Albania honors resistance efforts that helped save Jews from Holocaust - Haaretz - Israel News

Last update - 20:44 29/01/2008

Albania honors resistance efforts that helped save Jews from Holocaust

By The Associated Press

Tags: Holocaust, Israel, Jews

Albania held a ceremony in parliament Tuesday to commemorate resistance efforts during World War II that helped the country's tiny Jewish minority escape the Holocaust. Some 1,200 Jews, residents and refugees from other Balkan countries, were hidden by Albanian families during the war, according to official records. The ambassadors of Israel and the United States attended the ceremony in parliament. "The Holocaust was the defining moment of the 20th century. ... Most nations and their people failed to meet the challenge. But that did not happen in Albania," said Warren Miller, head of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad. Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli said the success of saving the country's Jews was a source of national pride. "But we have convened [a special session] not only out of pride in our past but also in respect of the innocent victims of one of the darkest time of humanity," Topalli said. Albania was occupied from 1939 to 1943 by fascist Italy and then by Nazi Germany until 1944. Partisan groups who helped liberate the country formed the communist party that ruled Albania until 1990. About 300 Jews lived in Albania until the collapse of communism, but most have since emigrated to the United States and Israel.

Albania honors resistance efforts that helped save Jews from Holocaust - Haaretz - Israel News

Blogged with Flock

Albanian Family Honored for Helping Jews

By MARCUS FRANKLIN

The Associated Press
Thursday, January 18, 2007; 2:16 PM

NEW YORK -- World War II was over, and Anna Kohen, then a small child, was walking with her mother in Vlora, Albania, when a Muslim woman ran toward them, crying and calling her mother by an unfamiliar name.

The women hugged and cried. Later, her mother explained that the woman was from a village where she, Kohen's father and other Jews had hidden during the Nazi occupation before Kohen was born. To protect themselves, Kohen's mother and father had taken Muslim names.

Albanian ambassador to the United Nations, Adrian Neritani speaks to audience during an awards ceremony at the Anti-Defamation League in New York Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007. The Anti-Defamation League posthumously honored a Muslim Albanian man and his son for protecting six Jewish families from the Nazi's during World War II. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (Frank Franklin Ii - AP)

"Everyone in the village knew they were Jews, but no one betrayed them," Kohen recalled Wednesday as the Anti-Defamation League praised Albania as the only occupied country where no Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, thanks to the country's Christians and Muslims.

Although records from that period are incomplete, Michael Salberg, the league's director of international affairs, estimated that several thousand Jews fled to Albania from surrounding countries in Eastern Europe.

"All of them were saved," Salberg said. "Albania is the only country occupied by the Nazis that had more Jews at the end of the war than at the beginning of the war, which is a reflection of Jews having sought refuge in Albania and survived."

The league posthumously honored a Muslim Albanian man and his son for protecting six Jewish families during the war.

The organization presented its Courage to Care Award to three relatives of the late Mefail Bicaku and his son Njazi. The two led the six families _ a total of 26 people _ to safety in the mountains of central Albania.

For months, the Bicakus shared their home and food with the families, the league said.

The award was presented to Mefail's son Muhamet and Njazi's daughter, Elida Hazbiu, and son, Qemal Bicaku.

With Kohen translating, Muhamet Bicaku thanked the Anti-Defamation League said he was greatly honored to accept the award on his father's behalf. His father was jailed in 1961 for "collaborating with Jews" and died in 1969, he said.

"I'm very proud of what he has done," he said.

___

On the Net:

Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org/

Albanian Family Honored for Helping Jews - washingtonpost.com