Bulgarian Defense Minister Krasimir Karakacanov criticized Macedonia for celebrating October 11th, the day when in 1941 Macedonian partisans attacked the Bulgarian held police stations in Prilep and Kumanovo, beginning a guerrilla war against Bulgarian forces.

– There was no uprising in Prilep. Four hooligans killed a police officer who was also from Prilep and had four children. Is this their uprising against the Bulgarian occupier?, asked Karakacanov, adding that despite the friendship treaty Bulgaria signed with the Zoran Zaev Government, “Macedonia continues to falsify Bulgarian history and to spread hatred against the Bulgarians in its society”. Bulgaria, which fought multiple wars with Serbia and Greece for the control of Macedonia, generally considers the occupation of Macedonia in World War Two as liberation of Bulgarian land.

In response to such claims, the Jewish Community in Macedonia has published a document from April 1941 from the Bulgarian Ministry of War, stating that the Bulgarian 6th Infantry Division is to occupy Macedonia.

This is the latest heated exchange including Karakacanov, who previously objected to Zaev referring to a separate Macedonian nation and language.

According to the treaty Zaev signed with Bulgarian Prime Minister Borisov, the two countries have set up a Commission which will examine history books and scrub them from material which can “spread hostility”. It is still unclear what this will mean for the many references to the Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia in World War Two, and especially for the Holocaust of the Jews in Macedonia.