MONUMENT TO DIMITAR PESHEV

Dimitar Peshev was born in Kyustendil in 1894 and was instrumental for the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from deportation in 1943. Under Communism his achievement was largely forgotten and he died, in poverty, in 1973. 

In 1997, eight years after the collapse of the Communist regime, he was posthumously awarded Bulgaria's highest order, Stara Planina.

The name of Dimitar Peshev, until the 1990s unknown to most Bulgarians, has been turned into a major Bulgarian historical export, mainly owing to the book by an Italian, Gabriele Nissim, entitled The Man Who Stopped Hitler. An effigy of Peshev can be found at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has minted a medal with his portrait. He is, of course, listed in the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. Memories of Peshev and his actions to save the Bulgarian Jews have transcended the geographic boundaries of Europe: there is the Peshev Square in Jaffa, Israel; the Peshev Plaza in Washington DC, and the Peshev Ridge, named after the Kyustendil citizen, is in the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica.