By decree of the Council of Ministers in Bulgaria of February 13, 2003, the date March 10 was designated Day of the Holocaust and the victims of crimes against humanity. On this day in 1943, the Plovdiv Metropolitan Cyril, later Bulgarian Patriarch, and the Sofia Metropolitan Stefan prevented the deportation of hundreds of Jews from Plovdiv. Days later, on March 17, 1943, the deputy chairman of the 25th National Assembly, Dimitar Peshev, wrote a letter against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews, supported by 42 deputies. Thus, with the active involvement also of the public, Bulgarian Jews were saved. Today Bulgarian historians, politicians and public figures determine the efforts to rescue Jews in Bulgaria during World War II as one of the most glorious moments in Bulgarian history from the 20th century.

"A tough choice of great importance: The fate of Bulgarian Jews -1943" is the title of a documentary exhibition which opened on March 9 at the National Palace of Culture. The exhibition is organized by the Archives State Agency and the Bulgarian Memory Foundation in cooperation with the National Palace of Culture. The exhibition contains 32 panels, which, citing archival documents, tell the story of Bulgarian Jewry, the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the efforts of Bulgarian society for the rescue of Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin.

"This is a summarized reading of the whole story and everything that happened in the country before the adoption of the anti-Semitic Law for Protection of the Nation in 1941 and during its implementation. In organizing the exhibition involved are all regional directorates of the Archives, says curator Ivanka Gezenko and adds:

"For the exhibition, as a natural framework of individual documents, we used graphics of a ketubah - it is the Jewish marriage contract issued by the rabbi in which the bride declares her own dowry and the groom - his duties and how he is to take care of her. The ketubah is usually very beautiful as Bulgaria has preserved 30 to 40 ketubahs and we have selected the most beautiful one. At the bottom of each panel there is a depiction of the Jewish six-pointed star which is a symbol of Judaism."

The artist of the exhibition has chosen precisely this cheerful symbol - the ketubah, to tell how after the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws in Germany colored elements of it begin to disappear, and in the period of implementation of the Law on Protection of the Nation in the country until 1944 every Jew above the age of 10 was obliged to carry on their coat the yellow star.

The exhibition "A tough choice of great importance: The fate of Bulgarian Jews -1943" is in two versions - in Bulgarian and English. As part of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews and the victims of the Holocaust, the English version was released in March 2013 at the European Parliament in Brussels by the Presidents of Bulgaria and Israel - Rossen Plevneliev and Shimon Peres. In its Bulgarian version the documentary exhibition can be seen until March 19 in Sofia.

English Rossitsa Petcova