The Ambassador of Bulgaria to the USA, Georgi Panayotov, attended a prayer service at the Agudath Achim Synagogue in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Rescue of Bulgarian Jews.

The Ambassador was introduced by Rabbi Steven Rein, who pointed out that during the dark times of the Holocaust , Bulgaria had the courage to take the right decision and thanks to that nearly 50,000 human lives were saved.

Ambassador Panayotov highlighted Bulgaria's role in saving the Bulgarian Jews and pointed out that quite a few people in Nazi-occupied Europe risked their lives to save Jews. But there are very rare cases when the whole society in a given country has resisted deportation, and this is exactly the case with Bulgaria, he said.