From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: About the Bulgarian Jews and the Bulgarian people
Date: 28 Jul 92 13:39:56 GMT
Reply-To: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester UK

In article <151d2dINN602@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> sutin@helios.ucsc.edu (Brian Sutin) writes:
>In article <5462@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> lb@ra.cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov) writes:

[deleted]

>Although I have no reason from my reading to disagree with any of the raw
>facts in Boyadjieff's book, I think his book suffers a strong influence from
>the post-WWII communist revisionism,

I think that either I've picked some wrong paragraphs from the book, or you
jumped a bit earlier on your conclusions (but it doesn't matter even if
both are true :-) ). It's ridiculous to mention Boyadjieff and post-WWII
communist revisionism for many reasons, but most notably because of the
fact that Boyadjieff is a political refugee from the communist regime and
he is least influenced of such revisionism. I didn't posted extracts of the
book, where he refutes such revisionism, but if you insist, I can do it.
However (for Boyadjieff's honour) , I must mention that he talks about the
communist revisionism with no hate and cheap facts.

> in which Jews and "Bulgarians" (note
>how the word "Bulgarian" often does not include the Jews)

What do you mean? When talking about ethnic and religious matters, I can't
see how it "includes" it.

> fight side by side against the German aggressor.  Bullshit.

I think you understood many matters wrong or at least this is an impression
of yours from separate quotations. But I can't post the entire book, for
you to see that there is no such thing at all. And for your information,
apart from the communist gorillas (or as is said nowadays - terrorists),
nobody in Bulgaria fought the Germans, who might have been aggressors
elsewhere but in Bulgaria they behaved in another manner (i.e. can't
remember any accounts, even communist ones, on German atrocities in Bulgaria).

>Please get me right -- the unique thing about Bulgaria is that it is one of
>the few geographical areas of Europe not bathed in Jewish blood.  This does
>not make Bulgaria into a paradise.

Hm, "... bathed in Jewish blood"... According to the statistics, at the end
of WWII, the number of Jews had increased from 48,565 to 49,172. And for
the years before WWII, these figures were: 1920 - ~ 43,000; 1926 - 46,400;
1943 - 48,400. 

I mentioned that there is enough for the years after 1940 and for the Law
for the Defense of the Nation. This period is not skipped at all. And is
not "pink" at all.

As for the "paradise" - I don't think that Bulgaria has ever been paradise
for anybody. It had it better and it's worse periods. But if you wish, you
can read  J. Caleb - 'La Situation des Juifs en Bulgarie' - edite par les
soins des Juifs de Bulgarie etudiant en Suisse, Paris, 1919 !!! There you
can read  "We were admitted into Bulgaria as equals. For forty years
Bulgaria has been an oasis for the Jews expelled from Russia and Rumania".
And nobody denies that there were sporadic, without roots and ignored by
the public cases of anti-Semitism.

>  Bulgaria tried to treat the Jews like
>shit often enough, just like everyone else -- just not as badly.

Who is/was "Bulgaria"? Bogdan Filov, Petar Gabrovski, Tzar Boris III,
Dimitar Peshev, Nikola Moushanov, Petko Stainov, Archbishops Stefan,
Neofit, Kiril and Paissii, the 42 members of the National Assembly, which
signed a protest letter to the Prime Minister in 1943, ...
And how do you know that the Jews were treated like shit? So many Bulgarian
Jews from that time speak with rather different words. How many Jews
from pre-1944 Bulgaria have you spoken to? I have (which is not a great
deal but...). And I never heard anybody denying the LDN, it's consequences
and the feelings from it. But that's quite different than "treat like shit".
Anyway, I'm sure you meant no bad towards the Bulgarians.


>Brian Sutin

Luben


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