Beyond Hitler's Grasp – A film by Nitzan Aviram

Based on the book "Beyond Hitler's Grasp" by Michael Bar-Zohar, this documentary is a Holocaust film with a happy ending. It tells the story of Bulgaria – a small and somehow forgotten European country which managed to protect its Jewish minority from annihilation.

 

 “THE ONLY COUNTRY IN EUROPE THAT SAID: NO!”

 

The full-length documentary based on "Beyond Hitler's Grasp" was screened at a world premiere at the United Nations in New York. The Bulgarian premiere took place in the Parliament in Sofia, in the presence of the President, the House Speaker, Cabinet ministers, Church notables and Parliament members.

The film also premiered in Israel, with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as guest of honor, the Mayor of Tel-Aviv, members of the Knesset, scholars and intellectuals, and at the United Nations Geneva Headquarters.

 

“Beyond Hitler’s Grasp”, a 67 minute documentary film, is the fruit of cooperation between the world-known writer and historian Dr. Michael Bar-Zohar and the late Israeli film maker Nitzan Aviram. The film, a “Shindler’s List” type story, is based on the book by Bar-Zohar, which describes the dramatic rescue of Bulgarian Jewry during World War II. 

It describes how for more than three years, the Bulgarian people succeeded to evade Nazi demands regarding the Bulgarian Jews; how the citizens of the small town Kyustendil send their representatives to Parliament and stopped the plan to deport Jews to death camps, how the Bulgarian Church managed to stand up to a brutally inhumane and powerful regime. How simple farmers, intellectuals, clergymen, merchants, laborers and union leaders forced their King to protect the Jewish community.