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Amanpour
Amazing Lives: King Simeon of Bulgaria; Imagine a World. Aired 2- 2:30p ET
Aired July 24, 2015 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: a special edition, the last king of Bulgaria. The incredible story of the little boy
who became monarch at 6, escaped the Soviets into exile at 9 only to return as the elected prime minister after Communism collapsed.
All that and a father who faced down Hitler: Oskar Schindler with a twist.
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KING SIMEON OF BULGARIA: . the Bulgarians of Jewish faith survive, yes or no? They did. That's it.
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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, I'm Christiane Amanpour, and welcome to the program. Tonight, the first of an occasional series that
we're calling "Amazing Lives." And King Simeon of Bulgaria is surely living one.
Once one of Europe's youngest royals who became the wartime king of his country at just 6 years old, was toppled before his 10th birthday and
50 years later returned home as the elected prime minister.
But in a way this is also the story of his father, King Boris III, whose pivotal decision against Hitler during World War II saved tens of
thousands of Jews, many more than even Oskar Schindler saved.
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AMANPOUR (voice-over): But it's a story with a twist. As World War II broke out, King Boris, who's described as a democrat at heart, wanted to
stay neutral. But he aligned with Hitler's Third Reich reportedly to win back territories the Nazis had occupied.
But in 1943, more than 11,000 Jews in those territories were deported to concentration camps. Later that same year, Boris refused Hitler's
orders to deport more than 48,000 Jews from Bulgaria itself. The little- known story of how King Boris defied Adolf Hitler, then died suddenly, is next.
To this day, no one knows what killed him, including his son, Simeon, who was catapulted onto the throne at 6.
Bulgaria orthodox church played a huge role and he told me his amazing story at the orthodox cathedral here in London.
AMANPOUR: King Simeon, welcome to the program.
KING SIMEON: Thank you, ma'am.
AMANPOUR: Do you remember the day you became king? You were only 6 years old. Do you remember that moment?
KING SIMEON: Well, in the eyes of a 6-year-old child -- because I -- it would be pretentious to say that I exactly felt and remembered. But
what struck me, A, realizing of course that my father had died, that because people referred to me as they referred to him. So that's what to
me meant that I had succeeded him.
AMANPOUR: What do you mean by that?
KING SIMEON: Well, they could call me Your Majesty rather than Your Royal Highness. That's when I realized that my father was no longer.
AMANPOUR: And it did come at the end of a long battle that your father waged --
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AMANPOUR: -- between joining the Axis powers at the beginning of World War II and in the end saving Bulgaria's Jews against Hitler's wishes,
against the wishes of the Nazis from being deported.
According to Jewish tradition, whoever saves one life, it's as if he saved the entire world. And they call such people, particularly those who
save Jews, righteous.
Do you believe King Boris, your father, was one of the righteous?
KING SIMEON: Ma'am, I have no way to judge my own father. But from the acts and what happened, I think other people should consider it as such
because after all, the fact that he avoided the -- Bulgaria that would be occupied by the Nazis and towards the end managed to -- precisely because
of this -- save Bulgaria from a Soviet occupation -- so this was one very important factor. And the second important factor is that nobody had
grudges against our Jewish population.
I mean, in Bulgaria, the people certainly didn't mind. The church is -- has always been very open and supportive. The different political
parties, the same thing, with the exception of some hotheads.
So with all this, it was normal that the whole country was against the deportation.
AMANPOUR: Let me read you something that the German ambassador at the time was quoted as saying and reporting back to Berlin, presumably, in
retrospect, that Bulgarians, quote, "lacks the ideological enlightenment that we have," referring to the Nazis, and that they do not "see in the
Jews any flaws justifying taking special measures against them."
Seem to be amazed that Bulgarian people were not anti-Semites, were not like the Nazis.
KING SIMEON: No. Definitely. Minister Becker (ph) was very upset with this kind of attitude or reproach on behalf of our people. They came
from Spain, the Sephardic Jews basically. They were totally integrated and actually very, very good element within the country. So there was no
reason at all to go suddenly against your neighbor or some chap you know and suddenly happens that he's Jewish by faith.
