I will never forget the terror of the Bulgarians during the Second World War. They can say that the Bulgarians were not occupiers, but administrators as much as they like, but we are still alive, we are witnesses to what was happening at that time, testifies grandfather Ljupco, telling his story about his father, who was taken in a by the Bulgarians.

My father was a barber. At that time, after the shops closed, artisans gathered on the town square. In one of the the Bulgarian occupiers who took all the artisans. Including my father. My mother gave a lot of money to get to General Bojdev to let my father go. After giving money, they allowed her to complain to General Bojdev. We went to General Bojdev, me, my mother and my sister. We were children. I will never forget this. While we were waiting, an officer came out and slapped my mother. We started crying, children. At that moment, General Bojdev came out and asked what was happening. The officer told him she was a partisan’s wife. General Bojdev asked her what my father’s name was. She told him his name and surname and he said: “go home, we will release him”. They released him after 3-4 days. He couldn’t stand on his feet because he was tortured with foot whipping. He could not come home by himself, they brought him in a carriage. After a month of treatment, he stood on his feet, but could not walk on his own. He died soon after. Bojdev killed my father, grandfather Ljupco, a living witness of the events at that time, told “Republika”.

He remembers people being dragged tied to horses. He says they were dragged through the streets, with blood on their feet, on their backs… He cannot believe his own ears what is Zaev saying, denying what happened to the Macedonian people. He says that the interview given for the Bulgarian BGNES is a pure lie and humiliation of all those victims of the Second World War.

Now Zaev will now say that they were not occupiers, that they were administrators. What administrators. The slap that my mother received still hurts me. Let him come and tell me that the Bulgarians were not occupiers. I listen to him and I can’t believe what he is saying. Can he tell us, the living witnesses of that time, what the Bulgarians were and what they did to the Macedonian people ?! I can tell him, not him me, comments the 85-year-old grandfather.