BULGARIA WAS OBLIGED TO PAY 25 MILLION DOLLARS IN WAR REPARATIONS TO YUGOSLAVIA - THE DEBT WAS FORGIVEN, BUT HAS HISTORY BEEN FORGIVEN TOO?

On 1 March 1941, Bulgaria officially joined the Tripartite Pact, siding with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan. On 19 April of the same year, the Bulgarian army began the occupation of most of Vardar Macedonia. More than three years of occupation rule, repression, persecution and violence followed, and one of the most tragic chapters was the deportation of more than 7,000 Macedonian Jews to the Nazi death camp Treblinka in March 1943. After the defeat of the Axis powers, Bulgaria had to face the consequences of its participation in the war. Under the Paris Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947, Bulgaria was obliged to pay a total of 70 million US dollars in war reparations, of which 45 million dollars to Greece and 25 million dollars to Yugoslavia. The peace treaty used a gold parity of 35 dollars per ounce. On that basis, 25 million dollars represented a value equivalent to approximately 22.2 tonnes of gold. Today's market value of that gold is 4,165 dollars per ounce, or a total of

2,972,800,051

Dollars In 1947, within the framework of the Bled Agreements and the efforts at post-war rapprochement, the Yugoslav leadership renounced its claim to the war reparations. In 1949 Bulgaria renounced the Bled Agreements, but kept the write-off of the reparations debt. And today, almost eight decades later, one fundamental question arises. How is it possible that a state whose war reparations were forgiven now disputes the national identity and language of the people whose territory it once occupied? That is why Macedonia has grounds to request the opening of the historical archives, an official legal opinion on the war reparations and a clear determination of responsibility for the events of 1941 to 1944. Renouncing the reparations in 1947 does not mean the debt can automatically be collected again. But neither does it mean that historical responsibility has ceased to exist. Metla asks: If Bulgaria insists on its own interpretations of history as part of present-day relations between the two states, why should Macedonia not request an official debate on the Bulgarian occupation, the war damage and the forgiven reparations as well? Why do Macedonian institutions not request full documentation on the Bled Agreements, on the decision to forgive the debt and on its legal consequences? Good neighbourly relations cannot be built on a selective memory of history. Forgiving a financial debt does not erase historical facts, nor does it release anyone from moral responsibility. METLA.MK - The questions that deserve an answer.