Thrace, Greece, a photograph album depicting the deportation of the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia, March 1943.

On 04/03/1943, the Bulgarians arrested almost all the Jews, numbering 4,058 persons, in the areas of Thrace (Turkey), which Bulgaria had annexed from Greece. The Jews were deported from 11 cities and towns. Between 05-10/03/1943, the Thracian Jews were transferred to camps in two cities - Gornia Dzhumaja and Dubnitsa. They were kept there in tobacco warehouses and school buildings until 08/03/1943. A few days before the Jews were deported from Dubnitsa, the Bulgarian commissar for Jewish affairs, Belev, visited the camp, together with Danker. Belev gave orders that photographs be taken, especially of Jews who had a particularly miserable appearance. The Thracian Jews were transferred from the concentration camps to the port city of Lom, on the banks of the Danube by special trains. They were put in closed cattle cars under heavy surveillance by the Bulgarian police. In Lom the Jews were taken to four small ships, the "Karadorde" and "Voivoda Michach", on 20/03/1943, and the "Saturnus" and Tzar Dushan" on 21/03/1943. The ships sailed from Lom between 20-22/03/1943, reaching Vienna 10 days later. On 26/03/1943, the Jews were taken from Vienna, via Katowicz, to the Treblinka extermination camp. This information is based on details in the book, "History of the Jews of Bulgaria," by Haim Keshles, Tel Aviv: Davar, 1971 (Hebrew).