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In the days before and after the meeting between the king and Hitler in Bulgaria a very energetic anti-Semitic campaign was started, which my Jewish friends and I found very strange for our peaceful country. It was started by a number of Bulgarian pseudo scholars led by Filov and the Interior Minister Petar Gabrovski [9]. To our surprise they were fascinated by the Nurnberg laws. And they openly declared that the Bulgarian, was of a pure Aryan type, which had nothing to do with the Slavs. And we, the Jews, were the main enemy of that so perfect Bulgarian. Those speeches supporting Hitler’s ideology led to a kind of a Kristallnacht in Bulgaria. Thanks God that I am not a witness, but we all knew from witness reports that groups of youths in uniforms armed with knives broke down the windows of the Jewish shops. And despite the resistance of the citizens, they stormed the poor Jewish neighborhood Konyovitsa, broke down flats, molested old people and women, painted swastikas on the walls, as well as anti-Jewish and anticommunist slogans.
I remember that all people from Sofia and the country were shocked. But then came a strange lull – no one commented on what happened, probably the people were afraid of the authorities, I do not know. Maybe thinking that the silence of the people was a kind of agreement, the Interior Minister suddenly declared that he was introducing to Parliament a bill called ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’. We had no idea then that this law would be like the Nuremberg laws. In fact, the only difference between the two laws was that the Law for Protection of the Nation did not say anything about blood or blood differences, but about religion and religious differences. It would have been stupid and laughable if its creators had put in it terms like an ‘Aryan’ and ‘purity of the Aryan race’. But this small difference provided some Jews with the chance to adopt the Christian faith quickly. I do not know such Jews personally, but I have heard about them. My Jewish friends and I did not approve of their hasty act. But then the authorities noticed that omission in the law and hurried to add in a consequent regulation that relationships between Jews and people of Bulgarian origin are forbidden.
There were also some cases of superstitions related to Jews. For example, I remember that during the Law for Protection of the Nation a rumor was introduced that on the Jewish holiday of Pesach Jews would steal a child in order to imprison it in a barrel with nails, can you imagine that, and in this way they would drain its blood, which was necessary for the holiday…. I remember that there were some simple mothers who really believed in these things. And when Pesach approached they were very afraid about their children and told them to run if they see a Jew on the street, run, so that they would not be caught and their blood drained. I have even heard such a pseudo threat used by some women to scare their children when they did some mischief – threatening to leave the child to the Jews, to the ‘blood-drinkers’. There were also cases when a child would disappear and the first thought of those people would be that the Jews had stolen it to drink its blood. For me that was an obvious form of anti-Semitism, but thanks God, it was not very common in the Bulgarian society. I speak only of individual cases, but although they were rare, they did happen.
I remember that all people from Sofia and the country were shocked. But then came a strange lull – no one commented on what happened, probably the people were afraid of the authorities, I do not know. Maybe thinking that the silence of the people was a kind of agreement, the Interior Minister suddenly declared that he was introducing to Parliament a bill called ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’. We had no idea then that this law would be like the Nuremberg laws. In fact, the only difference between the two laws was that the Law for Protection of the Nation did not say anything about blood or blood differences, but about religion and religious differences. It would have been stupid and laughable if its creators had put in it terms like an ‘Aryan’ and ‘purity of the Aryan race’. But this small difference provided some Jews with the chance to adopt the Christian faith quickly. I do not know such Jews personally, but I have heard about them. My Jewish friends and I did not approve of their hasty act. But then the authorities noticed that omission in the law and hurried to add in a consequent regulation that relationships between Jews and people of Bulgarian origin are forbidden.
There were also some cases of superstitions related to Jews. For example, I remember that during the Law for Protection of the Nation a rumor was introduced that on the Jewish holiday of Pesach Jews would steal a child in order to imprison it in a barrel with nails, can you imagine that, and in this way they would drain its blood, which was necessary for the holiday…. I remember that there were some simple mothers who really believed in these things. And when Pesach approached they were very afraid about their children and told them to run if they see a Jew on the street, run, so that they would not be caught and their blood drained. I have even heard such a pseudo threat used by some women to scare their children when they did some mischief – threatening to leave the child to the Jews, to the ‘blood-drinkers’. There were also cases when a child would disappear and the first thought of those people would be that the Jews had stolen it to drink its blood. For me that was an obvious form of anti-Semitism, but thanks God, it was not very common in the Bulgarian society. I speak only of individual cases, but although they were rare, they did happen.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Lora Melamed