Even though Bulgaria rescued its Jews in World War II, the country had a role in the genocide of Greek Jews, a Greek-Jewish umbrella group has pointed out in a letter to a United Nations body.

"Bulgarians saved their country's Jews in exchange for the Jews of the other territories under their control," said the letter sent Jan. 26 from the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece to the UN Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organizations.

"In the name of the historical memory of our brothers, victims of the Bulgarian atrocities in our country during the Holocaust, we ask you to include this small and 'untold' part of history in your briefing," the group demanded.

The letter came ahead of the UN Department's briefing on January 26 that focused "on the little-known role of the Bulgarian people in saving Bulgarian Jews". January 27 marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Bulgaria is famous for not allowing its Jews to be taken away by the Nazi regime. An estimated 50 000 Bulgarian Jews escaped the faith of being taken to concentration camps because of a campaign for their rescue that started in the southwestern Bulgarian town of Kyustendil, with support or acquiescence of Tsar Boris III and other Bulgarian politicians such as Dimitar Peshev.

However, 11 000 Jews from the regions of Macedonia and Thrace occupied by Bulgaria, a Nazi Germany ally in 1941-44, were deported to Holocaust camps.