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The Bulgarian government tried to alter the ethnic composition of the region by aggressively expropriating land and houses from Greek people in favor of settlers from Bulgaria, and enacted forced labor and economic restrictions on Greek businesses, in an effort to influence them to migrate to the German- and Italian-occupied parts of Greece. [55]
The remaining Greek territories were in Italian hands. Bulgaria officially annexed the occupied territories, which had long been a target of Bulgarian irredentism, on 14 May 1941. [2] A massive campaign of Bulgarisation was launched, which saw all Greek officials (mayors, school-teachers, judges, lawyers, priests, gendarmes) deported. A ban was ...
The area was conquered from the Ottoman Empire by Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars, but its western part (Eastern Macedonia) was ceded to Greece afterwards. [3] The Greek part was occupied by Bulgaria during World War I. Greece regained it, including the Bulgarian eastern part (Western Thrace), per the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly.
With German consent, Bulgarian military forces occupied parts of the Kingdoms of Greece and Yugoslavia which Bulgarian irredentism claimed on the basis of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Bulgaria resisted Axis pressure to join the war against the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, but did declare war on Britain and the ...
The Bulgarian-occupied areas encompassed a population of about 590,000, [2] [5] and between 14,168 km 2 (5,470 sq mi) [6] and 16,682 km 2 (6,441 sq mi) of Greek territory. [2] The occupied territories became part of Bulgaria from an administrative perspective, and were named the Province of Aegean (sometimes referred to as Belomorie).
The Bulgarian authorities released several dozen Jews of Italian origin, doctors, and others. [22] Separate cases of rescued Jews from Macedonia include those of Rafael Moshe Kamhi and Illés Spitz. Nearly 50,000 Jews were deported from German-occupied Thessaloniki, with the help of Greek collaborators. [23]
Conquered Greece was divided into three zones of control by the occupying powers, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. [12] The Germans controlled Athens, Central Macedonia, Western Crete, Milos, Amorgos and the islands of the Northern Aegean. Bulgaria annexed Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, while Italy occupied approximately two thirds of the ...
On 20 April, the Bulgarian Army occupied most of Western Thrace and the Greek province of Eastern Macedonia, which had been already conquered by Germany, with the goal of restoring its pre-World War I outlet to the Aegean Sea. Bulgarian troops also occupied much of eastern Serbia, where Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and the Italians.