Bulgaria observed for the first time yesterday a day of remembrance for the victims of the country’s 45-year communist regime on the anniversary of the first executions some seven decades ago.

Bulgaria’s communist regime was one of the most hardline, lasting for 45 years before finally collapsing on November 10, 1989

Three former prime ministers and dozens of ministers and lawmakers were among a group of 147 people who were executed on February 1, 1945, by a so-called People’s Court set up by the newly established communist regime.

Their deaths “have become one of the symbols of the communist repressions” which followed, President Rosen Plevneliev said at a commemoration ceremony at a victims’ memorial in downtown Sofia.

Between December 1944 and April 1945, the court ordered the killing of a total of 2,730 Bulgarians, whom it saw as fascists, including royal regents and advisers, government members, parliamentarians, teachers, priests, civil servants, writers and journalists. Another 4,500 people were jailed.

The first time that death sentences were carried out was on February 1.

Religious masses for all the victims were held yesterday in Sofia’s oldest church “Saint Sofia” as well as in the southern city of Stara Zagora.

Bulgaria’s communist regime was one of the most hardline, lasting for 45 years before finally collapsing on November 10, 1989.

The government only moved last year to designate February 1 as a special day of remembrance for its victims.