Sofia University's history faculty has created a Dimitar Peshev award for preserving historical memory and promoting examples of humanity, the faculty and the Alef Centre for Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation said. The first award will be presented in spring in Burgas, at the ceremony for Alef's youth competition.

The prize goes to a literary or film work that has won an award in the international youth competition for literature and cinema "Whoever saves one human life saves the whole world". The competition has run for more than a decade. Over its 13 editions it has drawn nearly 2,500 authors from 16 countries.

It began as a family initiative, and its reach and content have grown over time. Participants write stories, make films and prepare artistic performances. In this way they keep alive the memory of the Holocaust victims and search for the rescuers who stayed human in inhuman times.

The award is part of a cooperation memorandum between the faculty and Alef. The document provides for joint educational and cultural projects. Young people honoured in the competition will take part in special courses and international projects at the university.

"Setting up the Dimitar Peshev award is a way to link historical knowledge with civic responsibility," said the faculty dean, Prof. Mira Markova. She said young people should know the facts about the Holocaust and the rescue of Bulgarian Jews, and should also uphold lasting human virtues.

Prof. Rumyana Hristidi, who heads the Hebrew studies programme at the faculty and is a regular lecturer at the international festival "Friendship – Meaning and Salvation" in Burgas, attended the signing. "Working with the Alef Centre will push young people to think, through their own creative work, about the value of individual choice in the big story of history," she said. She said preserving memory takes academic research, but also passing knowledge on to the next generations. That is especially urgent today, she said, because almost no living witnesses of the Holocaust remain.

Alef chair Alberta Alkalay called the joint work with the faculty and the Hebrew studies programme wonderful. The centre works with schoolchildren whose interests can develop naturally at university, she said. Alkalay said values learned this way will last, and future generations will preserve the brightest examples of humanity set by their ancestors.

Dimitar Peshev was deputy speaker of the 25th National Assembly during the Second World War, when Bulgaria was an ally of the Third Reich. His actions were decisive in stopping the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to Nazi death camps in 1943. His selflessness and personal example helped save nearly 48,000 people.