YouTube video about the WWII occupation of Macedonia by the "Bulgar(ian)s"
Zhivko Apostolovski
by the bulgar(ian) "liberators" (as claimed by the bulgarian propagandists)
and a short snippet about some of their (mis)deeds during that period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJahM4ya9hU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lURlUrahbrg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SacYDODbP3w
During the period from 1918 to 1941 the Macedonians from the "Vardar" part
of Macedonia were under Serbian occupation. Then they lived a harsh life
full of killings, imprisonments, rapes and other kinds of terror from the
"Greater Serbia" regime.
In 1941 Hitler apportions this part of Macedonia to his war allies Bulgaria
and Italy. In the greater part of the "Vardar" section of Macedonia arrives
the Bulgarian army and a small number of the Macedonians greet it with joy
due to the harsh life under the Serbian rule.
But they were very quickly deceived.
The Bulgarian occupiers showed themselves to be just as bad and cruel as the
previous, Serbian occupiers.
Thus, the Macedonians started a widespread uprising against the Bulgarian
rule. Until the end of the war tens of thousands of Macedonians participated
in the illegal armed struggle against the Bulgarian occupiers.
The uprising against the "Bulgarians" (the "Bulgarians" are Bulgar(ian)s in
name only. The greater majority of the population in Bulgaria are not of the
Bulgar(ian) creed) starts as early as 1941. On October 11th in the
Macedonian town Prilep, the Macedonian freedom fighters attacked the
Bulgarian police station. After this event the Bulgarian police brutally
attack the innocent, peaceful population. This behaviour of the Bulgarian
police embitters even some of the Macedonian traitors who were in service of
the Bulgarian fascist regime. One of them was Kosta Crnushanov who at that
time worked in the sphere of education. He had sent a protest letter to the
Bulgarian minister for education regarding these events, in which his
bitterness towards the actions of the Bulgarian occupiers can be seen
clearly:
"The witnesses and the victims have described to me
while crying: If someone has witnessed a pack of wolves attacking a flock of
sheep, then he/she can imagine the arrests and deadly beatings of Prilep's
citizens. The people were arrested wherever they could be found: at home, at
the cinema, in the cafés and other places. They were taken to the police
station and from there to prison. Along the road to the station they were
beaten to unconsciousness and was sworn their "Macedonian mother"! Who were
those who carried out the beatings? They were the policemen, the soldiers
and some of the officers, including the former regional police commissioner.
They beat their prisoners with sticks, hit them with the rifle barrels, with
pieces of wood and kicked them. They hit wherever they could: on the head,
on the spine, everywhere. From around 300 severely beaten citizens 70 were
held in prison. The severely beaten are of various age: from the young to
70-years old men, as is the case with Mitre Mazarot. In addition to the
beatings and tortures the victims were also robbed of their possessions.
Their money and other valuables such as pens, watches, etc, would be stolen.
The robbing was done by the policemen and the soldiers." (Source: Kosta
Crnushanov: "Input towards the history of MMTRO", Sofia, 1996)
The Bulgarian terror against the Macedonians continues in parallel with the
escalation of the armed struggle for the liberation of Macedonia.
In March of 1943 the Bulgarian occupying authorities round up and hand over
to the German Nazis the Jews from Macedonia, numbering 7,144 in total. The
Jews (men, women and children) are beaten and humiliated by the Bulgarian
policemen and after are sent to the death camps where they are exterminated.
Their empty homes are robbed by the Bulgarian policemen and a large number
of their houses are razed to the ground. For these evil acts exist shocking
testaments from around hundred of macedonian Jews who had managed to evade
the arrests and escape to safety.
At the end of the war numerous high ranking Bulgarian military and police
officials and agents are arrested by the new, Macedonian authorities. All of
them are indicted and put on trial, where they receive their deserved
sentences.
One of them is Dimitar Raev, director of the so called Skopje Regional
Directorate, the most responsible for all of the killings and arrests of the
Macedonian anti-fascists and fighters for freedom.
During his trial held on 28th May, 1945 (and the following days), in the
Officers Home in Skopje, the notorious Raev ruefully confesses:
"I beg the court to understand me. All of my life I
was told that the Macedonians are Bulgar(ian)s and that Macedonia is part of
Bulgaria, on which was based my behaviour then. Now I see for myself that I
was in delusion and realising that, I once again beg the Court to have that
in mind. (Source: "Nova Makedonija", several editions from May and June of
1945, in which the trials of the arrested Bulgarian fascist occupiers and
the Macedonian quislings were reported in full.)
Similar is the confession from Asen Bogdanov, who during the time of
occupation as a Regional Police Commissioner in Skopje had carried out many
atrocities against the Macedonians. During the time of his trial held in
Skopje in 1948, regarding his observations in Macedonia, he says:
"Prior to my arrival in Macedonia I thought that
here really existed a Bulgarian element. That was planted in us in Bulgaria
for years: that Macedonia belongs to Bulgaria, that its people are
Bulgarian, that here existed a Bulgarian kingdom. The surprise for me was
startling. Here I concluded that a Bulgarian element exists only in the face
of a few rich people who had become close to the Bulgarian authorities and a
handful of intellectuals who belong to the organisation of our people. All
of the others were conscious of their nationality, of their origin, that
they are Macedonians."
At the same court proceedings Asen Bogdanov additionally states:
"Almost in all of Macedonia existed an escalated
dissatisfaction and hate towards the Bulgarian rule. The Bulgarian
authorities had almost no support whatsoever from the masses" (A report
from the trial, published in the newspaper "Nova Makedonija", Skopje,
21-11-1948).
In the book "The trials as the last defeat" from the author Jovan Pavlovski
(Skopje 1984) are published tens of authentic confessions from the arrested
Bulgarian agents and police and military functionaries, who describe in
detail the murders and the various forms of torture which they had carried
out against the Macedonians during the Bulgarian occupation. Every civilised
human being will be horrified from these acts of barbarism.
This is only a tiny snippet from the shocking documentation of "Bulgar(ian)"
barbarisms in Macedonia during WWII.... It is no wonder, then, that the
renowned Macedonian poet Venko Markovski, who after WWII was forced to take
refuge in Bulgaria (and there forced to "mutate" into a bugaroman) after
being falsely accused by the Yugoslav communists of being pro Bulgarian
because of his uncompromising stance on the issue of Serbian influence and
control over Macedonia, wrote in his poems about about the "bulgarian
hordes".