Bulgarian TV host apologises after allegedly denying Holocaust on air
The host of a popular gameshow on Bulgarian National Television has apologised after allegedly denying the Holocaust and spouting anti-Jewish racism on air.
After asking contestants to name “the chess player with Jewish roots who nonetheless spoke out harshly against Jews,” Orlin Goranov went on to quote from an article on a white supremacist website. The author claimed to have interviewed the late chess master Bobby Fischer, who was also infamous for promoting antisemitism. Mr Goranov quoted the article claiming to quote Mr Fischer saying, “There were no gas chambers; that’s all baloney” and that Jews didn’t like to work, which was “one of the things the Jews didn’t like about Hitler’s concentration camps.”
On the following day, Bulgarian National Television’s director, Emil Koshlukov, apologised, saying that the quotations “contain hate speech and slander” and promised to “punish the employees” responsible for the incident.
A day later, Mr Goranov apologised on air, saying that his comments were not aimed at offending Jews “but at accurately quoting Fischer.”
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