Tag #123077 - Interview #95883 (Gitli Alhalel)

Present-day relations between Bulgaria and Israel are much different than the ones before 10th November 1989. At that time Bulgaria kept friendly relations with some of the Arab countries, which did not approve of the existence of Israel. Iraq was such a country, the country where now the Bulgarian army tries to restore peace, advocating the US policy. Politics is strange. During totalitarianism we did not speak much about the saving of the Bulgarian Jews, although there were some films and books on the topic. Yet, today, this fact is emphasized by each of the democratic Bulgarian governments. On the other hand, at the end of January 2005 when the world celebrated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the people from the Auschwitz concentration camp (only 2000 people survived thanks to the Russian army) we were the only European country that did not send its Prime Minister to the commemoration ceremonies there. Another curious detail is that the present Prime Minister [i.e. Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prime Minster of Bulgaria between 2001-2005] in Bulgaria is son of a monarch: King Boris III, called by Hitler ‘The Fox’. That same king was in good relations with the national socialists and Hitler. It was King Boris III who introduced the degrading Law for Protection of the Nation and sent those misfortunate 11 343 Jews from Aegean Thrace and Macedonia to certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. But, as people say, politics is complex. That is why I think that the changes here after 1989 have contradictory character.