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Thursday, November 8, 2012 • UCLA Hillel • 4 PM

Bulgaria and the Holocaust: 

The Fragility of Goodness

Keynote: Steven Sage (US Holocaust Museum)

Film Screening: The Optimists

A Symposium, Exhibition, and Cultural Event

This exhibition tells the story of how the Bulgarian Jews survived the Holocaust. In February 1943, Bulgaria and Germany signed an agreement to deport Bulgarian Jewry to camps in Poland. First Bulgarian police detained over 11,000 Jews of Thrace and Macedonia, then under Bulgarian occupation, and sent them to death camps. Then they proceeded to round up 9,000 Jews within Bulgaria itself.  An intense public reaction ensued. Significant and public protest involving key political leaders and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church moved King Boris III to cancel the deportation on the very day of its planned execution.  While expelled from their homes and persecuted, Bulgaria’s 48,000 Jews nonetheless escaped total destruction with the help of civic society.

The exhibit will run from Sept. 10 to Nov. 30 at UCLA Hillel.

Sponsored by the

UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
The “1939” Club
Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at UCLA Hillel

Cosponsored by the

Bulgarian Jewish Heritage Alliance of America

UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies

UCLA Department of History

UCLA Mickey Katz Chair in Jewish Music

The Consulate General of Bulgaria in Los Angeles