King Boris III of Bulgaria told German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that Bulgaria would not surrender its Jewish population to Germany.
Tsar Boris, as he was also known, was on dangerous ground and he knew it. He stuck to his position however and refused until his death later that year to yield on sending Jewish Bulgarians to the Germans. Bulgaria ultimately conscripted Jewish men for labor on roads, but to some degree at least this seems to have been a pretext to help prevent their deportation.
Bulgaria, which did pass anti Semitic laws, had participated in the war as a German ally only to the extent of the war against Yugoslavia. It wisely refused to declare war against the Western Allies or the Soviet Union, much to the irritation of Hitler. Tsar Boris untimely death seems to have been due to the stress of dealing with the Germans, although it remains an open question if he was poisoned under orders of the Germans.
Sarah Sundin reports:
Today in World War II History—April 2, 1943: US War Production Board approves construction of the “Little Big Inch” pipeline to take refined oil from Texas to the northeast states.
We discussed the Big Inch earlier.
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