Exhibition ‘A difficult choice of great significance: The fate of the Bulgarian Jews’ opens at NDK
An exhibition entitled “A difficult choice of great significance: The fate of the Bulgarian Jews 1943” opens at the National Palace of Culture, NDK, in Sofia on the evening of March 9 and is to continue until March 19.
The exhibition, which tells the story of the more than 48 000 Bulgarian Jews whose planned deportation to Holocaust death camps was prevented by protests by civil society, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, politicians and community groups, is part of a government initiative.
It includes a selection of documents and photographs from the Archives State Agency as well as material from the archives of Yad Vashem in Israel.
They represent the life of the Jewish community in Bulgaria, the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the efforts of Bulgarian society for the rescue of Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin at the time of the Holocaust.
The exhibition also portrays the valiant conduct of Bulgarian diplomats Lyuben Zlatarov, Harry Levinson, Nikola Vanchev and Nikola Petsev whose actions saved hundreds of Jewish families during World War 2.
The exhibition was first held in March 2013 in the European Parliament and was opened by President Rossen Plevneliev and Israel’s then-president Shimon Peres.
It subsequently went to the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the City Library of San Francisco.
