874.00/4–545: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:43 a.m.]
183. As predicted in my 165, March 25, [24], 4 p.m.,9 the People’s Courts are rapidly winding up their activities. It is high time. To [Page 182] say that these courts have subjected the country to a blood bath is not too exaggerated. Of course, they are not responsible for the killings by the militia without benefit of judicial sanction since September 9. These are conservatively estimated at 20,000 at least. But unsanctioned killings and those carried out in the name of the People’s Courts are lumped together in the minds of most Bulgarians who are not protagonists of the leftist trends that have dominated the Fatherland Front to date. Domestic disquiet and concern abroad over the extent to which the Bulgarian populace has been “purged” finally brought forth an official statement at the end of March by the Minister of Justice10 that no new trials by the People’s Courts will be started after March 31 and that all trials under way would be wound up promptly. On March 21 the prosecutor of a Sofia People’s Court summed up the case against the accused without demanding wholesale death.
Penalties not yet reported are as follows: Sofia court trying those accused of persecution of Jews, to death 2 (in absentia) and 3 others (also in absentia) to life, 21 others to lesser terms of imprisonment; Turgovishte, to death 25, to imprisonment 62; Karlovo, to death none, to imprisonment 35; Vratza, to death none, to imprisonment 28; Starazagora, to death 28, to imprisonment 77; Kustendil, to death 33, imprisonment 95; Sevlievo, to death 41, imprisonment 77; Rustchuk, to death 6, imprisonment 22; Silistra, to death 7, imprisonment 2; Isperich, to death none, imprisonment 24.
Repeated to Moscow as 81 and to AmPolAd as 92.