Bulgaria commemorates the victims of communist rule

On February 1, Bulgaria honours the victims of the country’s communist era.

The date marks a decision by a Bulgarian communist “People’s Court” on 1st of February, 1945 to sentence to death , without the right to appeal three Regents of the then King of Bulgaria, Simeon II - king's uncle Prince Kiril, prime minister Bogdan Filov, and general Nikola Mihov; 67 MPs and 22 cabinet ministers. Secretaries to the Palace, newspaper publishers and generals were also sentenced to death. The executions were carried out the same night near the Sofia cemetery.

The People’s Court - an ad hoc tribunal - was set up months after the communist coup in Bulgaria in 1944. It was established outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law, in contravention of the then effective Turnovo constitution, to be used as an instrument of the communist terror. Overall, the People’s Court tried 135 cases with 11,122 accused. A total of 9,155 people were sentenced. A total of 2,730 people from Bulgaria’s elite were killed over a period of several months.1,305 were sentenced to life imprisonment.

No one was allowed to talk about this until the fall of totalitarianism in 1989.

The day of remembrance and respect to the victims of the communist regime is celebrated on 1st of February at the proposal of the presidents of Bulgaria Zhelyu Zhelev (1990-1997) and Petar Stoyanov (1997-2002).

Velichko Velev was one of the last living inmates from the concentration camp in Belene.

Velichko Velev: I was sent there, because I was considered what they called "enemy of the people", and because I was not happy with the communist system, even though I was too young, 18 years old, I witnessed the events that were happening."

Velichko Velev participated in an anti-communist group and in the Goryan movement. Without trial or conviction he was sent to Belene in 1951, in his words, "half dead" and spent three years there:

"Attitude of the State Security, investigation, beatings, pouring buckets of water over us to bring us to our senses and so on. These were the conditions."

Velichko Velev says persecution for political beliefs should never be repeated. Today, relatives of the dead, politicians, and members of the public laid wreaths and flowers at the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in downtown Sofia.

Their memory was honoured with prayers by priests and the Imam. In his speech, the Speaker of Parliament, Rossen Zhelyazkov said that the period marked the lives of generations of Bulgarians who were not only denied the right to have their own history, but their present was re-invented and their future was forbidden.

"Today is the day when we should pray for the souls of the victims, but we should also make our appeal to the living, to future generations not to forget, to remember that good always wins."

Commemorative events were held in other cities and towns in the country.

Plovdiv also honoured the victims of the communist regime in front of the monument "The Witness" in Stefan Stambolov Square. Vassil Shalamanov was at the event. His father was arrested and tried in 1951 by the People’s Court, when Vassil was a baby:

"That is why today I want to honour those martyrs who lost their lives and were worthy Bulgarians."

“The Witness” monument was erected in 2005 in tribute to the 1,025 who died from the communist terror in Plovdiv.

Images by Dessislava Kulelieva, BNT