{{Short description|Bulgarian politician}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}} '''Aleksandar Georgiev Belev''' ({{langx|bg|Александър Георгиев Белев}}; 1898, in [[Lom, Bulgaria]] – 9 September 1944, in [[Bulgaria]]) was the Bulgarian commissar of Jewish Affairs during [[World War II]], famous for his [[antisemitic]] and strongly nationalistic views. He played a central role in the deportation of some 12,000 Jews to [[Nazi concentration camps]] in occupied Poland. He was also one of the founders of the Bulgarian nationalist [[Ratniks]].<ref>Stephane Groueff, ''Crown of Thorns: The Reign of King Boris III of Bulgaria, 1918-1943'', Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, {{ISBN|978-1-56833-114-0}}, p. 322</ref>
==Early years== Belev was born in 1898.<ref>G'eni Lebel, Ženi Lebl, ''Tide and Wreck: History of the Jews of Vardar Macedonia'', Avotaynu, 2008, p. 251</ref> His mother was an Italian from [[Dalmatia]] named Melanese, and Belev was often dogged by unsubstantiated rumours that her father was Jewish.<ref name="bar51">[[Michael Bar-Zohar]], ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews'', Adams Media Corporation, 1998, p. 51 {{ISBN|978-1-58062-060-4}}</ref> His father was in fact the revolutionary from [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee|SMAC]] Georgi Belev.<ref>[http://istoriograph.bg/istoriq/nova-istoriq/%d0%90%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%ba%d1%81%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b4%d1%8a%d1%80-%d0%91%d0%b5%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%b2-%d0%9b%d0%b8%d1%87%d0%bd%d0%be%d1%81%d1%82-%d0%b8-%d0%b4%d0%b5%d0%bb%d0%be Мартин Вътев, март 10, 2019. Александър Белев – личност и дело в Историограф.]</ref>
Belev studied law at [[Sofia University]]<ref name="bar51"/> and in Germany<ref>Jack Fischel, ''The Holocaust'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998, p. 69</ref> before returning to Bulgaria to work as a lawyer.<ref>Itamar Levin, ''His Majesty's Enemies: Great Britain's War Against Holocaust Victims and Survivors'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 38</ref> He spent a number of years working within the Ministry of the Interior.<ref>Bar-Zohar, ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp'', p. 77</ref> The protégé of Interior Minister [[Petar Gabrovski]], a strong supporter of [[fascism]], Belev was sent to [[Nazi Germany]] in 1941 on Gabrovski's initiative in order to study the [[Nuremberg laws]] with a view to introducing a similar system for Bulgaria.<ref>David S. Wyman & Charles H. Rosenzveig, ''The World Reacts to the Holocaust'', p. 264 {{ISBN|978-0-8018-4969-5}}</ref> Belev was already notorious as one of the country's most outspoken anti-Semitic politicians.<ref>Paul Mojzes, ''Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011, p. 102 {{ISBN|978-1-4422-0663-2}}</ref>
==Commissariat of Jewish Affairs== In February 1942, the Commissariat of Jewish Affairs was established as a department within the [[Ministry of Interior (Bulgaria)|Interior Ministry]]. Gabrovski appointed Belev to serve as the new body's first [[chairman]]. He promulgated a new set of laws in August 1942 governing the treatment of Bulgaria's Jews. Based on the [[Nuremberg Laws]], Belev's decrees instituted the wearing of identification stars, corralling into ghettoes and strong restrictions on the movement of Jews.<ref>Wyman & Rosenzveig, ''The World Reacts to the Holocaust'', JHU Press, 1996, p. 266</ref>
During this time Belev was a close associate and political ally of [[Hauptsturmfuhrer|SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer]] [[Theodor Dannecker]], chief of the [[Gestapo]] in Bulgaria and deputy to [[Adolf Eichmann]].<ref>Mark Avrum Ehrlich, ''Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, Volume 1'', ABC-CLIO, 2009, p. 960 {{ISBN|978-1-85109-873-6}}</ref>
Belev's role had officially been to resettle Bulgaria's Jewish population but in June 1942 he reported that such a solution would be impossible during wartime, unless the Bulgarian government was prepared to turn the task over to the Germans.<ref>Marshall Lee Miller, ''Bulgaria During the Second World War'', Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 99</ref> As such on 22 February 1943 he signed a pact with Dannecker to deliver 20,000 Jews to Eichmann, with 12,000 coming from the newly annexed territories of [[Western Thrace]] and east [[Vardar Banovina|Macedonia]] and the rest from Bulgaria, although ultimately the deportation of the 8,000 citizen Jews was blocked. Those transported ended up in concentration camps with the vast majority not surviving the war<ref>Richard S. Levy, ''Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1'', ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 90 {{ISBN|978-1-85109-439-4}}</ref>
