Спасяването на българските евреи – между митовете и реалността
Translated Title
The Rescue of the Bulgarian Jews: Between the Myths and the Reality
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Abstract
The saving of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from the death camps during the Second World War is one of Bulgarian modern history events, which became a source of national pride and which generated moral capital. It has been used to present the country before the world ever since the end of the war. At the same time, it has proved to be one of the most manipulated facts, which seems to be a hostage to different ideological and political interpretations. By completely ignoring or, conversely, strongly emphasizing one aspect of the historical truth at the expense of another, both during the communist times and the transitional period to democracy since 1989, it blurred the concept of the real significance of this event and turned it into a myth and a cliché. The author of this paper follows the chronicle of the debate on this issue during the period of democratization after 1989 and tries to answer the question how the changes towards democracy influenced the attempts to rewriting Bulgarian history. Also taken into account is the fact that The Rescue had a fundamental impact on the identity of the Bulgarian Jews. This conclusion is important for two reasons. First, because turning a deaf ear to the voices of the rescued in the discussions about their own experiences during the war turned out to be an essential part of the problem about the absence of a real public debate, in which the key questions dealt with tolerance and recognition of other ethic groups.. Second, the political and ideological confrontation concerning The Rescue issue found place within the Jewish community itself. This conclusion is important in order to understand how the collective memory of the Bulgarian Jews at present is being formed in terms of its own Jewish community context as well as in a specific Bulgarian-Jewish setting.
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Original Language
Volume/Issue
1-2
Page Number / Article Number
162-177
Link
Link to download (registration required), Спасяването на българските евреи – между митовете и реалността
Bibliographic Information
Спасяването на българските евреи – между митовете и реалността. 2011: 162-177. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/object-2835
