Skopje, 11 March 2024 (MIA) — We cannot allow the truth about the Holocaust of the Macedonian Jews be falsified because any compromise with the truth opens up a possibility of repeating crimes; anti-Semitism is not and has never been a Macedonian phenomenon but we have to educate our youth about the evil of anti-Semitism and the danger of xenophobia, President Stevo Pendarovski said in his address at the event at the Holocaust Memorial Center for the Jews of Macedonia commemorating the deported Macedonian Jews.

"On this day, 81 years ago, Jews from Skopje, Bitola and Shtip were forcibly taken from their homes and transported to the Skopje Monopol building," Pendarovski said, adding that "the planned and implemented action of the Bulgarian fascist occupier was not an isolated act, but an integral part of the Nazi plan established at the Wannsee Conference for the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'."

This plan, Pendarovski said, was to annihilate the entire Jewish population from Europe, including the Jews from the territory of the then occupied Macedonia. In the Treblinka gas chambers, he said, in just 13 months from August 1942 to September 1943, around 900,000 people were killed, among them 98 percent of the Macedonian Jews, who were also a third of the total Macedonian victims of World War II.

"Nowhere in Europe was the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question' implemented more effectively than in the then occupied Macedonia," President Pendarovski said.

Noting that Nazi concentration camp survivors' testimonies were blood-curdling and their languages lacked the words to describe the horrors, he said there were no testimonies from the Macedonian Jews deported to Treblinka, however, because only hours after their arrival, they were taken to the gas chambers and no one survived.

"Their names, 7,144 of them, meticulously recorded by the fascists, are written under the three cremation urns from Treblinka. We have no right to forget, because forgetting is the second death," Pendarovski said.

"But our memory cannot be selective. By preserving the memories of the victims, we cannnot allow for the perpetrators to be celebrated and for their accomplices be rehabilitated. Because in that way we would participate in what Primo Levi said was a war against memory and the falsification of history. We cannot let the truth about the Holocaust of the Macedonian Jews be falsified because any compromise with the truth opens up a possibility of repeating crimes," Pendarovski said.

Anti-Semitism never was a Macedonian phenomenon, given the centuries of respect for diversity and coexistence between different ethnic and religious communities in the region, he said.

"There is no stronger proof of this than the fact that a large number of the surviving Macedonian Jews, those who were saved and avoided deportation, actively joined the national liberation and anti-fascist fight of the Macedonian people. Some of them were partisans, national heroes, and participants in the state-forming ASNOM session. The surviving Jewish community contributed to the construction of the free Macedonian state," Pendarovski said, adding: "Though small in number today, the Jewish community in North Macedonia is highly respected." 

He said young generations need to be educated about the evils of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, which are also obligations that the country undertook at the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance. "Although it is not easy or pleasant to explore this abyss of evil, we still need to, so as not to allow criminals have the last word," the President said.

At the commemoration, Gal Genossar's "The Monopol" (2023) short film based on a true story about a Macedonian Jewish family was shown. 

Commemoration attendees included president of the Macedonian Jewish community Pepo Levi, Israeli Ambassador Simona Frankel, and German Federal Government Special Representative for the Countries of the Western Balkans Manuel Sarrazin. 

Earlier in the day, the 81st anniversary of the deportation of Macedonian Jews to the Nazi camp Treblinka was commemorated by flower-laying ceremonies at the monument of the 7,144 deported Macedonian Jews in the courtyard of the former Skopje Monopol. Those who laid flowers included President Pendarovski, Caretaker Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi, Members of Parliament and ambassadors. mr/