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Title: Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews
ISBN: 158062541X
Author:
Michael Bar-Zohar
Publicate Date: 2001-10
Publish: 2001-10
List Price: $12.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $39.69
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $18.39
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1: highly derivative, revisionist on Bulgarian pogroms
I really wonder about the expertise of the author and the rave reviews of this volume. first of all it is extremely derivativ of Groueff's work. but it leaves one important episode and glosses over another. Firstly Bulgaria's Jewish population was the victim of one of the worst pogroms in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. Most Bulgarian Jews had fled to Greece and Turkey by the the 1920's. The Bulgarians considered us a foreign element, and Bulgria was convulsed by an exremely, and certainly for the Balkans, a uniquely, nasty anti-Semitism.
Jews from all over the countryside fled. Yes, a portion of the Jewish community in Sofia remained. They in turn survived the Holocaust in slighly higher numbers than the rest of Europe.
One of the reasons might have been that the Bulgrain military was gladly (and that is not subjective but from documents in much more serious studies) roudnign up the Jewish populations in neighboring territories they were hoping to claim during WWII.
My family was forced to flee Bulgaria to Salonica in Greece in 1914. The Greeks there had bias's but were never as anti-Semeitic as the Bulgarians. Thirty years later it was Bulgarian trooops who rounded up most of my family when they occupied northern Greece and sent them to the death camps.
This volume is a very strange revisionism, which out of a very narrow snpashot in time (1944), at a very narrow geographic place (Sofia only) attempts to draw a wider conclusion that simply isn't true.
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2: Beyond Hitler's Grasp
Serious errors in documentation and unnecessary repetition mar this otherwise interesting work. Bar-Zohar cited Groueff's Crown of Thorns repeatedly, yet even more often copies large sections from Groueff's work verbatim and without acknowledgement. This is extremely disturbing in a supposedly professional historical study. The only area in which Bar-Zohar seems to go out on his own is the period following King Boris' death, an area outside the scope of Groueff's study. For that time period the work is useful; otherwise, read Crown of Thorns instead, or at least, read it first.
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3: A Fascinating Account Of A Dark Moment In History
Beyond Hitler's Grasp is a fine account of Bulgaria's position during the Holocaust. Michael Bar Zohar gives a good summary of the events that led to Bulgaria's controversial alliance with Hitler's Germany. However, there were certainly enough humanitarians in Bulgaria to spare the Jews of the fate that their bretheren in other countries suffered. What is certainly captivating is King Boris' role in trying to appease all sides. He want Bulgaria to recapture the land it lost to Turkey therefore leading to the temporary alliance with Germany. However, there were still some common relations with the Russians that kept Bulgaria from fully participating in Word War II on a military basis. King Boris never had any problem with the Jews. The King had many Jewish associates. Furthermore, many of the Jews blended into Bulgarian society without calling attention to themselves except when being persecuted by Belev and his cronies. Even though Boris was described as weak willed, somehow his non-confrontational atitude held Hitler at bay to save the lives of 50,000 Jews. Its too bad he did not extend himself for the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia. Nonetheless, its a shame and a travesty that more of an attempt to thwart Hitler's reign of terror did not occur. Countries like Poland and France could have learned something from Bulgaria's unique relationship with its mainland Jews. This is an easy to read but detailed account of this critical period of World History. I would highly recommend this Bulgarian perspective as a comprehensive overview of the events of the Holocaust.
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4: The Truth
A wonderfull book, which for a first time describes the saving of the 50000 Bulgarian jews. This fact has been known in Bulgaria, but nowhere else (except in Israel, where there is a monument built to King Boris). Sometimes I think it is initially hidden by the Western press, which is used to making business out of Holocaust stories, but has always neglected Bulgaria. It is true that the Bulgarian police arrested 7000 Macedonian jews, but the fact is that not a single of the 50000 Bulgarian jews died in the concentration camps (a few, however, were killed in the gorilla war against the Germans).
Bulgaria, which has a population of less than eight million people has been living for hundreds of years in peace with its Jews, almost a million Turks(which were killing us during the 500 years of the Ottoman Empire), half a million gypsies, armenians and many others. After all that the United States and Western Europe today are trying to imply that the rights of the minorities are suppressed. Weren't you suppressing the human rights of the 6000000 jews when you put them on the trains to Poland and Germany, dear Europeans? Shame on you.
Meanwhile, big stories are made about Schindler for the 2000 jews he saved. Mr. Spielberg, read about Bulgaria!
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5: A Must Read
Mr. Bar Zohar intricate and well researched study of the rescue of Bulgaria's Jews is an insightful look into how a nation saved its own citizens from the death camps. The book is well written and at times flows like a novel. It is a must for any serious student of the holocaust or of Bulgaria.What I found most interesting is the juxtaposition of the treatment of Bulgarian's own Jews with their abandonment of the Jews of Macedonia to the Nazis. While the Bulgarians, from the King down to common citizens stood up and placed their lives in jeopardy in order to save the Jewish citizens of Bulgaria, they hardly lent a hand to save from deportation to the death camps the Jews of the territories that they annexed. Bar-Zohar does not extensively discuss this dichotomy, even though it reenforces his central thesis that Bulgarians saw Bulgarian-Jews as Bulgarians and not as Jews. The story of the rescue has a larger message beyond that of a single nation. It makes one question what might have happened had more leaders had the courage of King Boris III in standing up to Hitler. It is a pity that Bar-Zohar did not spend more time discussing the wider implications. Finally, the book is worth reading if only to remind one that there were people when faced with the Nazi horror who did the right thing. That there were Christians who stood up, and based on their religious beliefs, rescued non-Christians because their faith compelled them to do so.
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