Dimitar Yosifov Peshev (Bulgarian: Димитър Йосифов Пешев; 25 June 1894 – 20 February 1973[1]) was the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria and Minister of Justice (1935–1936), before World War II.

Dimitar Peshev, then vice president of the Sabranie, did not object to the Bulgarian alliance with Nazi Germany when King Boris III joined Hitler’s Axis.

The Bulgarian government signed an agreement declaring that, on 10 March 1943, all of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews would be deported from the Kyustendil railway station and sent to death camps in German-occupied Poland.

Born in 1894 in Kyustendil to an affluent family, Dimitar Peshev had studied languages in Saloniki and law in Sofia.

At the beginning of March 1943, the Jews of Kyustendil were ordered by the Commissariat on the Jewish Issues to leave their homes with only a few belongings.

[4] Peshev wrote a letter to Filov on 19 March which aimed to prevent any future anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria.

In January 1973, Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum, awarded him the title of "Righteous Among the Nations," for his role in saving Bulgaria's Jews at considerable risk to himself.

When asked about his rationale for preventing the Jewish deportation, Peshev once stated: "My human conscience and my understanding of the fateful consequences both for the people involved and the policy of our country now and in the future did not allow me to remain idle.

And I decided to do all in my power to prevent what was being planned from happening; I knew that this action was going to shame Bulgaria in the eyes of the world and brand her with a stain she didn't deserve.

The donation of the bust was accepted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and was inaugurated by Lord Russell Johnston in the presence of the Chairman of the Bulgarian National Assembly Yordan Sokolov, the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Hans Christian Krüger and Ronny Milo, member of the Israeli Knesset.

Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and Neil Glick spoke at the naming ceremony.

EuroChicago, the largest Bulgarian-American expatriate organization, voted to name the creation of Dimitar Peshev Plaza as the 2013 Bulgarian Event of the Year in the U.S.