The Three Cultures Foundation and the Embassy of Bulgaria present this exhibition on the impact of international events in Bulgaria in the early 1940s and the response of Bulgarian society.
The exhibition brings together photographs, facsimiles and texts to explain the historical, political and social context of the time, and was presented for the first time in November 2009 to diplomats, representatives of the Bulgarian Jewish community, scientists and researchers specialising in the period.
Since then, the exhibition has been shown in several cities in Europe and beyond: Warsaw, Prague, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Washington, New York, Toronto, Geneva, Dublin and Tel Aviv, among others. In Spain, it has been shown at the Centro Sefarad-Israel in Madrid and at the Fundació Palma Espai d'Art - Casal Solleric in Palma de Mallorca as part of the 15th European Day of Jewish Culture.
This exhibition has been realised in cooperation with the State Institute for Culture of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Centre for Judaic Studies of the Sofia University St. Clement of Ojrid.
AUTHORS:
Concept: Dr. Albena Taneva, Centre for Jewish Studies, Sofia University.
Graphic design: Orlín Atanasov.
Translation: Slavka Savova, Stoyan Mihaylov.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The exhibition is based on:
A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People, ed. Eli Barnavi, NY, 1994;
Bar-Zohar, Michael, Beyond Hitler's Grasp, Adams Media Corporation, 1998
Greenberg, Nathan. Documents, 1945 (in Bulgarian);
120th Anniversary of the Bulgarian National AssemblySofia 1999 (in Bulgarian);
Doomed and SavedVitka Toshkova, ed. Vitka Toshkova, Bulgarian Academy of Science, 2007 (in Bulgarian);
Raichevski, Stoyan. Bulgarian and Jews in the Centuries, Sofia, 2008 (in Bulgarian);
Saving of the Jews in Bulgaria 1941-1944, еd. Albert Cohen and Anri Assa, Sofia, 1977;
Taneva Albena and Ivanka Gezenko. The Power Of Civil Society in a Time of Genocide, Proceedings of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on the Rescue of the Jews in Bulgaria 1940-1944, Sofia, 2003;
The Holly Road. About the life of Bulgarian Jews, 1998 (in Bulgarian);
The Survival 1940-1944 - DocumentsDavid Cohen, ed. David Cohen, Sofia, 1996 (in Bulgarian);
The Rescue of the Bulgarian Jews 1941-1944, Permanent Exhibition at the Jewish Cultural House (in Bulgarian).
Images and documents courtesy of:
State Archives of Bulgaria
Sofia Municipal Archives
Centropa database: www.centropa.org
http://www.comedian-harmonists.com/
http://vladigerov.hit.bg/avtobiografia.htm
http://www.ghwk.de/deut/proto.htm
For more information, please visit http://sic.mfa.government.bg/?act=galleries&rec=1240
The opening of the exhibition will take place on 8 October at 7 p.m., according to the following programme:
-Institutional presentation.
-Lecture by Marcel Israel.
-Opening of the exhibition.
Dr. Marcel Israel is a researcher and scholar of Spanish-Jewish culture and language born in Plovdiv (Bulgaria). He did his university studies in Engineering in Germany, where he also obtained his PhD in Electronics and Industrial Cybernetics. His working life was related to Bulgaria and Spain, and focused on Development and Manufacturing in Computer Science and Robotics, System Support and Sales in Telecommunications, Renewable Energy Systems and Vehicles.
Since the 60s of the last century, he has been a member of the Jewish Religious Community in Bulgaria and at that time he began to develop his studies on the Jewish-Spanish culture and language. From 2009 to 2012 he was President of the Israeli Communities in Bulgaria. In addition to Bulgarian and Spanish, he is fluent in German, English, Ladino (djudezmo) and Russian, and has knowledge of Hebrew and French. His studies have been published in several countries and he participates in Spanish-Jewish conferences all over the world: Spain, USA, Bulgaria, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela.
Marcel Israel currently resides in Madrid and Sofia. He is a very active member of the National Council of Religious Communities in Bulgaria and its Secretary for International Relations, as well as an advisor to the President of the International Non-Governmental Organisation Religions for Peace - Europe.
Portuguese