So I think that there, the Nazis underestimated or overestimated, whichever way you wanted to see it.
AMANPOUR: And yet it was incredibly complex. Boris III, your father, was a sort of Oskar Schindler but came to it in a very roundabout way,
having joined the Axis. He was going to get back Macedonia and Thrace. And the Nazis demanded that the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace be deported.
There were 11,000 and a half of them, 11,400 or so.
And they were deported under your father's reign. And they were all sent to the camps in Poland.
How do you explain that part of it?
KING SIMEON: Well, again, we must take things within the context. Those arts or areas or districts were not under the full administration of
-- from Sofia, from Bulgaria. The last word, the Germans had.
AMANPOUR: After Thrace and Macedonia, the -- Metropolitan Stefan actually wrote to your father and he said, "The cries and the tears of the
slighted Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin are a lawful protest against the injustice done to them. It should be heard and complied with by the
king of the Bulgarians."
So the church played a huge role in toughening King Boris' spine.
KING SIMEON: Yes, or at least showing that nobody really had any grudge. I think we should be quite proud to feel different. And wherever
I travel, whenever I see people of Jewish origin or others, too, who come and say, well, good for you, Bulgarians. And I'm very proud of that.
AMANPOUR: A year or so later, your father actually did decide and people call it a triumph that some of his actions which prevented the
deportation of some 48,000 Bulgarian Jews --
KING SIMEON: Oh, no; those were not touched.
AMANPOUR: Exactly. And he prevented it in collaboration with the orthodox church, with the ordinary Bulgarian people and with members --
KING SIMEON: And political parties.
AMANPOUR: -- yes, political parties --
KING SIMEON: Absolutely.
AMANPOUR: -- members of parliament. There was the beginning of a roundup.
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AMANPOUR: There were trains and boxcars that were ready to take Bulgaria's Jews to camps.
Your father finally was prevailed upon to try to bluff the Nazis. Talked about the road gangs, the road crews, the construction gangs.
Explain that to me.
KING SIMEON: Well, my father, probably with advice or together with other people, found a solution or the idea of saying that we needed
everybody's effort for the war and that was a very, very clever trick, to bluff and maybe even the Nazis had hoped that it will be a type of
concentration camps or what have you. But it wasn't really that.
But in very bad and very difficult circumstances, because being an Axis country, fairly small and strategically so important, the Germans
could have done anything, had they just noticed anything which went against their wishes.
AMANPOUR: What role did your mother play?
KING SIMEON: My mother? She was very discreet and very quiet and had always been told that quote-unquote, 100 years ago, that women do not
meddle in politics. But she herself, being a very believing and religious person, did everything possible to secure passports or to beg for different
documents for some of our Jewish families to be able to leave the country.
AMANPOUR: And she had a very strong point of view on the issue of Jews.
KING SIMEON: Yes, on the Christian side, that it was monstrous to persecute people for whatever reason, let alone the fact that they were of
another faith. And to this day, I must say that I hardly ever dare ask somebody what his religion or her religion is because I think it's
something very personal.
AMANPOUR: We read that ordinary citizens, farmers, threatened to use their bodies to block any trains as the Nazis insisted on deportations.
KING SIMEON: The archbishop of Plovdiv, down in the south, he threatened to sort of lie across the rails, the track to stop any
deportation, other people from different places.
AMANPOUR: When you were a very little boy, your father faced an agonizing choice. Because of his alignment, he did accede, he did allow
11,400 Jews to be deported and presumably exterminated from territories that had been occupied.
Do you think that horror accounted for how he turned around when it came to disobeying the Nazi rules and the Nazi orders, to deport Bulgarian
Jews?
KING SIMEON: The territorial was not tied directly to deportation of said people. It did not depend on my father. So he did not allow or
forbid or anything those Jews who were outside of Bulgaria proper. So there is no responsibility or blame.
AMANPOUR: Who was responsible for that?
KING SIMEON: Well, the Nazi administration. They were the ones who had the superior command that anybody can find, if wants to be objective,
and reads facts and doesn't go into all kinds of other malicious explanations.
