Rating: 
Summary: Maybe Goldhagen is right
Review: A must read. The author has obviously done his homework. This translates into a richly detailed account of the events surrounding the persecution of Bulgarian Jews in WWII, as well as insight into the motivations of the key players of the whole affair, including Tsar Boris, Peshev, and Metropolitan Stefan. Unfortunately, the book is poorly edited, with simple grammar and organizational mistakes throughout. The translations of the quoted passages, those originally in Bulgarian, at least, sometimes leave much to be desired. This is not to take away from the author's most compelling argument, that the non-Jewish Bulgarians' lack of anti-Semitism and sense of moral decency are what saved their fellow Jewish citizens from being carted off to Treblinka. This lends historical credence to Goldhagen's assertion that the German people's indifference and anti-Semitism aided Hitler's crazed dream of "racial purification".
Rating: 
Summary: The Truth
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Account Of A Dark Moment In History
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Righteous People Do Exist. They are in Bulgaria.
Review: Michael Bar-Zochar has written a well researched detailed account of the Bulgarian resistance to shipping off the 50,000 Bulgarian Jews to certain death in Eastern Europe (Poland). The book has political, historical, religious, sociologic, personal and emotional layers of understanding of Bulgaria, its people, king, church, and even its fascists. As an example it teaches how Bulgaria became an ally of Germany (to recapture provinces lost to Greece, Yugoslovia and Romania after World War I) but never declared war on Russia (who had liberated Bulgaria from Turkish rule half a century before World War II) An exciting part was the ability to hang the reader on the edge of the chair as the deportations approached and then were stopped at the last moment. An emotional part was a Holocaust story in which the righteous Christian Bulgarians (with some help from communists and even some Bulgarian Fascists) stood up for decency, for democratic principles, for protection of the minorities, for behavior that wouldn't shame their country after it was done...I cried.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Hitler's Grasp
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Hitler's Grasp
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased Book
Review: The most shocking aspect of this book is that author,probably to make his subject more coherent,skiped the fact that Bulgarian police arested several thousend jews in Macedonia,and send them promptly to Treblinka.How could Jewish author possibly miss this war episode?This is most horiffic aspect of this book,regardless of the fact that it contains (half)truth about events in Bulgaria during the war.This is Revisionism remiscent of recent statement by David Irving that "Auschwitz was Disneyland builded by Poland in order to atract tourists."This book is corect if one think that arest of 7.000 jews by Bulgarians,giving them salty food and packing them into train,is act of heroic rescue!This fact is too well known to be accidentaly neglected,and that is indeed strange aspect of author's presentation of WW II Bulgaria.
Rating:
Summary: A story of courage during the Holocaust
Review: There were acts of courage that took place during the course of the Holocaust that are not very well known. Many of those courageous acts occured in a surprising place: the nation of Bulgaria in Eastern Europe. During the war Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany, and under intense pressure to surrender its' 50,000 Jewish citizens to Germany. The Jews would then be taken to their deaths in Poland. Early in 1943 plans for the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews were drawn up by Bulgarian and Nazi leaders, and the deadly process was well under way. Long empty trains began arriving at key stations in Bulgaria, ready to take the Jews to Poland. Everything was prepared for the purpose of death; meticulously planned. Within a few short hours, the Jews would be brutally herded to the trains and taken away. The Jews of Bulgaria would disappear forever in Poland, and it seemed that there was nothing that could be done to help them. But then, almost literally at the eleventh hour, the process of deportation was stopped and the Jews of Bulgaria were saved. The trains had to leave the stations, completely empty. The story of the Bulgarian leaders and citizens that moved to save the Jews at that final hour is tense and nerve-wracking. This book tells that story, and the constant battle of wits and wills between those that wished to destroy life; and those that wished to save it. This book reaches a very deep level, because it shows what can happen when people act on what they know is right. This is a book of great moral courage, at a time when it was most desperately needed.
Rating:
Summary: Truth sacrificied to sensacionalism.
Review: This book has value insofar reader is acquainted with the fact of the cruel act of deportation of Jews from Southern Serbia (Vardarska Banovina) and Macedonia.This was act organised by the bulgarian goverment,although at the recent conference in Stockohlm Bulgarian goverment made an attempt to obscure this fact.Therefore,regarding of the fact that book contains extremely valuable insight into WW II history,only a holistic concept could provide full picture in the participation of Bulgaria in the holocaust.
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