The fate of the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace hinged upon the relationship between
Bulgaria and Germany. In WW2, Bulgaria, initially neutral, then became part ally,
part satellite of Germany before making peace with the Allies and declaring war on
Germany in
September 1944. Always maintaining its sovereignty and forever opportunistic,
Bulgaria had entered the conflict solely for reasons of territorial aggrandisement.
In this it succeeded. In
September 1940 part of Southern Rumania was ceded to Bulgaria,
to be followed in
April 1941 by the acquisition of Macedonia from Yugoslavia and Thrace
from Greece. Together with these latter territories came Jewish populations of about
8,000 in Macedonia and approximately 6,000 in Thrace.
Bulgaria was prepared to introduce some anti-Jewish legislation along lines similar
to that enacted in the
Reich and countries occupied by Germany, i.e. definition,
expropriation and concentration, although stopping short of the final step in the
process, deportation. Whilst this was true for the Jews of "Old Bulgaria", it did not
apply to the newly acquired Jewish populations of Macedonia and Thrace, who were denied
Bulgarian citizenship and thus protection from the worst excesses.
Jews had lived in Macedonia since Roman times. The Jewish community of Thrace could
trace its origins back to
1542 with the arrival of refugees from Spain. Both communities
consisted in the main of Sephardi (or Spanish) Jews. They spoke a Spanish dialect, Ladino,
and had little in common, other than a shared set of religious beliefs, with the Ashkenazi
Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.
|
Deportation * |
At the
end of 1941, the Germans entered into negotiations with Bulgaria concerning the
deportation of Bulgarian Jews. The Bulgarian government was noticeably reluctant to conclude
these negotiations, delaying implementation of successively harsh measures for as long as
possible. When the wearing of the Star of David was introduced in
August 1942, Metropolitan
Stefan of Sofia delivered a sermon vehemently protesting
persecution of the Jews. By
30 September 1942, Justice Minister
Partov
demanded that the wearing of the star should not be obligatory; within days, the cutting off of the
electricity supply by the government from the plant producing the badges, had halted production of the
Star. By that stage, no more than 20% of Bulgarian Jews were wearing the emblem. But the reluctance
to persecute did not extend to the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace.
In
January 1943,
Theodor Dannecker, a representative of
Adolf Eichmann’s
RSHA Department IVB4
arrived in Bulgaria from France (where he headed the Jewish bureau of the
Gestapo). His mission was to deport
as many Jews as possible, as quickly
as possible. The Bulgarian Minister of the Interior,
Petur Gabrovski,
now declared himself willing to deport 14,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace. The Bulgarian Commissar for
Jewish Affairs,
Aleksander Belev, proposed adding a further 6,000 Jews
from "Old Bulgaria". On
22 February 1943 Dannecker and
Belev concluded a written agreement providing for the deportation of
a total of 20,000 Jews.
|
Deportation by Train * |
|
Deportation by Ship * |
On
4 March 1943, over 4,000 Thracian Jews were seized, including the three
Jewish inhabitants of the island of
Samothrace. They were taken to internment camps at
Dupnitsa and
Gorna-Dzhumaia,
where they remained until
18-19 March 1943. They were then transferred in
two trains to the port of
Lom on the Danube, where they were joined by Jews from the Yugoslav town of
Pirot, which had also been annexed to Bulgaria. At
Lom, the Bulgarians transferred 4,226 Jews to the Germans.
On 20 - 22 March the Jews boarded four Bulgarian ships and were transported past
Belgrade and
Budapest to
Vienna. The trip to
Vienna took
5-8 days. According to a number of accounts, one of the vessels sank and several hundred deportees were drowned,
either accidentally or deliberately. The remaining Jews were sent to
Treblinka from
Vienna by train on
26 and 28 March, and were
gassed on arrival. On
8 May 1943 the Germans sent a further 1,162 Thracian Jews to
Salonika and transported them from there to
Auschwitz the following day.
|
"Monopoly" Warehouse * |
The Jews of Macedonia were rounded-up on
11 March 1943 and concentrated in an internment camp
established at the tobacco warehouse called
"Monopoly" in Skopje. 7,341 Macedonian Jews were
imprisoned in appalling conditions. Eleven days later, 165 of the detainees, mostly doctors,
pharmacists and foreign nationals were set free. The remainder of those interned were deported to
Treblinka in three transports. The first, containing 2,338 Jews, left on
22 March 1943 and arrived at
Treblinka on
29 March. The second, with 2,402 on board, left on
25 March and
arrived on
31 March. The third left on
29 March and arrived on
5 April, carrying a further 2,404 to their deaths. 7,144 Macedonian Jews had been sent to
Treblinka.
