Bulgarian Honor Bid in DC Stirs Holocaust Debate

[steve2470]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/bulgarian-honor-bid-dc-stirs-holocaust-debate-19122869#.UYkblj7h5co



A request by the Bulgarian Embassy to name a Washington intersection after a favorite native son — a man credited with helping save the country's Jewish population from deportation — has gotten tangled up in a broader debate about whether the nation is accurately accounting for the actions of its leaders during the Holocaust.

A tense exchange between the embassy and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has played out behind the scenes as the D.C. Council prepares to consider honoring Dimitar Peshev this month. The debate underscores not only the complexities of Holocaust history but also the difficulty countries can face reconciling the heroic deeds of an individual during World War II with the record of a nation as a whole. It also comes as historians and Jewish organizations continue encouraging nations to take unvarnished stock of their actions in Nazi-era Europe.

"You have to tell both sides and people have to understand, try to understand, what the complexity is. That's why it's critical," said Frederick Chary, a retired professor of Bulgarian history at Indiana University-Northwest.

The issue arose in December when the embassy asked the D.C. Council to name an intersection for Peshev in a letter that put a favorable spin on Bulgarian treatment of Jews during World War II. The Holocaust museum, invited by the Council to review the letter's accuracy, said the wording of the embassy's request — along with a recent declaration by Bulgaria's Parliament — glossed over a more checkered history.