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Book of the Week by Library Director Ophelia Georgiev Roop

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Featured every Sunday in the
Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN
July 18, 2004 Issue

King's Ransom
by Jan Beazely & Thom Lemmons
Water Brook Press, 2004

Telling Tales That Must Be Told
The book shines light on the little-known story of the saving of Bulgarian Jews
It is only recently that the world has begun to find out about how a small country like Bulgaria managed to defy Hitler and not allow the deportation to the death camps of the 56,000 Bulgarian Jews.

For decades Hannah Arendt and a handful of other intellectuals have sought an explanation of this miraculous phenomenon. "Beyond Hitler's Grasp, The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews", an account from the personal perspective by Michael Bar-Zohar was published in 1998. Revealing factual information gathered from newly available archives, the scholarly "The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust" by Tzvetan Todorov was published in 2001. Both of these books concluded that the character of the Bulgarian people as a whole was instrumental in the saving of the Bulgarian Jews.

Bulgarian Jews and Christians had suffered equally under centuries of Ottoman occupation and felt a special kinship for each other. To the Bulgarian people Hitler's theory about the Jews simply did not make sense. That seems only natural for a people who have always walked to their own drummer. For this, look no further than the Bulgarian signs for "yes" and "no." Bulgarians are the only people who shake their head up and down when they mean "no" and sideways when they mean "yes."

Last week I was consumed with reading an advanced copy of the first fictionalized account of the saving of the Bulgarian Jews - "King's Ransom" by Jan Beazely and Thom Lemmons. The book is based on historical evidence. Conversations and feelings are inferred from newly released documents and memories of the players involved.

The main protagonist is King Boris III and the story is told from his perspective. He came to the throne as a result of his father's abdication. At the onset of World War II Boris found himself the king of a poor and defenseless but geographically important nation. Having witnessed the slaughter of human lives in World War I, his primary aim this time around became not to allow the loss of a single Bulgarian life. To this end he concocted stratagems and subterfuges until his untimely and mysterious death in August 1943. Hitler knew that Boris was crafty as a fox. In "King's Ransom" the authors manage to convey the dangerous veiled innuendos and games of semantics Boris and Hitler must have played.

Hitler wanted Bulgarian soldiers for the Russian front and he also wanted Bulgaria's Jews. He lured Bulgaria with promises of restoring to her some long lost lands. But he also threatened to squash it the way he had squashed neighboring Yugoslavia. The threat of an internal coup by the pro-German government hung perpetually over the king's head. Crafty Boris allowed the German army to cross Bulgaria peacefully to facilitate Germany's occupation of Greece and put all of Bulgaria's resources at their disposal. In return Bulgaria was allowed to administer Thrace and Macedonia. Every time Hitler pressured Boris for soldiers to the Russian front, the king reminded him that Bulgaria's army was still inadequately armed and that it was much better situated guarding Germany's rear in eventual attacks from Turkey and Greece.

Under pressure from Germany, Bulgaria's pro-Fascist government created the anti-Semitic Law for the Defense of the Nation. The Jews were mobilized to work building roads, bridges and other public works in Bulgaria. To Hitler, Boris always explained that he still needed them in Bulgaria for the public works. Meanwhile the Bulgarian Secretariat for Jewish Questions, headed by the fanatical anti-Semite Alexander Belev, started secret plans for the deportations of all Bulgarian Jews. They succeeded in deporting the 11,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace over whom Bulgaria had no legal jurisdiction and could not stop their deportation even if it was not secret.

As in a classic mystery novel, the deportation plot leaked. No small credit for this goes to the beautiful Lily Panitza, Belev's private secretary and lover. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church took the lead in protesting. Some prelates of the church joined the groups of Jews interned in camps for deportation, others threatened to lay down on the train tracks and held off police at gun point, and still others invited Jews to take refuge in the churches, their residencies and even started baptizing Jews only as a formality, because the Law for the Defense of the Nation did not apply to baptized Jews. The government, alarmed, threatened to close the churches. Meanwhile two parliament deputies from my very own hometown, unmasked the plotters during a parliamentary session. The king was besieged from all sides. Halt the deportation! Deport the Jews or else the coup is inevitable! Boris disappeared. He was stalling for time. When he reappeared he put a stop to the deportation. Hitler called him for another private audience. Shortly after his return Boris became gravely ill with an illness the royal doctors could not diagnose. And then he was dead. To this day the majority of the Bulgarian people believe that their king was murdered by Hitler.

On the backdrop of these dramatic World War II events unfold three love stories. Two of them, that of King Boris and Queen Giovanna and of the beautiful Lily and the diabolical Alexander, are true. The third love story, that of an Italian Jewish girl in the service of the queen and a Bulgarian palace guard, is fictitious. Perhaps because of that, instead of heightening the drama as it was most certainly intended, it is the weakest link and simply does not ring true. In every other respect the authors have adhered to historical fact but in their portrayal of the protocol in the royal palace. But this is a small infraction that does not detract from a story that must be told many times many different ways.

Ophelia Georgiev Roop
Library Director
San Bernardino Public Library

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