Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews

Details how the Jews in Bulgaria were rescued from deportation to Nazi concentration camps by a crew of public and private individuals

Having lived through the events in this book, Bar Zohar (Suez Top Secret) is motivated by his desire to commemorate the Bulgarians who saved his family and Bulgaria's nearly 50,000 Jews from deportation during WWII. Much of the documentation of this rescue mission was sealed during the country's Communist rule?in part to grab all credit for Communist partisans?but Bar Zohar was able to search the archives and interview survivors after 1991. What emerges is a complex story of heroism mixed with fear. Although the historically weak-willed King Boris III hoped to regain lost territories by collaborating with the Germans, he feared the alliance and played a dangerous game of equivocation until his death under mysterious circumstances in 1943. Boris's part in the rescue of the Jews has been a matter of some contention; Bar Zohar makes a reasoned attempt to restore credit to the king, without denying the heroism of others. Bulgarian politicians, business leaders and clergymen protected the country's Jewish citizens long enough for the tide of the war to turn against the Germans, ensuring the Jews' safety. Although dismayed that Bulgaria did nothing to stop the extermination of Thracian Jews, Bar Zohar recognizes that the ultimate costs of open resistance might have been total annihilation. Ultimately, this is a moving history of many individuals whose heroism was discredited during the Communist regime.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A fast-paced account of the dramatic rescue of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews from probable annihilation during the Holocaust. Former Israeli Knesset member Bar Zohar vividly describes the Bulgarian effort to keep Bulgaria - s Jews beyond Hitler - s grasp. Despite deportation orders, not one Bulgarian Jew is known to have been delivered to the Nazis. Providing a historical backdrop to this largely unknown story, the author disputes allegations of anti-Semitism in Bulgaria. The Bulgarians, he asserts, were unusually tolerant of Jews, Greeks, and other minorities; pogroms weren - t a native tradition. Other interesting facts: Bulgarian Jews were for the most part a nonobservant lot, not set apart in public by distinct garb or by rites and dietary habits. Nor were they wealthy. They were modest workers - largely craftsmen and peddlers - who lived alongside Christians in the poorest sections of Bulgarian towns. Despite their firm Zionist leanings (90 percent immigrated to Israel after the war), they ``felt so strongly for their homeland they were willing to die for it.'' Unsurprisingly, then, the Bulgarian people remained mostly indifferent to the extreme right - s attempts to incite hatred against the Jews. Rather, Bulgarian society - especially the cultural and political elite - was determined to protect its Jewish minority. Standing particularly firm against anti-Semitism was the Bulgarian Church itself. Bar Zohar documents how, time and time again, the Church confronted the government and challenged anti-Semitic measures. But the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia were less fortunate: he describes the vicious treatment and deportation of these 11,343 forlorn people through Bulgarian territory to the death camps of Treblinka and Majdanek. Weaving elements of romance and espionage into a dramatic tale of redemption, Bar Zohar intrigues and informs us. (b&w photos) (First printing of 40,000; author tour; radio satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In March 1943 Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews were ordered to pack a few belongings and get ready to be taken away by the police. But the deportation order led to such an outcry from the Bulgarian people, including many intellectuals and church leaders, that the government rescinded the order, and Jews already taken into custody were released. Joining in the opposition were pro-fascist politicians and the royal court. In May_ 1943 a second deportation attempt was made, but the orders were canceled once again. Zohar, who was born in Sofia in 1938 and immigrated to Israel in 1948, spent four years researching this book. He interviewed survivors and gained access to the Central National Archives in Bulgaria, to various ministries' archives, the archives of the Saint Synod, the diplomatic and SS archives in Germany, and others. Although the author's claim that there has been nothing written about the rescue of Bulgarian Jews is inaccurate, this is the first book devoted exclusively to the subject. George Cohen

Much of what has been written about how, and why, no Bulgarian Jews were deported to the death camps during the Holocaust has been polemical, with official Communist histories stressing the influence of the party while others glorify King Boris III. Bar Zohar (Bitter Scent, LJ 11/15/96), a former Knesset member and the official biographer of David Ben Gurion, correctly shows that it was a confluence of factors: outspoken profascist Parliament members, the Orthodox Church leadership, an opportunistic (and irredentist) King Boris, and the Bulgarian people, who resisted the efforts of several fanatic leaders who wanted to deport the Jews to certain death. Although Bar Zohar is clearly proud of Bulgaria's record, he does not absolve the king completely. Mixing history, intrigue, and suspense, this accessible and well-researched book should appeal to both general and specialized readers, although it does not completely replace Frederick B. Chary's more scholarly The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940-1944 (LJ 2/1/73), with which it differs on several points.?John A. Drobnicki, York Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.