Narrative: Jacky Comforty

Art: Martha Aladjem Bloomfield

This is the story of our people, who lived through some of the most difficult times for humanity. Many of their generations perished but they were lucky to survive due to their resilience and the kindness of friends, neighbors and institutions.

These are the stories we were never told growing up. Parents do not tend to tell horror stories to their children. Sad memories are suppressed for the sake of creating an optimistic outlook of childhood and the future. 

We aim to reconstruct the story of the Holocaust in one country, Bulgaria, and the consequences it had for thousands of Jewish, Greek, Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian victims and how its effects span all over Europe. A visual puzzle. Bits and pieces, combined to tell human stories of people long deceased and forgotten.

But the most important purpose of writing and painting this story is to give voice to those who were silenced, tortured, lost, drowned or forgotten. This collection of testimonies, images, documents and paintings, is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Bulgaria and its role in the Final Solution.

The photographs in this book serve as visual documentation of the material we uncovered during our research. The paintings, on the other hand, provide an interpretative lens for events with sparse or no visual records. Together, these elements create a tapestry of interconnected stories which span across the Balkans and all the way across Europe, illustrating the vast scope of the Holocaust.

The spirit of the times is evoked through careful and nuanced use of these visual and auditory elements, weaving a more complex, interwoven narrative of the Holocaust. This reconstruction not only preserves memory but also re-imagines it, ensuring that future generations remember and understand these stories.

The Process

Jacky Comforty collected the oral histories and researched the narrative for this exhibit and Martha Aladjem Bloomfield painted pictures of real events based on Jacky’s testimonials from individuals affected by the Holocaust and Bulgaria’s collaboration with Nazi Germany, and on textual, audial and visual research. Scholars from the United States, Bulgaria, Israel, Germany and France have endorsed their work which shares a complex tapestry of voices and memories previously underrepresented, ignored and denied.