Recently, the Memorial Center of the Holocaust of the Jews in Macedonia is starting to bother Bulgaria more and more.

In a relatively short time, texts appeared in some of the media in Sofia, and in Skopje, which basically called into question the authenticity of the exhibits, especially the railway carriage, thus putting the very existence of the Center itself into question, but also the deportation of the Macedonian Jews and especially the role of the Bulgarian occupation authorities in that tragic event from the Second World War, writes Pressing TV journalist Predrag Dimitrovski in his analysis.

After all, this is confirmed by the titles of the texts themselves. For example, tribuna.mk titles the first text of the author, a certain Silvia Avdala, a journalist from Israel, only as “The wagon” (25.02.2023), while factor.bg expands it a bit and gives it a historical dimension “The wagon-guide in the history of Macedonia” (February 28, 2023). The second text by the same author, however, is also titled with only one word “The Film” (March 6, 2023).

In both texts, the smallest problem is that the name of the institution is wrong and it is called the Museum of the Holocaust. The real problem is that the author does some “stunts” to try to show and prove that the transport and deportation of Macedonian Jews have nothing in common with the Bulgarian occupation authorities, institutions and the Bulgarian Railways.

But what does the author do that is problematic, and thus the media? The problem is that, firstly, on the wagon in the lower part of its shaft there is also the sign of the Yugoslav Railways and secondly, that the wagon is not reliable, i.e. original, with which the deportation was carried out!

Yes, correct. In the indicated place, there really is a sign of YR. But that neither is, nor can it reduce or completely devalue the significance of the Memorial Center, nor the act of deportation itself, and least of all the role of the Bulgarian occupation authorities or the Bulgarian Railways, analyzes Dimitrovski.

As a matter of fact, in no prospectus, in any explanation of the exhibits, even of the wagon, in any document of the Center it was neither stated nor claimed that it was precisely with it that Macedonian Jews were transported to the Treblinka death camp. The abbreviation YR was the same during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the SFRY.

The wagon was probably repaired several times and was handed over to the Center by Macedonian Railways. And, its main purpose is to show what kind of (cattle) wagons the Macedonian Jews were deported with, for which there are hundreds of other reliable photos. Unfortunately, the text manipulates distances and kilometers, but leaves no room for the fact that during the war the Bulgarian State Railways confiscated wagons that belonged to YR, Dimitrovski points out.

The existing documents, on the other hand, inevitably confirm that the Bulgarian State Railways charged its “service” for the transportation of a person deported by the German Nazi-Fascist authorities.

And, in addition to the documents, this is also claimed by prominent people from Bulgaria, such as the long-time president of the Bulgarian Jewish Community, professor, writer and respected social scientist Lea Koen.

Coincidentally or not, all this is happening ahead of March 10 and the annual commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of the Macedonian Jews in the Republic of Macedonia and the Rescue or Salvation of the Bulgarian Jews in the Republic of Bulgaria.