Stories We Were Never Told

For many years the story of the Holocaust in Bulgaria was under-researched, under-represented and also overshadowed and manipulated by political and economical interests. A myth became popular that there was no Holocaust in Bulgaria. The Jewish story was never told as it was experienced by the people who lived and survived these times. 

The only documentation of this story is the one that was created by the perpetrators and reflects their views, prejudice, aesthetics and projections. Few archival photographs and films which exist depict deportation of Jews from the Bulgarian kingdom to Treblinka, via trains and river boats, in labor camps, and wearing the Jewish star. However, other dramatic or tragic events  were not documented or documentation was lost  or destroyed. War crimes happened in the dark. Perpetrators rarely document their crimes or keep records of atrocities. But testimonies of victims or eyewitnesses help us uncover hidden crimes and buried memories.

This book closes a gap between documented testimonials and the lack of visual documentation and depiction of events. It connects the events in Bulgaria with the Holocaust in Europe. It connects the dots between Bulgarian policies and actions and the human costs they bear.

Those Jews, who lived in the territories occupied and annexed by Bulgaria, were denied citizenship or permission to stay, and ultimately deported to be murdered in Treblinka. Bulgarian Jews who lived in Nazi occupied Paris and other places in Europe were refused protection by Bulgaria and consequently were deported to Auschwitz. 

The paintings in this book are based on testimonials of people who experienced the Holocaust in Bulgaria which have given us information which cannot be found in the archives, (either because it was hidden, destroyed or never documented officially).

The paintings in this book are the work of artist, Martha Aladjem Bloomfield, imagining the events based on peoples’ testimonials gathered, locations visited, and archival and photographic research by Jacky Comforty.