Boris III, Bulgaria’s King of Mercy

Image: Wikimedia Commons

At the height of Nazi regime, Adolph Hitler wanted the annihilation of the Jews. In Bulgaria, the Prime Minister Bogdan Filov and Interior Minister Petur Gabrovski, who were staunch Nazi supporters, worked hard to pass the law that curbed Jewish rights, imposed new taxes, and limited the Jews’ professional opportunities. This was signed into law by Tsar Boris III in January 1941. In return for this allegiance to Hitler, the country's territories that Bulgaria had lost after World War I were restored, earning Boris the moniker as the "The Unifier" king. However, this was the only full support that Boris gave to the Nazis as he played the cat-at-mouse game with Hitler. He refused to send Bulgarian troops to fight against Soviet Russia and further refused the dispatch of unofficial volunteers to the Eastern Front.

News of the imminent deportations of Bulgarian Jews to Poland and Germany met strong protests throughout Bulgaria Boris quietly worked to rescue her Jewish subjects. The royal palace, through the Swiss diplomatic channels, attempted to send the Jews to British-controlled Palestine. However, this plan was blocked by the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

Boris III meets Adolf Hitler. Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Nazis became more suspicious of the King’s quiet activities as he helped Monsignor Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), the Papal Nuncio in Istanbul, rescue more Jews. Monsignor Loris F. Capovilla, Roncalli’s secretary, noted the future pope and the tsar’s efforts: "Through his intervention, and with the help of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria, thousands of Jews from Slovakia, who had first been sent to Hungary and then to Bulgaria, and who were in danger of being sent to Nazi concentration camps, obtained transit visas for Palestine signed by him."

Mindful of Boris’s obvious refusal to cooperate, Hitler "invited" the Tsar to visit him. When he returned to Sofia, the tsar ordered able-bodied Jewish men to be sent to the interiors of Bulgaria to build railways. This was his attempt to avoid deporting them.

Another attempt by Nazi commissars to deport Bulgarian Jews was met by Boris’ refusal, insisting he needed these men for the construction of roads and railway lines inside his kingdom. Furthermore, the public outcry led by some of Bulgaria’s public officials, including deputy speaker Dimitar Peshev and the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, strengthened Boris will to refuse the extradition of about 50,000 Jews in Bulgaria.

An irritated Hitler summoned Boris for the last time in August 1943 at Rastenburg, East Prussia. In a heated meeting, the Tsar maintained that he would not transport Bulgarian Jews to death camps in Poland and Germany and that Bulgaria would not be involved in the war against the Soviet Union.  The meeting ended with the agreement that “Bulgarian Jews were not to be deported, for Tsar Boris had insisted that the Jews were needed for various laboring tasks including road maintenance." Boris’ bravery ended all attempts to deport Bulgarian Jews but it may have caused his life.