![Hermann Leiningen, grandson of King Boris III of Bulgaria Inset: King Boris III of Bulgaria [Ron Csillag photo]](http://www.vinnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Hermann-Leiningen.jpg "Hermann-Leiningen")
Toronto, Canada – King Boris III of Bulgaria has received a posthumous award for saving his country’s Jews during the Holocaust by refusing to surrender the 50,000 Jews in Bulgaria to the Nazi army despite heavy pressure from Adolf Hitler.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The award was given to his grandson, Toronto banker Hermann Leiningen, and Chabad organized the award ceremony. The award itself was presented by a group of Bulgarian Jews whose lives were saved when the king refused to deport them.
King Boris III previously has been honored by the Anti-Defamation League.
However, his legacy remains somewhat controversial: while he refused to hand Bulgaria’s Jews over to Hitler’s army, he did allow the deportation of Jews from Thrace and Macedonia, which at that time were under Bulgarian rule. In addition, some historians say the king expressed willingness to deport Jews, but was stopped by the heads of the Independent Orthodox Church.
Leiningen, the king’s grandson, told the Canadian Jewish Press that King Boris III had remained firm in his insistence that Bulgaria’s Jews not be deported. Whether or not the church intervened to save Jews as well, “the final decisions had to be made by [the king],” he noted.
Boris III was unable to save the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia because those territories, unlike Bulgaria, were occupied by the German army, Leiningen explained.
King Boris III died in 1943 shortly after a meeting with Hitler. His body was never found.
Leiningen noted that his own father, Prince Karl, had moved to Israel in 1969 and had spent the last two decades of his life there, on a horse ranch in the Galilee. “No one could really figure out” why his father was drawn to Israel, he said.
Very interesting. Clearly it appears the righteous King Boris was murdered by Hitler YMSVZ for saving the Jews of Bulgaria. May the Almighty grant King Boris a grand place in Olam Habah befitting a righteous Earthly King.
Interestingly, Gen. Moshe Dayan was saved by the King’s decision and perhaps he corresponded with the King’s son and encouraged him to move to Israel as a reward for saving his enitre people in Bulgaria.. Dayan was a famous archeologist and perhaps they found common interests in the opportunity to explore the Holy Land, which was impossible to do until Israel’s independance in 1948.
Some Bulgarian Jews were forced out by local populations and not necessarily by the Bulgarian government. The King wasn’t bad towards Jews, but some of his actions were mixed.
Although the Bulgarian community by and large were not observant, the overriding characteristic of theirs was the simplicity of their lives. This is what probably saved them. There was nothing in their lives that provoked the jealousy of others. The gentiles of Bulgaria were not complicit together with the Nazis as were the Poles, the Hungarians, the Ukrainians, the French and others, and in fact strongly expressed their sentiments that their fellow Bulgarian Jews not be given over to the Nazis despite Bulgaria being a German ally.
My grandfather is a native bulgarian and holocaust survivor. He confirms the grandsons account; the macedonian jews were doomed and there was nothing to be done. He also told me that The King specifically got word to the chief rabbis to tell all the jews to scatter to the small villages.
The King is righteous in my book. Long Live the King’s Memory.