Bulgaria regrets failing to save thousands of Jews in WWII
The Nazis rounded up Jews in the Balkans and sent them to death camps
Bulgaria has expressed regret that more than 11,000 Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps from areas under Bulgarian control during World War II.
A Bulgarian parliament declaration did however praise Bulgarians for having blocked the deportation of more than 48,000 Jews during the war.
It said it could "not be disputed that 11,343 Jews were deported from northern Greece and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia".
Most Jews sent to the Nazi German death camps in Poland died.
Referring to the 11,343 deported, the MPs' declaration said "we denounce this criminal act, undertaken by Hitler's command, and express our regrets for the fact that the local Bulgarian administration had not been in a position to stop this act".
Only a few hundred of those deportees survived, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Centre says.
Yad Vashem lists 20 Bulgarians among its "Righteous Among the Nations" - individuals who acted to protect Jews from the Holocaust.G-D BLESS THEM ALL.
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In early 1943, Nazi officials requested that Bulgaria deport its Jewish population to German occupied Poland. The request caused a public outcry, and a campaign whose most prominent leaders were Parliament Vice-Chairman Dimitar Peshev and the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, was organized.[10][11]
Following this campaign, Boris refused to permit the extradition of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews.[12] Initially, the Bulgarian government, which he controlled, asked for a breakdown of the German plans for the eventual deportees, and was told that roughly one-half will be employed in agriculture in Greater Germany and one-fourth, reported to be semi-skilled laborers, will be allowed to redeem themselves by "volunteering to work" in the war industries of the Ruhr, while the remaining one-fourth will be transported to the Gouvernement General (German-occupied Poland) for employment in "work directly connected to the war".
This information was also distributed to the neutral countries via German diplomatic channels and was reported on March 24, 1943 in the New York Times from Berne, Switzerland, along with the rather cynical statement that "the former death rate in the Jewish colonies of occupied Poland has shown a considerable decrease in the past three months", with the listed reason being that "now many of the male Jews are employed in army work near the fighting zones", and these receive approximately the same rations as German soldiers.
Still hesitant to comply with the German deportation request, the Bulgarian government utilized Swiss diplomatic channels to inquire whether possible deportations of the Jews can happen to British-controlled Palestine by ships rather than to concentration camps in Poland by trains, for which the Germans requested a significant amount of money. However, this attempt was blocked by the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden.[13]
Eventually, Boris did succumb to the German demand for the extradition of 11,343 Jews from those territories re-occupied by Bulgaria, but the extradition of the Jews from pre-war Bulgaria was stopped.
These two decisions have led to a position today where a large number of people regard Boris as a hero for saving Bulgaria's Jews, and a large number revile him for condemning those from the occupied new territories.
In point of fact, in war time Europe, the Jewish citizens of the new territories of Macedonia and Thrace were all under Hitler's direct jurisdiction, since they were not formally Bulgarian citizens.
Under King Boris III, Bulgaria was the only nation in Europe to save its entire Jewish population during the Holocaust. Boris was one of the few world leaders who defied Hitler face to face during the war, refusing multiple times to deliver his Jewish citizens beyond the borders of his kingdom. [14][15]G-D BLESS BORIS AND BULGARIA.
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