a declaration on the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews, the 41st National Assembly of Bulgaria states:  

“…we regard the salvation of Bulgarian Jews in 1943 as a remarkable event demonstrating the humanism and tolerance of the Bulgarian people and their will for justice…

Despite the pro-Nazi policies of the government of Bogdan Filov and the genocide in Europe, Bulgaria gives an example of successful resistance to the attempts to exterminate Jews. Thanks to the efforts of the members of the 25th National Assembly, the firm position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the active attitude of public figures and intellectuals, Bulgarian diplomats and professional organizations, of representatives of the official power and the movement against Hitler, of regular citizens and the behavior of the Jewish community, who perceived Bulgaria as its fatherland, the then head of the State, Tsar Boris III, concedes to the public pressure and refuses the deportation to the death camps of more than 48 000 Jews – Bulgarian citizens…