With the exception of twelve who died en route, all of them perished in the gas chambers, including 2,000
children below the age of sixteen. Only 200 Macedonian Jews survived the war. A similar number of Thracian Jews
survived, either fighting with the partisans or hidden by their Christian neighbours. An undetermined
number also escaped to the Italian zone of occupied Greece in
1941 and 1942.
Survivors of
Treblinka would later comment on the appearance of these
Jews from distant lands.
Jacob Wiernik recalled:
"
The Bulgarian Jews were tall, strong and manly... the hangmen were jealous of the victims
fine appearance and maltreated them that much more."
|
King Boris and Hitler * |
|
King Boris * |
But what of the remaining 6,000 Bulgarian Jews to be deported in accordance with the agreement
between
Dannecker and
Belev?
Despite continual German pressure, the Bulgarian government maintained its policy of procrastination
and delay. German demands for the deportation of the Jews of Bulgaria were resisted by all strata of
Bulgarian society, from the King and the parliament to the clergy and the farmers. An active role
in the fight against deportations played vice-chairman of the parlament
Dimitar Peshev. On
17 March 1943,
the Bulgarian parliament voted unanimously against the deportation order and in
April,
Jews who had been arrested in anticipation of deportation were released from custody. Two new plans were
formulated. One provided for the deportation of all Jews to Poland; the other allowed for the complete evacuation
of the Jews of
Sofia to the countryside. On
25 May 1943,
King Boris chose the
latter – and that, effectively ended all plans for the "Final Solution" in Bulgaria.
Jews were deported to the interior of the country, where nearly 20,000 lived in cramped quarters
and many men were put into forced labor. An undetermined number of Jewish men — most likely
in the tens of thousands — were forced to work at 112 labour camps around Bulgaria during the war,
in conditions of malnourishment, exploitation, and brutal labor. The work consisted primarily of road
and railway construction, often in difficult marshy locations, involving long work days, heavy work
norms, and exposure to extreme temperatures. These prisoners faced frequent beatings by superiors,
subsisted on an inadequate diet, and lacked the clothing or boots needed for working in the cold,
and in the rugged terrain.
Jews continued to be subjected to discriminatory legislation until on
9 September 1944,
as Soviet troops invaded the country, the government revoked all anti-Jewish laws and
Jewish rights were completely restored.
Ultimately, no Bulgarian Jews were deported to the extermination sites from Bulgaria itself. In fact,
Bulgaria was the only country under German influence or control whose Jewish population actually
increased during the war years - from 45,565 in
1934, to 49,172 in
1945. It is a record of which Bulgarians are justifiably proud, although the
abandonment and subsequent murder of the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace should not be forgotten.
In
September 2005, Macedonian President
Branko Crvenkovski,
Prime Minister
Vlado Buckovski, local public figures, representatives of the
diplomatic corps to Macedonia, and Jewish communities from Israel, the United States, and Russia attended a ceremony in
Skopje marking the construction of a Memorial Holocaust Centre.
"
The Memorial Holocaust Centre, in a symbolic way, will bring the victims of
Treblinka home to Macedonia,"
Buckovski
said, after laying the cornerstone of the centre at the location of the former Jewish settlement in
Skopje. The centre should be completed within a three-year period, financed by
means provided from the denationalization of the property of deported Jews, and will include a Holocaust museum and an institute
for Jewish and multi-ethnic studies.
The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names
(Yad Vashem)
Photos:
GFH
*
Internet
*
Sources:
1) Hilberg, Raul.
The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003
2) Arad, Yitzhak.
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka - The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987
3) Gutman, Israel ed.
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1990
4) Gilbert, Martin.
Atlas of the Holocaust, William Morrow and Company Inc, New York, 1993
5) Wiernik, Jacob.
A Year in Treblinka, New York, 1944
6) Wyman, David S. ed.
The World Reacts to The Holocaust, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996
7) Report by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
© ARC (http://www.deathcamps.org) 2005