The Holocaust in Bulgaria

The Holocaust saw the persecution of Jews in the Tsardom of Bulgaria and their deportation and annihilation in the Bulgarian-occupied regions of Yugoslavia and Greece between 1941 and 1944, arranged by the Nazi Germany-allied government of Tsar Boris III and Prime Minister Bogdan Filov. The persecution began in 1941 with the passing of anti-Jewish legislation and culminated in March 1943 with the detention and deportation of almost all – 11,343 – of the Jews living in Bulgarian-occupied regions of Northern Greece, Yugoslav Macedonia and Pirot. These were deported by the Bulgarian authorities to Vienna and ultimately sent to extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The deportation of the 48,000 Jews from Bulgaria proper also began at the same time but was found out and halted following the intervention of a group of government members of parliament led by Dimitar Peshev. Subsequent public protests and pressure from prominent figures persuaded the Tsar to reject further plans for the deportation. Instead Sofia's 25,743 Jews were internally deported to the countryside and had their property confiscated. Jewish males between the ages of 20 and 46 were conscripted into the Labour Corps until September 1944. The events that prevented the deportation to extermination camps of about 48,000 Jews in Spring 1943 are termed the "Rescue of the Bulgarian Jews". The survival rate of the Jewish population in Bulgaria as a result was one of the highest in Axis Europe.