AMANPOUR: But nonetheless, the church leaders did complain very, very bitterly about that to the king of Bulgaria, your father, very, very
bitterly. They signed petitions. They said this mustn't happen.
KING SIMEON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And they were amongst those who forced a different reality for Bulgaria itself.
KING SIMEON: Indeed. But you also now think that the person who is finally responsible, no matter what his feelings are, is the chief of
state. So sometimes it's much more difficult.
But you see, it's -- always we have to keep things within the context and come to facts and say the Bulgarians of Jewish faith survive, yes or
no? They did. That's it. And thank God for it. Thank everybody. And let's be happy about it and applaud the Bulgarians.
But if we start digging and looking around and trying to find something somewhere, anybody can find anything because nobody's perfect.
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AMANPOUR: Indeed, Bulgaria was the only Axis country whose Jewish population did survive.
And after a break on this "Amazing Lives" --
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AMANPOUR: -- a royal welcome home after 50 years but this time on the road to elected office, Prime Minister Simeon next.
And still grappling with the painful mystery: was his father's death an accident?
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KING SIMEON: His agony that week seems to be there was something more than just a heart attack.
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to this edition of "Amazing Lives," now a year into Simeon's reign, when he was 7, the Red Army marched into Bulgaria and
as World War II drew to a close, politicians, army chiefs and journalists were executed.
But Simeon and his mother were spared, sent into exile with a few hundred dollars. Half a century later, the Berlin Wall fell. Communism
collapsed and King Simeon returned to a hero's welcome, becoming democratic Bulgaria's first elected prime minister and still trying to find out what
really killed his father.
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AMANPOUR: Were you ready to be king? I mean, it sounds like a crazy question, but you had to be king and you were 6.
KING SIMEON: But you know, in these succession issues, nobody's asked whether he wants it or there -- you're there for it, you've been trained
for it. And it had to be done.
AMANPOUR: You've said that you really weren't ever a child, that you became an adult almost immediately.
KING SIMEON: Yes. That's why I feel 12 years older than my own age because I would have been 18 to assume this kind of role, whether I was 6.
AMANPOUR: And all of this happened because your father died very suddenly in the midst of World War II.
KING SIMEON: Indeed.
AMANPOUR: So much has been written about that last meeting with Hitler. Hitler wanted your father, King Boris, at that point in 1943, to
join the fight against Russia.
KING SIMEON: Yes, to commit troops to the Eastern Front, which, of course, my father refused and with very good reason.
AMANPOUR: There's been much written about how your father died and why he died so suddenly. Some people have suggested that he was poisoned.
Many, though, have said that he already had a heart condition, that perhaps the stress of that trip triggered his death.
What do you believe?
KING SIMEON: I tried after the war from '73 on, which was a 40- year -- 30 years after my father's death -- I started looking into the different
archives and chanceries of various countries and we never found anything indicating any foul play or whatever was declassified.
The only part which we haven't had full access is the Moscow archives. My father had no heart condition, mind you, but he certainly was under
tremendous stress. So for all we know, he could have had a heart attack without being induced. But his agony that week seems to be there was
something more than just a heart attack.
AMANPOUR: It's obviously something that you want to know for your own peace of mind --
KING SIMEON: That's it.
AMANPOUR: -- are you still asking -- President Putin, are you still trying to access to the Moscow archive?
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KING SIMEON: You see, it's not a priority because there's other things and but I would like as a son, not for any other reason, just to
say, well, it was this period. Now we know; whereas, this way, we still have doubts what could have happened or.
AMANPOUR: Your father died and then you were there for three years as king. And then what happened? What happened when you were 9 years old?
KING SIMEON: Well, there was a referendum whether we wanted monarchy or republic. But anyway, this had to be and it was with Soviet occupation.
So we had to leave.
AMANPOUR: What was it like for an adolescent and then a young man, all these years, out of your country, still being the last monarch of
Bulgaria, still being called King Simeon, did you ever think you would go back?
