Bulgaria Defends Decorating Controversial War Veteran Despite Protests

The Defence Ministry has defended the decision to award a 96-year-old member of the pre-World War II Union of Bulgarian National Legions, Dyanko Markov, despite an outcry from Jewish organisations who say he was complicit in the deportation of Bulgarian Jews.

The Defence Ministry told BIRN on Thursday it saw nothing wrong with its decision, and refused to comment on the specific positions of the two objecting organizations.

On Wednesday, the B'nai B'rith's Sofia Carmel 3355 lodge and the Shalom Jewish organization called the award shameful and inadmissible.

Markov was nominated for the "Dignity and Honour" medal by soldiers from the Union of His Royal Highness's Military Academies, the School of Reserve Officers, "and by the patriotic citizenry and soldiery", the ministry told BIRN.

However, the Carmel 3355 lodge said the award "would amount to ... glorification of people with a Nazi past and present and put Bulgaria in the shameful list of countries where Nazism and Fascism find approval at government level".

"The 'enlightened patriotism' of Markov saw 11,343 Jews from Thrace, Macedonia and Pirot sent to Nazi death camps in March 1943," the Shalom organisation said.

In a 24 Chasa newspaper interview in 2013, Markov rejected claims that he had ever referred to Bulgarian Jews as "hostile population".

Markov, who turned 96 on Thursday, was born in the town of Pleven in 1922. His father launched the local branch of the Union of Bulgarian National Defence, an organization historians classify as following a Fascist ideology.

Before becoming an officer, Markov became part of the Bulgarian National Legions, an organization headed by the controversial World War II Minister of War, General Hristo Lukov.

Markov...