From: ehganm2@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Nikolay Mehandjiev)
Newsgroups: alt.news.macedonia
Subject: Re: The Bulgarian occupation of Northern Greece (1941-44) and the government in Skopje
Date: 26 Jan 93 16:33:42 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.


In article <35762@sales.GBA.NYU.EDU> epetraki@.stern.nyu.edu (Emmanuel Petrakis) writes:
>The following is the first of a series of postings on the
>Bulgarian occupation of Greece during World War II, that took
>place from April 1941 until October 1944.  Although Bulgaria
>could not invade Greece by itself, with the help of Germany it
>almost succeeded in annexing most of Northern Greece.  

Not exactly true.  The aim of Bulgaria was not to invade
Greece.  Bulgaraia was pressed to side with someone in
the war and the choice was to side with Germany (for
many reasons, one of which was the lack of interest from
the other side).  Germany then offered to Bulgaria the
control over the territories Bulgaria has lost during
the Second Balkan War and WW1.


>I believe these series of postings are very relevant to any
....[deleted]
>........since many of the members of the
>armed bandits that terrorized the Greek countryside during that
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>period, fought with the communists during the Greek civil war. 


Do not forget that "bandits" for one of the sides are
freedom fighters for the other side. It is therefore
better to refrain from such qualifiers.


>The same bandits escaped to Tito's Yugoslavia after the
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  [deleted...]
>Skopje.  Finally, I am posting these because I believe that any
>discussions on Alexander and the Byzantines are irrelevant and
>do not address the real issue.

I entirely support this.

>THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION DURING WORLD WAR II

[deleted]

>In a first level there was an attempt to consolidate the
>Bulgarian authority in the lands occupied by the Bulgarian Army.
>Bulgarian settlers, including refugees from the exchange of
>populations in the 1920s, settled in urban and rural areas,
>attracted by very favorable economic motives provided by the
>Bulgarian government.  At the same time, the Bulgarian
>authorities put a plan into action forcing the Greek population
>to leave these areas.  The initial fight took massive
>proportions after the mass executions, rapes and destruction in
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>the village of Doxato and the city of Drama in September 1941. 
>According to the Bulgarians, these actions were  the result of
>certain incidents of armed resistance by the occupied Greek
>population.  Such was the ferocity of the destruction of the
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Greek Macedonian population in the Bulgarian-controlled areas,
>that many believed that the incidents of armed resistance that
>caused this were a Bulgarian provocation to provide an excuse
>for the massive ethnic cleansing performed by the Bulgarian
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^               
>regime.
>
[ lots of anti-Bulgarian propaganda deleted]

May I just remind you that there is a general consensus
between some of the SCB and SCG participants not to
re-vamp old war-crime stories for the sake of the good
relations now.

Believe me, Greece will not be the winner of such games
(have you heard of the famous "Bulgar-eater" poster,
widely distributed amongst the Greek army during one of
the wars prior to WW2 and described in the Carnegie
Report ?).

Well, I agree that history is important for
understanding today's problems.  But atrocities were
committed from both sides of past conflicts and sparing
them will be more creative than arguments along the
lines of "N milion Tu*ks killed by Ar***ans",
which we all are familiar with by now.

Regards
Nikolay Mehandjiev <ehganm2@uts.mcc.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.news.macedonia