After King Samuel, 19th century military leaders such as Gotse Delchev, Dame Grue whose “property” harms relations between the two countries, North Macedonia and Bulgaria they are arguing about it too Holocaust. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the extermination of 7,144 Jews living in what is now North Macedonia under Bulgarian occupation, a struggle broke out at the highest level between Skopje and Sofia over who was responsible for their arrest and transfer to a concentration camp. in Treblinka, Poland, from which no one survived.

On the day of the anniversary (March 11, 1943), which was marked by a rally and memorial march in the center of Skopje, in a speech, North Macedonia’s President Stevo Pendarovski called on Sofia to apologize for her role. in the extermination of the Jews of today’s North Macedonia.

“For reconciliation, it is necessary to apologize for the role of the then pro-fascist government in Sofia regarding the deportation of Jews from present-day North Macedonia. Can we forget under whose signatures the Jews of the country were sent to their deaths?” he said characteristically.

“Propaganda”

The Bulgarian reaction manifested itself through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as through President Rumen Radev, who characterized Pendarovski’s statements as “propaganda and malicious political aims”.

“The accusations against Bulgaria by the current authorities in Skopje are part of their more general behavior, which is aimed at presenting our country and people as “fascists,” the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said.

Bulgaria is blamed for its role in the extermination of the Jews, the occupied territories of what was then Yugoslavia, and Greece, the control of which was transferred to it by the Germans, although it claims to be the country that saved all the Jews (48,000) who lived on its territory. However, the same cannot be said about the occupied territories.

In addition to “South Slavia – Vardarsk”, the Bulgarian occupation authorities arrested and transported by river boat across the Danube to Vienna, and from there by train to Treblinka, 5,000 Jews of Eastern Macedonian Thrace, all of them were also destroyed.

Eighty years after the Holocaust, the Jewish question is adding tension to an already sour bilateral climate, weighed down by disputes over history, with Bulgaria’s “one nation and two states” narrative questioning – though not officially – the clear ethnic identity of North Macedonia’s Slavic population.

In this atmosphere, Bulgaria raises, among other things, the constitutional recognition of the Bulgarian minority in North Macedonia and distributes Bulgarian passports to its citizens, a tactic that Skopje expressly characterizes as hostile.

In fact, Sofia is blocking the European path of North Macedonia’s veto, which, according to Sofia, fuels anti-Bulgarian sentiments among the population of the “other side”.

Calls for reconciliation

There is international pressure on both sides to resolve their historical unresolved issues on a friendly level, as both countries are members of NATO, in its Southeast wing, which is already facing rallying problems with the war in neighboring Ukraine running amok because of Turkey.

Bulgaria, among other things, is going through a deep and dangerous protracted political crisis, from which follows an aggressive nationalism, manifested mainly in relation to North Macedonia, in the population of which nationalist sentiments instinctively flare up. And, unfortunately, even the Holocaust did not stand aside from this dangerous Balkan tug-of-war.