Abstract
In 1996 a memorial forest was dedicated in Israel to the Bulgarian people to honor their rescue of Bulgarian Jews; the memorial included a monument in memory of King Boris III as a tribute to his "contribution" to the rescue of Jews. The monument to the king was vehemently opposed by Jewish survivors from Thrace and Macedonia, for whom Boris III was a perpetrator rather than a rescuer. The debate was exacerbated following the Hebrew translation of Michael Bar-Zohar's book "Beyond Hitler's Grasp" (1998) in 1999. As a result, the name and monument of Boris III disappeared from the forest and two new monuments appeared, dedicated to the "noble Bulgarian people" and to the Thracian and Macedonian Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Discusses letters sent to the committee dealing with this problem in 2000; some of the writers protested against the king's commemoration, while others defended the king. Typologizes their arguments, designating them as personal, moralistic, national, political, and historical. Israeli historical culture and the politics of commemoration were intertwined in the controversy, which also reflected Halbwachs' theory on the connection between individual and historical memory.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 137-156 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Israel Studies |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| State | Published - 2004 |
RAMBI Publications
- Rambi Publications
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Bulgaria
- Collective memory -- Israel