Bulgaria

In 1929, two black marble plaques were built into the wall of Dupnitsa's synagogue to commemorate local Jews who had died in the 1912-1918 wars. In 2008 the City Council erected them next to the Youth Home, the Communist structure that occupies the plot where the former synagogue used to be. In the past they have been vandalised and sprayed with swastikas, but are now clean. 

In 2021, the local council decided to move the local history museun in the former Youth Home.

The Jewish cemetery of Dupnitsa is known to have existed since the 16th century. The last burial took place there in 1979. Its granite and sandstone tombstones are overgrown and neglected and, though parts of the site have been encroached on by housing, the cemetery still survives. There have been City Council plans to remove it to make way for a commercial building, or a park with a memorial, but so far nothing has been done. Every elderly citizen of Dupnitsa knows where the Jewish cemetery is, but some younger folk are surprised to hear that they have been walking to school... through the cemetery of what was proportionately Bulgaria's largest Jewish community. 

On 5-7 September 1916, during the First World War, the Bulgarians with Ottoman and German support fought Romanian, Russian and Serb armies for control over Dobrich. The push was successful. The Bulgaria-led forces continued farther northeast. 

What remained were the dead. Interments in Dobrich of the fallen from both sides started as soon as the battle ended. Until 1918, a total of 3,500 soldiers from 6 armies, 10 ethnicities and 5 confessions were buried in it.

Jews were among these.

Through the decades, the military cemetery was redesigned several times. Today, it is a museum. 

The former synagogue in Dobrich, in northeastern Bulgaria, is nothing remarkable on the outside, and since the 1950s has been used as a choir rehearsal hall. There is a sign in English indicating the building's history. Yet Dobrich's former synagogue has somehow avoided the fate of many other synagogues throughout Bulgaria that were turned into warehouses, sports halls or galleries: it was never partitioned. Its elegant balcony still remains, though no one dares to climb up to it any longer as the structure is in urgent need of repair. The empty chairs used by dozens of Jewish women are still there but they have not been sat upon for service in over 60 years. 

Luckily for Bulgaria, it rarely makes its way into international headline news. One such instance, unfortunately, was on 18 July 2012. 

In the afternoon of that day an airplane carrying Israeli tourists landed at Bulgaria's busiest airport at the Black Sea. The visitors collected their luggage and headed toward three buses that were supposed to bring them to their hotels at the Sunny Beach resort, a few miles to the north. The buses were still parked as a bomb went off, at 5.23pm. 

Seven people were killed, including the Bulgarian driver of one of the buses, and 35 were injured. 

Investigators were quick to converge on Burgas. Security cameras revealed the bomb was planted in one of the buses' holds by a man carrying a backpack. That man had lingered on in the terminal and later mingled with the tourists as they headed outside. He was killed in the blast. 

The investigation concluded three men were responsible for the attack. They lived in Lebanon and travelled on Australian and Canadian passports. Years later the Bulgarians conceded the attack had been masterminded by Hezbollah, a claim the Israeli government had held throughout. Iran, another culprit fingered by Israel, has not admitted any responsibility. The two surviving perpetrators were never arrested. 

A curious Jewish touch to the history of Burgas was added by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). Born in what is now Belarus, Mickiewicz lived in what is now Lithuania, and is considered to be one of the greatest poets of what is now Poland. He is buried in Krakow's Wawel Cathedral, the burial site of Polish kings. 

Mickiewicz fiercely opposed the Russian Empire's invasion of his homeland and vowed to fight the Russians to the end. During the Crimean War in 1855 he went to Stamboul in an attempt to put together a Polish legion to fight against the Russians. He was not very successful with the Poles, but managed to gather a few hundred Jews, the "Hussars of Israel," who were ready to go into battle. The expedition never materialised. Mickiewicz travelled on to what was then Burgas, where he spent just 10 days (8-18 October 1855) in a military tent, probably stricken with malaria. He then returned to the Bosporus where he died. In the Burgas Maritime Park there is a monument to Mickiewicz, though the inscription on it is misleading. 

In the early 1900s, Isaac Presenti, was considered one of the richest Jews in Bulgaria at the turn of the 19th century, donated a plot of land in the centre of Burgas for the construction of a synagogue, which was promptly erected in 1905 or 1909 (accounts vary). It was exquisitely bedecked with a Moorish façade and two internal balconies in its prayer hall. After a few years the Jewish school was built next to the synagogue. 

The original plans for the synagogue have not been preserved, prompting local historians to contest its origins. Many believe that the synagogue was designed and constructed by Ricardo Toscani, an Italian architect who came to Burgas, married there, and built most of the old city. But others claim the Burgas synagogue was the work of Austrian Friedrich Grünanger, who is credited with the Sofia Synagogue. 

Like most other synagogues in Bulgaria, the Burgas synagogue closed in the late 1940s as, one after another, the Jews left. It did, however, have more luck than its counterparts elsewhere as, after being used as a warehouse and a non-Jewish community hall, it was converted into an art gallery in the 1960s. It remains so to this day (24 Mitropolit Simeon Street) and the local Shalom organisation is next door, in the building of the former Jewish school. 

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One result of its preservation, ironically, was its destruction as a synagogue. The tall prayer hall was divided into three floors and its intricate ornaments and paintings were whitewashed. 

Events took another ironic turn in the 2000s, at the time of a further renovation. As the roof needed repair, contractors started scraping off the whitewash. Old Hebrew letters and Stars 

of David were quick to reappear from under the layers of paint and mould, a selfstyled palimpsest standing evidence to the building's turbulent past. 

Fortunately, they are still there, and can be seen watching over the collection of Christian Orthodox artwork on display in the art gallery. The combination of the two evokes the days when Burgas was a truly cosmopolitan city. 

Burgas has a small Jewish plot in the local cemetery, crammed between the Armenian Christian Apostolic and the Turkish sections. It is unfenced and unguarded but in good condition. It contains just a few dozen Jewish tombstones, all mid- to late-20th century. Its main problem seems to be encroachment by the adjacent Muslim section. 

Bishops Kiril and Stefan, the two senior clerics who stood up in defence of the Jews in 1940-1943, were buried inside the main church of Bachkovo Monastery. On 10 March every year there is a joint Jewish-Christian memorial service. In 2009 a commemorative plaque was placed at the monastery gates. Both Kiril and Stefan are listed in the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. 

Services in Silistra's synagogue have not been held there since the Jews left in the late 1940s. Following failed plans to convert it into a cinema, the building was used as a sports hall. It is now rented out to a Christian evangelical church. Like other Jewish properties in Bulgaria, it has been vandalised with spray-painted swastikas.