TIRANA, June 13- Every foreign or domestic visitor is surprised by the presence of the “Solomon” museum, opened in May 2018 and resembling a modest souvenir shop. It is located on the main street of the Berat castle and is devoted to the memory of the Holocaust and especially to the history of the Jewish in the city of Berat.
A small bodied woman dressed in black invites tourists to get in. Angjelina Vrusho who is the widow of the museum’s founder Simon Vrusho, does not know how to speak foreign languages, but suffices a few greeting words in English learned recently to attract curious visitors.
“Twenty years of working and spending three years of retirement, that’s what it took my husband to open the museum,” said Vrusho. When her husband departed from life in February this year, Angielina swore she would keep open the museum he had built entirely alone with so much love, passion and dedication.
The Solomon Museum is mainly focused on the salvation and shelter of over 600 Jews during World War II in the city of Berat. It also aims to bring evidence for a nearly 500-year period, from 1520 when it is thought that the first 25 Jewish families were located in Berat after their arrival from Italy and Spain. The small museum has become a new attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists in the tourist city of Berat. Angjelina Vrusho said that 4 thousand visitors from 41 countries of the world have been enrolled in her husband’s book of impressions, while in the last two months she had about 300 other visitors.
The museum is mainly filled with photos, facsimile, documentary material, and data on Hebrew toponyms, a product of many years of work by Simon Vrusho. Through them, as well as the evidence gathered by the researcher Vrusho, this museum explores the Jewish Quarter in Berat, the list of Jews sheltered in the city during World War II, photos of Beratas families who have sheltered in their homes Jewish people, their photos during their time in this city, as well as the Jewish students who attended the school in Berat.
“Work, studies, research in every place to find out where the truths were hiding, because there are other families who have said we have kept Jews, but were not taken to this museum because they did not have any documents. Because everything has been documented,” said Vrusho proudly about the contents of this museum and her husband’s work.
For his contribution, the scholar Simon Vrusho was appraised shortly before death by the Municipality of Berat with the title “Man of 2018” with the motive “for his contribution to the opening of the museum Solomon,” the first museum in our country devoted to the Jewish. But after losing her husband, the widow faces the challenge to keep the doors open alone. Angjelina says the rent is paid until September, and then hopes to find support. She said she has received small help, but she is uncertain how the fate of the museum will turn out in the future and hopes she can get some help.
In the museum, visitors are with guides to a good part of the cases and thus everything is easier for Angjelina, as she makes the guide in Albanian. And in cases where visitors are unaccompanied, the explanations placed in English on the stands come in handy. At the entrance of the museum there is a small box where every visitor can modestly throw something at will, but that for Angelina means a lot, because the fate of the museum depends on it.
Laura Cantoni and her husband, an Italian couple who visited the museum, have been astounded by this unseen part of Albanian history while they encouraged Angjelina for keeping the museum open.
“It’s a historic, interesting search that fits this country and the lady has courageously taken on her husband’s commitment to make this part of the history of this small town known to all tourists from all over Europe,” said the Italian tourist.
