Bulgaria: Prosecutors probe vandalism of Jewish monument with stickers of pro-Nazi leader

The District Prosecutor’s Office in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Bourgas in investigating following reports of vandalism of a monument in the city commemorating the Second World War-era prevention of the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews to the Nazi death camps of the Holocaust, the Prosecutor’s Office said in a media statement on August 12.

Radio Bourgas quoted the Alef Centre for Jewish – Bulgarian Cooperation as saying that stickers put on the monument feature Hristo Lukov, who in the 1930s and 1940s was the leader of the antisemitic pro-Nazi Union of Bulgarian National Legions.

During the Second World War, when the Bulgarian monarchist regime was allied to Hitler’s Nazi Germany, resistance led by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, civil society and ordinary people led to the prevention of the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews. The monument in Bourgas is among those in Bulgaria that commemorate this.

In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, recent years have seen – with exceptions – torchlit marches in honour of Lukov, in spite of repeated efforts to ban the pro-Nazi event, which attracts neo-Nazis from elsewhere in Europe and abroad. Organisers of the marches seek to portray Lukov as a “patriotic hero”.

The Prosecutor’s Office said that a dossier had been opened in response to the reports of the vandalism, and an inspection will be carried out by the Bourgas regional directorate of the Interior Ministry.

The statement said that it will established whether there are video recordings relevant to the case, as well as witnesses to what happened.

The Alef Centre called on Bourgas municipality to clean the monument, restore the lighting, and install video surveillance.

(Archive photo: Bourgas municipality)