Enthusiasm for the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews was very limited within the political establishment and indeed news of the plan was leaked to the public, who were encouraged to publicly protest. By the time the protests started however, the Thracian and Macedonian Jews had already left.<ref>Mark Levene, ''Annihilation: Volume II: The European Rimlands 1939-1953'', Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 175-76 {{ISBN|978-0-19-968304-8}}</ref> It has been argued that the fact that those deported first were not Bulgarian citizens meant there was less public outrage over their deportation, thus protests were not forthcoming in their case.<ref>Guy H. Haskell, ''From Sofia to Jaffa: The Jews of Bulgaria and Israel'', Wayne State University Press, 1994, p. 114 {{ISBN|978-0-8143-2502-5}}</ref>
The protests helped to ensure that nineteen Bulgarians were later awarded the status of [[Righteous Among the Nations]].<ref name="camb">[[Judith R. Baskin]], Judith Reesa Baskin, ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture'', Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 255 {{ISBN|978-0-521-82597-9}}</ref> Belev was ultimately forced to abandon the plans altogether when ordered to in a telephone conversation with [[Boris III of Bulgaria|King Boris III]].<ref>Bar-Zohar, ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp'', p. 213</ref>
In an attempt to deal with the Bulgarian Jews he forcibly moved [[Sofia]]'s 19,000 Jews to smaller towns and villages across the country in May 1943, although these dispossessed Jews largely survived the war.<ref name="camb"/>
==Last years and death== In October 1943 the newly appointed government of [[Prime Minister of Bulgaria|Prime Minister]] [[Dobri Bozhilov]] dismissed Belev from his position as chairman of the Commissariat of Jewish Affairs, replacing him with the more moderate Christo Stomanyakov.<ref>Bar-Zohar, ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp'', p. 241</ref>
Belev was subsequently reassigned to the Interior Ministry's Central Directorate of Control. Estranged from Gabrovski, whom Belev felt had done too little to protect him from the political machinations that resulted in his fall from power, and having become convinced that a German defeat was inevitable, Belev became embittered and told his reputed lover and former secretary Liliana Panitza he intended to flee to Germany and disappear underground.<ref>Bar-Zohar, ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp'', pp. 244-45</ref>
Belev disappeared on 9 September 1944, with a rumour having gone round Sofia that he had committed suicide in a bank in [[Sofia]]. This however proved to be untrue. Other rumours circulated that he had fled to Germany or even the United States and so widely was it believed that he was still alive that the People's Court tried, convicted and sentenced him to death in absentia. Belev had fled to [[Kyustendil]], from whence he intended to travel to Germany, but when he arrived he was captured by partisans who arrested him and sent him back to Sofia. For the journey Belev was accompanied by an armed guard, a Jewish partisan, who, as soon as they left Kyustendil, turned his gun on Belev and killed him. His body was dumped in a ditch by the roadside, with the incident not reported until several years later.<ref>Bar-Zohar, ''Beyond Hitler's Grasp'', pp. 246-47</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Belev, Aleksandar}} [[Category:1898 births]] [[Category:1944 deaths]] [[Category:Assassinated Nazis]] [[Category:Assassinated Bulgarian people]] [[Category:People from Lom, Bulgaria]] [[Category:Ratniks]] [[Category:Bulgarian people of Italian descent]] [[Category:Bulgarian anti-communists]] [[Category:Executed Bulgarian collaborators with Nazi Germany]] [[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Bulgaria]] [[Category:Yugoslav Macedonia in World War II]] [[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Greece]] [[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Poland]] [[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Yugoslavia]] [[Category:Deaths by firearm in Bulgaria]]