Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
Muslims Save Jews in Untold WWll Story
Voice of America excerpt:
Exhibit showcases photographs of Albanian Muslims who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust
St. Louis, Missouri | David Weinberg 08 December 2010
Ali Sheqer Pashkaj's father helped a young Jewish man escape transportation to a labor camp and then hid him for two years. "My father was a devout Muslim," he says. "He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise."
An untold story of the Nazi Holocaust is on display at a Jewish temple in St. Louis, Missouri. It's a photography exhibit, featuring portraits of elderly Albanian Muslims - men and women who helped save nearly 2,000 Jews who fled to Albania during World War II.
Untold story
"Who ever heard of Muslims saving Jews?," asks photographer Norman Gershman. After hearing the story, he decided to visit Albania to meet the surviving families who had sheltered Jews. "I wanted to go to Albania first to discover for myself who are these people."
Basri Hasani sheltered his next-door neighbor and best friend, Moshe Rubenovic, who fought the Nazis throughout Albania and Kosovo. "I am a true Muslim," says Hasani. "My door is always open to anyone in need."
For the past six years, Gershman, a fine art photographer whose work is typically displayed in museums, traveled throughout Albania and Kosovo. He photographed most of his subjects in their homes, often with objects that were significant to the people they sheltered.
In one photograph, a man stands with three Jewish prayer books that a family left behind after the war.
"I'll never forget this - when we were at this guy's home and he was looking at us sort of like angrily and he said 'What are you doing here?'" says Gershman. "We said, 'Well, your family saved this Jewish family,' and he looked at us and said, 'So what? Any Albanian would have done the same thing. We did nothing special,' and he meant it."
Word of honor
The Albanians have a word for this: Besa. It translates as 'word of honor,' and is a cultural precept unique to Albania.
"The word Besa in Albanian is kind of protection of when they host a guest, the Albanians, it's a rule, they protect them with their own lives," says Alberto Colonomos, a Jewish man born in 1933 in what was then Yugoslavia. He was 10 years old when his family fled to Albania.
"There were about 7,200 Jews living in that area. They deported them to the concentration camps and they deported them all the way to Treblinka. They killed them all, nobody came back. But about 50 families escaped a week or two weeks before the deportation."
The Jewish family that lived with the Kazazi family (pictured) escaped the Nazis during searches by scrambling through connecting doorways to other homes. "Our parents were not very religious, but they believed in the Koran and Besa," the grown Kazazi children say. "Without the Koran there is no Besa. Without Besa there is no Koran."
A wealthy man who worked in a tobacco factory took in the Colonomos family. Unlike many Jews in other parts of Europe who survived the war in cellars and attics, Jews in Albania were given Muslim names and treated as honored guests. Colonomos explains that under Besa, Albanians put their guests before their own family.
"They really hid us with their lives. They knew that the Germans - the consequences if they catch them were very, very stiff. So they would be shot. But when they have that Besa, they will not denounce their guests. They were amazing people."
Voice of America excerpt:
Exhibit showcases photographs of Albanian Muslims who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust
St. Louis, Missouri | David Weinberg 08 December 2010
Ali Sheqer Pashkaj's father helped a young Jewish man escape transportation to a labor camp and then hid him for two years. "My father was a devout Muslim," he says. "He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise."
An untold story of the Nazi Holocaust is on display at a Jewish temple in St. Louis, Missouri. It's a photography exhibit, featuring portraits of elderly Albanian Muslims - men and women who helped save nearly 2,000 Jews who fled to Albania during World War II.
Untold story
"Who ever heard of Muslims saving Jews?," asks photographer Norman Gershman. After hearing the story, he decided to visit Albania to meet the surviving families who had sheltered Jews. "I wanted to go to Albania first to discover for myself who are these people."
Basri Hasani sheltered his next-door neighbor and best friend, Moshe Rubenovic, who fought the Nazis throughout Albania and Kosovo. "I am a true Muslim," says Hasani. "My door is always open to anyone in need."
For the past six years, Gershman, a fine art photographer whose work is typically displayed in museums, traveled throughout Albania and Kosovo. He photographed most of his subjects in their homes, often with objects that were significant to the people they sheltered.
In one photograph, a man stands with three Jewish prayer books that a family left behind after the war.
"I'll never forget this - when we were at this guy's home and he was looking at us sort of like angrily and he said 'What are you doing here?'" says Gershman. "We said, 'Well, your family saved this Jewish family,' and he looked at us and said, 'So what? Any Albanian would have done the same thing. We did nothing special,' and he meant it."
Word of honor
The Albanians have a word for this: Besa. It translates as 'word of honor,' and is a cultural precept unique to Albania.
"The word Besa in Albanian is kind of protection of when they host a guest, the Albanians, it's a rule, they protect them with their own lives," says Alberto Colonomos, a Jewish man born in 1933 in what was then Yugoslavia. He was 10 years old when his family fled to Albania.
"There were about 7,200 Jews living in that area. They deported them to the concentration camps and they deported them all the way to Treblinka. They killed them all, nobody came back. But about 50 families escaped a week or two weeks before the deportation."
The Jewish family that lived with the Kazazi family (pictured) escaped the Nazis during searches by scrambling through connecting doorways to other homes. "Our parents were not very religious, but they believed in the Koran and Besa," the grown Kazazi children say. "Without the Koran there is no Besa. Without Besa there is no Koran."
A wealthy man who worked in a tobacco factory took in the Colonomos family. Unlike many Jews in other parts of Europe who survived the war in cellars and attics, Jews in Albania were given Muslim names and treated as honored guests. Colonomos explains that under Besa, Albanians put their guests before their own family.
"They really hid us with their lives. They knew that the Germans - the consequences if they catch them were very, very stiff. So they would be shot. But when they have that Besa, they will not denounce their guests. They were amazing people."
