“Nowhere in Europe has the morbid concept called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ been more effectively implemented than in the then-occupied Macedonia. In both Hebrew and Macedonian languages, the original meaning of the word ‘justice’ directs towards what corresponds to the truth. Justice means recognizing and naming the truth and respecting it by all means. To achieve reconciliation, an apology must be made for the role of the pro-fascist government in Sofia at that time in the deportation of Macedonian Jews,” said President Stevo Pendarovski in his address at the monument of 7,144 deported Macedonian Jews – former Skopje Monopoly, who were taken to the railway station from this place 80 years ago in three convoys and deported to Treblinka camp.
“Among the six million Jews who perished, were our compatriots. In their fate, we can recognize all the stages of the Holocaust. The first step was discrimination. The fascist regime in Sofia at that time passed the Law for the Protection of the Nation, under which Macedonian Jews were systematically discriminated against. Deprived of citizenship and legal protection, Jews were dismissed from public service, their children expelled from schools, and their families deported. The second step was isolation. By order of the Jewish Affairs Commission, Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David in public. In this way, the centuries-old symbol of Jewish identity was abused to stigmatize Jews as different, alien, and dangerous. The third step was dehumanization,” emphasized Pendarovski.
Almost all Jews from Skopje, Bitola, and Stip, said Pendarovski, were deported from the Skopje Monopoly to Treblinka, where the lives of nearly one million people, including Macedonian Jews who represented 98% of the total Macedonian Jewish population and a third of the total Macedonian victims of World War II, were extinguished in gas chambers.
“Faced with these facts, we are obliged to ask ourselves the following questions: Do we, today’s generations, have the right to calm the conscience of someone regarding the Holocaust of Macedonian Jews? Are we allowed to remain silent in the face of historical revisionism that rehabilitates perpetrators and glorifies culprits? Should we forget whose signatures systematically deprived Macedonian Jews of their civil, economic and human rights and sent them to death?” asked Pendarovski.
He demanded an apology from Bulgaria for the role of the pro-fascist government in Sofia at that time in the deportation of Macedonian Jews.
“In both Hebrew and Macedonian languages, the original meaning of the word ‘justice’ directs towards what corresponds to the truth. Justice means recognizing and naming the truth and respecting it by all means. To achieve reconciliation, an apology must be made for the role of the pro-fascist government in Sofia at that time in the deportation of Macedonian Jews,” Pendarovski emphasized.
This, Pendarovski added, is a critical time when the number of surviving witnesses to the Holocaust is decreasing, and anti-Semitism is increasing.
“Our institutions are obligated to fulfill the obligations we have taken as a state at the international forum for the Holocaust in Malmo. And that is to educate students about the truth of this genocide through the curriculum and compulsory visits to the Holocaust Memorial Center, and to protect them from the dangerous virus of anti-Semitism. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, called the conscience of the world, once said: ‘If anything can save humanity, only memory can. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope,'” he said.
Therefore, our moral obligation is to remember and not forget, so that we never again allow the forces of evil to have a chance to repeat the atrocity, President Pendarovski concluded.
