King’s Ransom tells the story of Bulgaria’s involvement in World War II, and how, despite being an Axis nation, the Bulgarian people succeeded in saving their Jewish citizens from extinction at the hands of the Nazis. It really is a fascinating story, one I was completely unfamiliar with before reading Beazley and Lemmons’ book.

The main character in King’s Ransom is Bulgaria herself. The authors choose to tell her wartime story through the stories of her king, Boris III, the royal household – including a Jewish servant named Daria and Boris’s bodyguard, Dobri – Bulgarian government ministers, Bulgarian (and Macedonian) Jews, and Lily Panitza, who worked for and slept with Alexander Belev, the man in charge of the Jewish Question in Bulgaria. Lily also leaked secrets out at critical times and played an instrumental part in saving Bulgaria’s Jews.

Like other World War II narratives, it is at times hard to believe that any of this story could be true. First of all, that an entire nation’s – an Axis nation, no less – Jews were saved from the concentration camps is amazing. Denmark managed it, but with one-seventh as many people and through evacuation. Bulgaria’s Jews stayed in Bulgaria, and their salvation was due to an entire nation’s outrage and demonstration. The Orthodox Church violently protested discrimination against the Jews from the moment anti-Semitic legislation was introduced. Key religious leaders actually put themselves on the line physically to make sure Jews were not put on trains and deported. King Boris himself stalled, hemmed and hawed with Hitler to buy time for the Jews. There were protests both outdoors and in parliament loudly objecting to the way these citizens of Bulgaria were being treated. Does this sound fantastical? Bulgaria was apparently more than tolerant of its Jews. It accepted them, assimilated them, and defended them when the time came.

King Boris III did not have an easy time of it, however. Bulgaria was a small country, and poor. Like Germany, it suffered under the harsh punitive Neuilly Treaty of 1919. The early years of the twentieth century were rocky, and Boris survived politically through his personal charisma and clever maneuvering. In the thirties, when Germany prospered, it was very generous to Bulgaria. When the war began, Boris feared that if he opposed Hitler, Bulgaria would be crushed. Yet in joining the Axis powers, he trod a thin line with Bulgaria’s former patron, Russia, and with Communist resistance in his own country. The choices Boris was given were all bad ones and doing the right thing seemed well nigh impossible. His personal stances cost him greatly.

Interspersed with the political is the quiet love story between Queen Giovanna’s Jewish attendant, Daria, and Boris’s bodyguard, Dobri. Europe in the forties was a hard time to fall in love, however, and Daria’s secret identity as a Jew threatened their relationship. This love story was one of the weaker parts of the book, except in how it illustrated the more personal and social aspects of palace life under Boris. Beazley and Lemmons simply do not devote enough page space to developing Daria and Dobri outside of their palace roles to make the romance convincing.

King’s Ransom is a very interesting story in that there is much going on and many fascinating personalities involved in the persecution and ultimate rescue of the Jews. The book inspired me to do my own research on the period, and Beazley and Lemmons seem to have covered all of the important pivotal moments and included all the relevant personal detail. The story is written smoothly, and the last half especially goes by at a clip. However, in telling the story of an entire nation, individual character development gets somewhat of the short shrift. There are too many players on the stage to get too attached to one. Boris is the best developed, but this still doesn’t feel like his story. Lily Panitza remains a bit of a mystery; an entire book could be written about her and her unlikely betrayal of her Nazi lover. Also, there is a lot of historical detail to absorb, and those unfamiliar with World War II and Eastern European history might have to read a little more slowly to absorb everything. Finally, the authors include some Bulgarian words without explanation. To a Slavophile like me, this is no problem. I enjoy taking apart Slavic words and looking for Russian cognates. Other readers may simply be lost in translation.

King’s Ransom is put out by WaterBrook Press, a Christian publisher, but, in telling their story, the authors make no attempt to evangelize. Religious faith is a part of many of the characters, but not a specific religious faith. Jews are shown praying and reciting scripture, and numerous Orthodox clergymen discuss how their Christian beliefs require them to staunchly defend the Jews against the Nazis and other anti-Semites in Bulgaria.

King’s Ransom was a far more uplifting story than most Holocaust narratives, and I was very impressed with most of the Bulgarian players on the stage at this critical moment in history, especially those of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Though I had read a great deal of Holocaust history, I was unfamiliar with this story, and I am glad that I got a chance to rectify that.