New York Premiere of “Empty Boxcars” by Ed Gaffney

For too long Greek Jews have lamented the fact that the memory of 5000 Greek Jews who had the misfortune of residing in the Bulgarian Zone of Occupation (Thrace and Eastern Macedonia) has been tarnished by the Bulgarians claiming that they were a “righteous” nation and saved “all their Jews.”

To right that wrong, and in the memory of 13,000 Jews (5000 in the Bulgarian Zone of Occupation of Greece and 8000 in the Bulgarian Zone of Occupation of Macedonia of the Former Yugoslavia) Kehila Kedosha Janina is honored to show “Empty Boxcars” by Ed Gaffney.

“When we hear a story, its human nature to look for heroes and villains. Such is the case with the «rescue» of Bulgaria’s Jews during World War II. Just that phrase alone, however, is repeated with such monotonous regularity that it’s easy to overlook the fact that Bulgarian Jews in the Bulgarian occupied territories of Macedonia and Thrace were sent to Treblinka death camp in Poland where they were exterminated.

Gaffney’s powerful documentary, which explores the dark side of Bulgarian anti-Semitism, as well as the saving of Bulgaria’s 48 000 Jews, may not be welcomed by those Bulgarians eager to see an unqualified story of national heroism. Neither will it particularly please devotees of King Boris who like to think of him as a «righteous Gentile».

Empty Boxcars pays tribute to the courage of those Bulgarians who stopped the deportations but it’s NOT a eulogy to Bulgaria’s role in the war. As one Bulgarian Jewish survivor, Norbert Yasharoff, says – «What are we supposed to thank you (the Bulgarians) for – should I thank people for not killing me?» In the film, former president Petar Stoyanov pays tribute to the role of certain Bulgarians in saving the Jews, declaring it to be Bulgaria’s «greatest contribution to European civilization». Yet he also notes the 11 000 murders on the occupied territories. Therein lays the ambivalence of Empty Boxcars – mass murder and salvation are given equal weight.

The first half of Empty Boxcars is a harrowing tale of racism. It’s the story of Bulgarian Jewish children, forced by a 1941 law to wear the Star of David, facing daily beatings from Bulgarian classmates as part of the latter’s rite of passage into the Nazi youth movement. But these Jews in Bulgaria were «lucky» compared to the fate of their brothers and sisters in lands administered by Bulgaria. By 1943, there were a total of 63, 403 Jews in the «Unified» or «Greater» Bulgaria (which comprised pre-1941 Bulgaria and the conquered territories of Macedonia, Aegean Thrace, and Pirot), constituting nearly one per cent of the population. Whole areas were to be ethnically cleansed, leaving, as Holocaust chronicler Michael Berenbaum describes it, «the absence of presence and the presence of absence».

The Sofia Echo, October 15, 2010”

Ed Gaffney, film director, will be present for the screening.