In March 1943, about 4,075 Jews living in Bulgarian-occupied easternGreek Macedonia andWestern Thrace (annexed as the Bulgarian province ofBelomorie) were deported toTreblinka extermination camp and murdered. In an operation coordinated by Bulgaria and Germany, almost all Jews in Bulgarian-occupied Greece were rounded up on the early morning of 4 March 1943, held in camps in Bulgaria, and reached Treblinka by the end of the month. The death rate of 97 percent of the Jews living in the area in 1943 was one of the highest in Europe.
The ancient Greek-speakingRomaniote Jewish communities ofThrace andMacedonia were almost erased by theirforced resettlement inConstantinople in 1455 by the Ottoman sultanMehmet II.[1] At the end of the fifteenth century, the Ottomans allowedJudeo-Spanish-speakingSephardic Jews who had beenexpelled from Spain to resettle the area; they were joined by laterAshkenazi migrants, but the Sephardim remained dominant.[2]
The area was conquered from the Ottoman Empire by Bulgaria during theBalkan Wars, but its western part (EasternMacedonia) was ceded to Greece afterwards.[3] The Greek part was occupied by Bulgaria duringWorld War I. Greece regained it, including the Bulgarian eastern part (Western Thrace), per the 1919Treaty of Neuilly. It provided for a mandatorypopulation exchange that tilted the region's demography in favor of Greeks.[4]
In April 1941, theGerman invasion of Greece resulted in the occupation of all of the country.[5] Some Jews tried to flee via Turkey, but most were turned back at the border.[6]
In mid-1941, Greece was partitioned into different occupation zones by Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria. Germany occupied strategically important areas, includingSalonica and the surrounding area and a strip of land along what had been Greece's border with Turkey. Western Thrace and eastern Macedonia were annexed as the Bulgarian province ofBelomorie, where Bulgaria immediately undertook a harshBulgarianization program.[7][8] Bulgaria executed 40,000 Greeks during the occupation—more than Germany and Italy combined—including 2–3,000 during the brutal suppression of theDrama uprising in September 1941.[9] About 100,000 Greeks were forced to flee westward[10][11] and the overall population fell by 217,000 by 1942, despite mass immigration of Bulgarian settlers.[12]
Greeks and Jews were allotted smaller food rations than Bulgarians, which meant that Jews were disproportionately affected by theGreek famine.[11][13] Hundreds of Thracian Jews were forced intoBulgarian labor battalions and many of these forced to work on the rail line betweenSidirokastro andSimitli,[11] which was intended to economically tie the annexed areas into Bulgaria and was later used to carry the Belomorie Jews to their deaths.[14] Some Jews, around 20 percent of the prewar population of 5,490, fled to Salonica in the German occupation zone or farther to the Italian-occupied area.[11][15]
Preparations for a possible Allied attack in the northern Aegean coincided with preparations for the deportation of Salonica's Jews and the deployment of German advisorTheodor Dannecker to Bulgaria in late 1942, in order to ensure that Western Thrace was also cleared. According to historianSteven Bowman, Hitler believed that Jewish populations would hamper the Axis defenses in the event of invasion.[16]
In October 1942, all Jews, including those in Belomorie, were registered by the authorities.[17] On 4 February 1943,Alexander Belev of Bulgaria'sCommissariat for Jewish Affairs [de] (KEV) outlined plans to deport Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Yugoslavia in a report to Interior MinisterPetar Gabrovski. Belev wanted the Jews to be arrested immediately on the pretext that they would be relocated elsewhere in Bulgaria and held in camps in Bulgaria until they could be deported. He planned that the KEV would dispose of the Jews' property.[18] Initially there was a plan to build several transit camps in Bulgaria, but after inspections Belev narrowed the sites toGorna Dzhumaya andDupnica where he felt local cooperation would be forthcoming.[19][20] On 22 February, Dannecker and Belev signed an agreement for the deportation of 20,000 Jews from the Bulgarian-occupied territories.[21]
On 2 March 1943, thecabinet issued a series of decrees approving the deportation of Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Greece and ordering various ministries to prepare for and execute it. All the KEV personnel were forbidden to resign or refuse to complete assigned tasks until 31 March. The cabinet agreed that Jews of Bulgarian nationality would be stripped of it as soon as they were deported and that immobile property would be confiscated by the government, while the KEV was empowered to sell mobile property for the benefit of local Bulgarians. These decrees were signed by all ministers present (but not Justice MinisterKonstantin Partov [bg], who was absent) and were not published in the government gazette,Durzhaven Vestnik, to maintain secrecy.[22] The KEV was led in Belomorie byJaroslav Kalicin, who directed the deportation.[23]
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 Silent film of the deportation of Jews fromKavala,Serres, andDrama |
The operation was executed at 04:00 on 4 March 1943 in all the places in Belomorie with a significant Jewish population—Komotini,Alexandroupoli,Kavala,Drama,Xanthi, andSerres—and came as a surprise to the Jews awakened, some arrested wearing only underwear.[24][25][23] From sometime after midnight until around 08:00, theBulgarian Army sealed off neighborhoods so that the police could conduct arrests based on lists of names and addresses. Jews were told that they would be temporarily removed to Bulgaria and allowed to return soon. They were marched through the main streets of the cities and temporarily detained in tobacco warehouses. Although there were no major disturbances many locals sympathized with the Jews and offered assistance, helping Jews hide their property or offering them food.[26]
