Dvora, the Bulgarians and the Shoah

What would you do?

Dvora, the matchmaker from JMatch once told me about one of the lasting residual effects she continues to experience after having survived the holocaust. “When I walk down the street, I look at people and I ask myself about them ‘If they would have been there, what role would they have played? Would they have risked their lives to save us? Would they have stood idly by? Or would they have actively participated in the murder?” Most of the time, the answer is not very good.

Frankly her well founded pessimism is contagious. Even when I ask that question of myself, I’m not quite sure what the answer would be. Thus it is always heartening to read about a historical account of that period that inspires optimism, especially when it doesn’t involve the selfless acts of just one person, but of an entire nation.

Waterbrook Press has just released “King’s Ransom,” a work of historical fiction, which details the little known efforts of a large cross section of the Bulgarian population, as well as it’s King, Tsar Boris III, to save it’s entire population of 50,000 Jews from Nazi concentration camps. As a result of these efforts, not one Bulgarian Jew was deported.

So there you go Dvora, something to feel optimistic about.

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Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

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