KING SIMEON: No, ma'am. To be quite honest, I didn't even think my children would live to see. So it shows how wrong I was. There it is.
AMANPOUR: I say king, but you are an extraordinary life, an amazing life, because you are one of only two royals who actually then went on to
elected office, elected democratic office.
How did you feel when you saw the floodgates open, when you saw ordinary people chipping away at the Berlin Wall and it collapsed and then
the dominoes across Eastern Europe, including, of course, your country?
KING SIMEON: I almost couldn't believe it and then I was literally moved to tears, because, after all, it was something which we couldn't
expect.
AMANPOUR: And at what moment did you think, hang on a second, maybe I can play a political role, maybe I can go back and --
KING SIMEON: Well, very soon or immediately, practically, there was a lot of people calling from Bulgaria or coming to see me in Madrid, which,
of course, was strictly forbidden before. So that's where saw that the wall had really fallen.
AMANPOUR: People came out of Bulgaria --
KING SIMEON: Yes, yes, you know, phoning or whatever. Just opposition people who were against the system starting coming to Madrid and
I saw, oh, close to 4,000 before I came back to Sofia --
AMANPOUR: And things were pretty remarkable. I mean, there's lots of video footage and pictures from that time, where you were greeted like a
returning conquering hero, that people were so pleased to see you.
What was that like?
KING SIMEON: Well, I think this is part of my father's capital, as I say, which I benefited from, then the difference, then something new after
50 years in exile, one thing and another, eventually I thought that this was the best way to help and give a hand and that's how it happened. And
from there on, being elected, of course, is a very, I would say, pleasant feeling, because many times there's remarks about the royals sort of being
not democratic.
AMANPOUR: And how would you want to be remembered for those years when you were prime minister?
KING SIMEON: I certainly -- I mean, did a lot to put Bulgaria on the map in many ways, through the fact that I had suddenly become prime
minister, which was really unusual. But this helped to draw people's attention or other politicians' attention to Bulgaria. And then with my
experience coming from the private sector, but also with my relations with so many European courts, this helped a lot to open doors and for us to
discuss and reach, A, NATO; B, the E.U. -- which, of course, was the major goal -- and also I tried -- because that's my personal view and
understanding -- not to seek any revenge. And I think that the four years as prime minister, people now admitted it was the calmest, the most
predictable and with no political discrimination or partisanship. I think this helped a lot to start changing our society and because it's not easy
to -- from a totalitarian system into a market economy, is a very, very difficult process. And it's 20-some years and we're still not there.
So it does take time.
AMANPOUR: What an amazing life. King Simeon, thank you for joining me.
KING SIMEON: Thank you, ma'am.
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AMANPOUR: An amazing time. And after a break, we remember another remarkable life --
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AMANPOUR: -- one British man's compassion that pulled hundreds of Jewish children out of Hitler's hands. Sir Nicholas Winton, next.
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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, we've shown how history turns on individual decisions and how lives can be saved by a single person's
courage and compassion. So imagine a world without the likes of Sir Nicholas Winton, who died earlier this year at the age of 106. He became
known as Britain's Oskar Schindler with his own list of hundreds of lives saved. Before World War II broke out, he worked tirelessly to set up the
Kindertransport, smuggling 669 children out of Czechoslovakia to safety and persuading British families to take them into their homes.
He barely spoke about it after the war but eventually word did get out about all the good he had done and he was reunited with some of his
charges. Last year, when Winton was 105, the Czech Republic awarded him the Order of the White Lion, its highest honor. At the ceremony, he
remained true to his modest self.
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SIR NICHOLAS WINTON, HOLOCAUST HERO: In a way, perhaps, I shouldn't have lived so long to give everybody the opportunity to exaggerate
everything.
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AMANPOUR: But what a great and long life. Sir Nicholas Winton died on July 1st, 2015, exactly 76 years to the day after one of the biggest of
his underground railways safely delivered its precious cargo, 241 Jewish children, from Prague to here in Britain.
So that's it for this first edition of "Amazing Lives," and we will have more. So tune in and remember you can always watch our whole show
online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
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