Jewish Historical Museum Sofia

Централна синагога на София

The synagogue in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia has housed the Jewish Museum of History since 1992. The museum presents the history of Bulgarian Jews, including their fate during World War II.

History

Jews had continuously inhabited the region of present-day Bulgaria since ancient times. They migrated to the area in several waves and thus adhered to various traditions; among them were Romaniotes as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. In September 1939, the Bulgarian government expelled all Jews holding foreign citizenship from the country. With the coming into effect of the »Law for the Protection of the Nation« in January 1941, the persecution of Bulgarian Jews began. Having enjoyed equal rights since Bulgaria gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, they were now forced to wear a yellow star, they were expropriated and banned from the cities. Thousands of Jewish men were deployed in forced labour camps under terrible conditions. Moreover, Bulgaria agreed to the deportation of its Jewish citizens who were abroad to Auschwitz. After the Wehrmacht invaded Yugoslavia and Greece in the spring of 1941, Bulgaria occupied the Greek region of Thrace and parts of Macedonia and Serbia. Bulgarian authorities arrested close to 11,500 Jews in these areas and handed them over to the SS, who deported the Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp and murdered them there. Mass arrests were also carried out in the Bulgarian heartland, which was home to about 50,000 Jews. »Jewish Affairs Commissar« Belev planned to ship 25,000 Jews from Sofia and 23,000 Jews from the provinces along the Danube to German occupied Poland by September 1943. The first step of this plan entailed forcibly resettling nearly 20,000 Jews from Sofia to the provinces within 12 days. There, they were only allowed to live in designated houses and they were not allowed to enter certain shops, cinemas and cafés. All of their valuables and articles of daily use were confiscated by state authorities. At the end of May, about 10,000 people demonstrated against the resettlement, but the police dissipated the protesters. Politicians and representatives of the church were finally able to prevent the planned deportation of the Jews from the Bulgarian heartland.

Sofia, undated, Historical photo of the synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal

Sofia, 2005, Exhibition at the Jewish museum, Synagogue Sofia

Victims

About 12,000 Jews were deported from the territories occupied by Bulgaria and murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp: approx. 7,100 Jews from Macedonia, 4,200 Jews from Thrace, and about 700 Jews from southern Serbia. The Bulgarian Jews were expelled from the cities and deployed in forced labour.

Boris III (1894–1943), reigned in Bulgaria since 1918, established an authoritarian regime in the country in 1934. At the end of 1940 the »Law on Protection of the Nation« made Jews into second-class citizens. The country was allied with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. On 1 March 1941 it adhered to the tripartite pact between Germany, Japan and Italy. Through a German initiative, the previous year Bulgaria had regained part of the Dobrudzha region on the Black Sea from Romania. In spring 1941 Bulgaria was able to further expand its sphere of influence. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece by the German Wehrmacht, Bulgaria occupied the Greek region of Thrace as well as parts of North Macedonia and Serbia. In March 1943, the Bulgarian authorities captured 11,500 Jews living in these occupied territories and handed them over to the German SS. The SS deported them to German extermination camps in occupied Poland, where they were murdered. Arrests also took place in Bulgaria itself, which was home to around 50,000 Jews. The deportation of these Jews was averted as a result of political protests – especially from Dimitar Peschev (1894–1973), deputy president of the Bulgarian national assembly – and protests from the church. Boris III most likely also agreed not to deport these Jews. Nonetheless, Jews had to wear a yellow star as an identifying mark, their assets were confiscated and they were banished from towns. Thousands of Jews worked as forced labourers in camps. Researchers estimate that around a thousand additional Bulgarian Jews died as a result of persecution in Bulgaria and in the German sphere of influence. In September 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and the Red Army invaded the country shortly afterwards. The communist-dominated »Patriotic Front« assumed power and exacted revenge. Some 2,500 death sentences were issued against political opponents in the course of 135 trials carried out by a »people’s tribunal« and over 28,000 people disappeared. The Bulgarian culture of memory was also determined by the new regime. An enthusiastic personality cult developed around the head of the Bulgarian communist party, Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949), who was honoured, unlike the discredited »fascist« Tsar Boris III. Dimitrov had been tried at the Leipzig Reich court in 1933, accused of involvement in the Reichstag fire in Berlin, but he managed to secure his acquittal in this show trial staged by the Nazis. His then triumph was regarded as proof of the lengthy anti-fascist struggle in Bulgaria after 1944. Only after 1991 did it come to light that local partisan groups had received no public support for a long time during the war. The genocide of European Jews and Peschev’s intervention for the Bulgarian Jews also found little resonance during the communist period. On the contrary, the communist party claimed that it had organised their »rescue« itself. Memorial sites have since been established to remember the intervention for the Bulgarian Jews and a museum to Peschev was opened in Kyustendil in 2002. However, these sites present the myth of a nation of rescuers. There is still no differentiated approach to the contradictions in Bulgarian policy towards the Jews in the Second World War, for example the attitude of the Tsar, the treatment of Jews in Bulgaria, the expulsion abroad of Jews with a Bulgarian passport, the deportation of Jews from Thrace and Macedonia and the pressure on Jews to emigrate after the war.

Remembrance

After the war, a majority of the Bulgarian Jews felt compelled to leave the country, now under communist rule, and emigrated to Palestine.
The central synagogue in Sofia - the largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe - was opened in 1909. Sephardim were the descendants of Jews who had been expelled from the Iberian Peninsula around 1500. In 1944, the synagogue was damaged in American and British air raids, the library and its collections burned down entirely. Until 1989, only small repairs were carried out. Since the mid-1990s, the synagogue has been gradually restored thanks to the donations and support of the »Doron Foundation of Israel«. Two rooms house the Jewish Museum of History and a library, which are run by the »Shalom« Organisation of Jews in Bulgaria. The exhibition deals with topics such as: history and daily life in the Jewish communities of Bulgaria, persecution and rescue of Bulgarian Jews during World War II, including the expulsion of Jews from Sofia in 1943/44 as well as the forced emigration to Israel in 1948/49.

Possibilities

Guided tours in Bulgarian, English and Hebrew (by appointment), museum shop, permanent exhibition, special and travelling exhibitions, seminars

Open

Daily (except Friday afternoon and Saturday): 8.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

Contact

https://www.shalom.bg/

jewishmuseum@shalom.bg

+359 2 983 14 40

Ekzarh Josif 16
1000 Sofia

Sofia, 2008, Façade of the synagogue, today also home to the museum and community centre, Vassia Atanassova

Stadtallendorf

Documentation and Information Centre Stadtallendorf

Between 1938 and 1945, over 17,000 forced labourers were deployed in the arms industry in what is today Stadtallendorf. The Documentation and Information Centre (DIZ) deals with this time period and c...

Nordhausen

Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial

Since 1954, a memorial on the site of the former Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, close to Nordhausen on the edge of the Harz mountains, commemorates the fate of the prisoners who were slave laboure...

Salzgitter

Drütte Concentration Camp Memorial Site and Documentation Centre

The town of Salzgitter was founded in 1942 at the northern foothills of the Harz mountains. In 1994, a memorial was set up on the premises of the Salzgitter AG company, dedicated to the people who had...