February 6, 2007

Carnegie Hall Recalls Rescue of Bulgarian Jews

Source:

A grandiose concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, recognized those who displayed extraordinary courage to save Jews from genocide during World War II and the role of Bulgaria, in particular.

”The rescue of the Bulgarian Jews is one of the most outstanding exploits of the Bulgarian people during the years of the World War II,” reads the address of President Georgi Parvanov. The letter was addressed to the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a co-organizer of the ”Partners of Hope” concert.

Shashi Tharoor, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, highlighted the role of the then National Assembly of Bulgaria in preventing the deportation of Bulgarian Jews, saving nearly all Bulgarian Jews from certain death.

Nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were rescued from the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

On March 10 in 1943 Bulgaria, led by the Orthodox Church and King Boris III, halted the implementation of a governmental decision dispatching the first groups of Bulgarian Jews to fascist death camps.

Tsar Boris III and his country made extraordinary effort and sacrifices to save its entire population of Jews.

Aware of the price he might pay for his risks, Boris faced the Third Reich with courage and resolve, firm in his convictions that he could not abandon his country’s Jewish citizens.

The Tsar, along with members of the Orthodox Church, Jewish religious leaders, and others, ensured that not even one Bulgarian Jew fell into the clutches of the Nazi regime.