TIRANA, Jan. 27 – Top officials, representatives of the Jewish community and family members of Albanians who assisted Jews escaping Nazis during WWII marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Tirana on Monday at an event organized by the Albanian Foreign Ministry.
Holocaust was such a massive crime against humanity, lessons reverberate to this day and need to continue to do so, said Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati.
“The more we remember [the Holocaust], the more vigilant we should be against similar crimes. Ethnic cleansing and genocide policies in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s are two testimonies that decades after the end of World War II, Europe had still had not taken note of the proper lessons,” said Bushati.
The day marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, the largest Nazi death camp, on Jan. 27, 1945.
Anti-Semitism has not gone away in Europe, in fact it has increased in recent time, experts note. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, urged OSCE participating states in a statement to step up their efforts to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance, and to raise awareness of the tragedy of the Holocaust, especially among young people.
“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an important opportunity for us to reflect upon lessons of the past, and to assess what we all can do to confront present day acts of hatred,” said Burkhalter.
Albanians’ refusal to hand over Jews commemorated in New York
Elsewhere, B’nai B’rith International held a panel discussion titled, “A Community Saved: The Rescue of Jews in Albania” at the United Nations in New York City.
Ambassador Ferit Hoxha, permanent representative of Albania to the United Nations, delivered the opening remarks and spoke about his countrymen’s heroic wartime endeavors to save not only the Jews of Albania, but also Jewish refugees from other parts of Europe. Among the other panelists at the U.N. event was Johanna Neumann, a Holocaust survivor born in Hamburg, Germany, who described her own experience hiding in Albania. Neumann said Albanians of all backgrounds accepted her and her family and that she never experienced religious intolerance.
She also stressed the Albanian people’s collective will in refusing to assist the Nazis, while emphasizing the grave danger Albanians faced during the country’s occupation.
“I’m addressing myself to the Albanian audience in this room,” Neumann said. “I have four children, I have 14 grandchildren and I have 13 great-grandchildren, and all of that is thanks to the courage, the magnanimity, the generosity of your parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts. It’s not a big country. [The presence of Jews] was known. Everybody [among Albanians] knew. And they all held together to save more than two thousand lives.”
