On March 10, 1943, the deportation of 7,144 Jews from Vardar Macedonia began. On March 12, 161 Jews from Pirot were deported via Lom to Vienna, and on March 13, 1943, the deportation of Jews from Sofia began.
On December 24, 1940, the government majority in the XXV National Assembly voted for a special Law for the Protection of the Nation, which regulated the deprivation of Bulgarian Jews of civil and political rights, their removal from the country's economic life, and the expropriation of their property. After Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact on March 1, 1941, it was subjected to even greater pressure from Hitlerite Germany. From the beginning of 1942 The Jewish population fit for physical work was forcibly divided into work groups and sent to sites where heavy physical labor was required. Immediate measures were also taken to eliminate Bulgarian Jews.
On February 22, 1943, a special agreement was concluded between the Gestapo plenipotentiary T. Dannecker and the Commissioner for Jewish Affairs of Bulgaria Al. Belev for the deportation of 20,000 people to the death camps. Meanwhile, in the capital and other cities of the country, attacks and pogroms were constantly being carried out on Jewish homes and entire neighborhoods by members and supporters of the Union of Bulgarian National Legions, the All-Bulgarian Union "Father Paisii", etc.
On the other hand, prominent public and cultural figures such as Ya. Sakazov, D. Kazasov, L. Stoyanov, etc. The protest action also included prominent representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Metropolitans Stefan Sofia and Kiril Plovdiv, as well as entire public organizations - the Lawyers' Union, the Doctors' Union, the Artists' Union, etc.
In this situation, Tsar Boris III and the then government of Prof. B. Filov did not decide to fulfill the agreement reached with Berlin. As a "compromise option" the deportation of Jews only from the newly annexed lands in the Aegean Sea and Thrace was adopted. In March 1943, under the pretext of transferring them to the interior of Bulgaria, 11,836 Jews were taken to the Danube ports and from there sent to concentration camps. A new plan was also being developed for the additional deportation of another 8,560 Jews. Its implementation was not carried out due to the sharp wave of protest, which also included some former government sympathizers - D. Peshev, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly, etc.
On March 17, 1943, the Deputy Chairman of the 25th National Assembly Dimitar Peshev wrote a letter against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews, supported by 42 deputies. With the intervention of the public, the Bulgarian Jews were saved. In 2002, at a meeting of the Ministers of Education of the member states of the Council of Europe, a decision was made in 2003 that the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which until 2002 was celebrated on January 27, should be celebrated in each country, in accordance with its national history. In Bulgaria, it was celebrated for the first time on March 10, 2003. It was declared by a decision of the Council of Ministers on February 13, 2003 as "Day of the Holocaust and Victims of Crimes against Humanity". On this day in 1943, Metropolitan Kiril of Plovdiv, later Bulgarian Patriarch, and Exarch Stefan of Sofia prevented the deportation to Nazi concentration camps of hundreds of Jews from Plovdiv.