Theodoros Boulgarides was born in 1964 in Triantafyllia, Greece. He was raised in part by his grandmother until his parents brought him to Munich at the age of nine, where they had already been working. After finishing school and an apprenticeship, Theodoros Boulgarides took a job at Siemens. It was there that he met his future wife. They married and had two daughters.
Theodoros Boulgarides was the co-owner of a locksmith business in Munich’s Westend neighbourhood, which he had opened with a friend. He was murdered there by the NSU on 15 June 2005. At the time of the murder, the shop had only been open for a fortnight. His wife Yvonne Boulgarides made the following plea in her statement during the NSU trial: ‘I know that my husband would have liked to see his little daughters grow up to be women. How he would have loved to walk his girls down the aisle or how proud he would have been when his granddaughter was born. I also know how many of the co-plaintiffs involved here have lost loved ones or experienced other suffering. But I also know that we cannot turn back time. But there is one thing we can do: Not stop asking.’
Theodoros Boulgarides was the seventh victim in the NSU murder series; he was shot dead just six days after the murder of İsmail Yaşarin in Nuremberg. It quickly became clear that the murder of Theodoros Boulgarides was linked to this and the other murders. Nevertheless, the investigation also focussed on the social networks of the murder victim. Wolfgang Fe., Theodoros Boulgarides’ business partner, found the body of his friend in the shop they shared. During the NSU trial, he reported on the consequences of the crime: ‘Total destruction, I would say. Not just for the relatives.’ His own relationship had fallen apart as a result, he had lost money, customers, and employees. For months, he and others were summoned again and again: ‘They wanted to drag us into the mud, and they succeeded.’
Theodoros Boulgarides’ family is still fighting for answers. Ten years after the NSU unmasked itself, his daughter, Mandy Boulgarides, wrote: ‘I want everyone connected to the NSU terror and the whole complex to be held accountable. I wish that people would not be afraid to fight for their rights or those of their deceased relatives and to shout questions out loud to society. […] We will not stop asking. It’s finally time for real answers.’