The KEV reported that 42 people were arrested in Alexandroupolis, 3 inSamothrace, 589 in Drama, 878 in Komotini, 1,484 in Kavala, 19 inEleftheroupoli, 16 inThasos, 526 in Xanthi, 12 inChrysoupoli, 471 from Serres, and 18 inZiliahovo [bg;el]. Overall 4,058 of the 4,273 Jews in Western Thrace were arrested during the roundup.[27][28] The majority of those not deported were citizens of neutral or Axis-allied countries, who were exempt, as well as a few Greek citizens who managed to escape or were in jail or hospitalized at the time.[27][15] Another 42 Jews from Greece who were in labor battalions were arrested and deported along with the Jews fromVardar Macedonia, while others were not sent to the KEV before the deportations were over, thus escaping death.[29] Belev asked for and obtained declarations of gratitude from local Bulgarian authorities for depriving them of their Jewish population.[30]
The Jews were then sent in open railway cars to the camps in Gorna Dzhumaya and Dupnica, guarded by police or soldiers.[23][31] AtSidirokastro andSimitli they were transferred to different railway cars as the Bulgarian railway had a narrowergauge than the Greek one.[27][32] The conditions were so harsh that many Jews fell ill and a few died, while pregnant women had to give birth in the open cars. Their misery was exacerbated by mistreatment by the Bulgarian guards.[31] The 1,500 Jews from Komotini and Xanthi arrived at Dupnica from 7 March, while 2,500 Jews from the other locations were sent to Gorna Dzhumaya, arriving between 6 and 10 March.[27][33]
At Gorna Dzhumaya, Jews had to walk a mile from the train station to the transit camps at the Rainov tobacco warehouse and the School of Economics. There was only one water faucet for 1,000 people and only one toilet per 300–500 detainees. Poor conditions led to 1–3 people dying in the camp each day.[34] At Dupnica, five people died at the camp and were buried in the city's Jewish cemetery. Jewish doctor Marko A. Perets reported that little of some supplies donated by the local Jewish community reached the prisoners as it was appropriated by the guards. The Jews in the camp had to submit to searches during which money was stolen from them. Some Bulgarian residents of Dupnica suggested interning the local Jews in the camp as well as they were blamed for shortages.[35] On 9 March, some Jews with Bulgarian citizenship were released.[29] The rest of the Jews were told that there was a plan to send them toMandatory Palestine viaBlack Sea ports.[36]
On 18 and 19 March, the Jews were deported again from Gorna Dzhumaya (the first train) and Gorna Dzhumaya and Dupnica (the second) to theDanube port city ofLom viaSofia by rail.[27][37] In Sofia a representative of the railway company counted the passengers to determine the fare, charged to the KEV, which was covered using the proceeds of Jewish property sales. At this point there were 4,057 Jews, minus some deaths but with a few additional stragglers as well as births added.[38] Arriving in Lom on 19 and 20 March,[39] Jews were deported again on ships.Kara G'orgi departed at 14:00, 20 March; the second,Voivoda Mashil, left later that day.Saturnus andTsar Dushan departed in the evening of 21 March. Each ship carried between 875 and 1,100 people, for a total of 4,219 deported (including some fromPirot in Bulgarian-occupied Yugoslavia). Several people died during the journey, which took five to ten days depending on the vessel.[40] In Vienna, they were surrendered to Nazi authorities. The Jews were then deported toKatowice on 26 and 27 March, where the Bulgarian guards returned home.[41] Bulgaria was responsible for the paying the fare as far as Katowice, also charged to the KEV.[41]
The Jews continued by rail toTreblinka extermination camp, where all were immediately killed in thegas chamber.[42] Ninety other Jews from Kavala were deported along with the Jews ofVardar Macedonia from the camp inSkopje to Treblinka on 29 March.[43] HistorianFrederick B. Chary estimates that in all, 4,075 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Greece were deported by Bulgaria.[44] In less than a month 97 percent of the Jews under Bulgarian control were murdered.[45] This death rate was one of the highest in Europe.[46]
After the deportation, the KEV sold the movable property of the deportees for the "Jewish community fund" placed at the disposal of the agency. Property belonging to different people was not registered according to its original owner in order to speed up the process. There were also instances of unofficial looting, especially in Kavala and Komotini. The government bought up much of the property and the rest was often sold off to friends of the liquidators for a fraction of its actual value, often to be resold for personal profit. Those involved in this organized despoliation included policemen, judges, KEV officials, laborers, and civil servants assigned to the liquidation committees.[47]
The total profit to the government was 6,163,978leva from Komotini, 4,162,272 from Drama, 5,803,380 from Kavala, 2,528,175 from Selres, and 1,978,079 from Ksanti, totaling 20,635,884 leva (around $257,000 in contemporary dollars or $4,700,000 today).[48] After the deportation, Germany demanded that Bulgaria pay 250Reichsmarks per Jew deported, but Bulgaria refused to pay.[49]
On 4 May 1943, the Jews in the German-occupied strip along the Turkish border, who lived inDidymoteicho (740 Jews),Orestiada (197 Jews), andSoufli (32 Jews), were rounded up and deported toAuschwitz concentration camp viaBaron Hirsch ghetto in Salonica.[45] Marco Nahon, a Jewish doctor from Didymoteicho, was the author of the first publishedHolocaust memoir.[50] He and his son were two of the twenty Jews from that town and Orestiada who survived to return after the war.[51]
In 2016, researcher Vassilis Ritzaleos organized a conference atDemocritus University of Thrace in Komotini, during which academics from Germany, Israel, Bulgaria and Greece gathered to discuss the Holocaust in Bulgarian-occupied areas of Greece.[52][53]
