In “The Saxe-Coburgs: trials and tribulations” (The Sofia Echo, February 2-8, p. 19), Dafina Boshnakova ascribes “part of the credit for saving 50 000 Bulgarian Jews from the death camps” to King Boris III. While the writer can be understood for striving to appear balanced on this sensitive issue, the seriousness of the subject matter is such as to behoove an uncompromising measure of accuracy and honesty.
The controversy that has surrounded the role of Boris III in the survival of most of Bulgaria’s Jewish citizens - remarkable as it is in comparison with the fate of the Jews elsewhere in Europe - should not blind us to some basic facts. On January 21 1941, Boris III endorsed the newly enacted “Law for the Protection of the Nation”, which mimicked Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg Laws in stripping Bulgaria’s Jews of their property, livelihood, education and dignity. Then, on March 1 1941, Boris III formally brought Bulgaria into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers. On February 22 1943, Bulgaria and Nazi Germany entered a formal agreement - unique of its kind among Germany’s allies - providing for the deportation of 20 000 Bulgarian Jews into German Territories ‘in the east.’ (The agreement can be found in the Bulgarian National Central Archive, Dossier 190, chapter 8518, pp. 1-3). Pursuant to this agreement, 11 343 Jews from Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot - who, unlike their non-Jewish compatriots, were denied Bulgarian citizenship by a government edict, later underscored by the Authorization Law signed by Boris (July 4 1942) - were transferred by Bulgarian troops to Nazi authorities who sent them to the extermination camps.
Some would have us believe that Boris’ actions, above described, reflected a sophisticated, wily attempt to save Bulgaria’s Jews. Lest we err in wrongly ascribing to malice what some attribute to cunning, we need do little more than refer to Boris’ own words, as spoken before the Superior Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on June 22 1943, in which he lashed out at the “Jewish spirit of profiteering [which] caused hatred among nations, despair, moral decay and betrayal among nations everywhere.” Boris’ self-incrimination before the Church, hardly a body before which he might have felt a need ‘to appear’ anti-Semitic, is evidence enough of his true motivations, reflected so clearly in the series of actions that culminated in the deportation of 11 343 Jews to Treblinka.
Bulgaria’s Jewish community survived World War 2 due to Bulgarian civil society, and many brave individuals, prominent among whom were Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Dimitr Peshev, and Metropolitans Stefan and Kiril. These and 14 other Bulgarians have been honoured - rightly - as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority, Yad Vashem.
The writer cannot be faulted for giving voice, in a spirit of fair-handedness, to a persistent fallacy that has confounded the well-documented historical record. Nevertheless, the record should be set straight. Giving Boris III credit that is not due is not only a despicable offence against the 11 343 Jews whom he agreed to send to the death camps. It betrays the courage of those Bulgarians who genuinely risked all to save their Jewish countrymen.
H.E. Noah Gal-Gendler
Ambassador of Israel
