Our
documentary tells the dramatic story of how
Bulgarian Christians and Muslims saved 50,000
Jews from the Holocaust. Few people know this
rescue story. But that is about to
change.
The
time was 1943. The place: Bulgaria, a supposedly
obscure, backward country in Eastern Europe. But
it proved to be among the most civilized of
nations. Fifty-thousand Jews lived in Bulgaria
before and after World War II. Fifty-thousand didn't die even though the Nazis had
begun to set in motion the trains that were to
take the Bulgarian Jews to their
deaths.
The
Jews of Bulgaria lived because Bulgarian
Christians and Muslims found ways to protect
them. Individuals and organizations made a
difference. Ordinary people stood up for their
Jewish friends and neighbors. The Church,
certain Bulgarian Parliament members, lawyers,
writers, trade unions, professional guilds, and
people from all walks of life helped defeat the
Nazis plans for mass
deportations.
And
this despite the efforts of the Bulgarian
government to meet Nazi demands for quotas,
i.e., to hand over thousands of Jews for
transport to concentration camps.
The
Optimists explores how different ethnic and
religious groups stood by each other in Bulgaria
even during the Holocaust. It is directed by
award-winning filmmaker Jacky Comforty, whose
family was among those rescued and who was
determined to tell this story on
film.
Twelve
years in the making, The Optimists was
funded in part by grants from the Maurice Amado Foundation, Simon
Wiesenthal Center,
Illinois Humanities Council, Israeli Ministry of Trade and
Industry, and many other organizations and
individuals. It is based on 155 hours of filmed
and videotaped interviews and 5,000 photographs
of Bulgarian Jewry from the turn-of-the last
century through World War II. The film premiered
this summer at the prestigious Jerusalem
International Film Festival 2000 and won First
Prize for "documenting the Jewish Experience." It was also
named co-winner of the Peace Prize in the
Forum for International Cinema at the Berlin International
Film Festival 2001. And in July, 2001, The Optimists was
awarded CINE –Golden Eagle Award.
Bulgaria's experience offers valuable insight into how we
can mobilize to protect human rights and civil
rights now. This is
a story that must be told. The Optimists
tells it.
*****
"This
is a film that celebrates the human spirit. It
offers hope that people of different races and
religions can learn to live together in peace."
-- Leora
Eren Frucht, The Jerusalem Post
