Canadians honor Albanians for defending Jews in WW2

TORONTO, Canada, Nov. 1 – The Jewish tribune reports that a unique and exciting Holocaust Education Week event this year will be a presentation on Albania, a country that was unusual in its determination to protect its Jewish population during World War II.
Albania had more Jews after the World War II than it did beforehand.
Travel writer Vera Held, who visited Albania in September, will present the Nov. 7 program, which will include a 90-minute presentation and photos of her trip. An Albanian Jew whose family was saved during the years of the Holocaust by an Albanian family, as well as two Albanians whose families saved Jews and were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles, will participate.
Held said that as a Jew, she was treated with “incredible respect and warmth. I can’t tell you how welcome I felt.”
Albania is a mix of the old and the new, she said, describing the “unparallelled, over 2,000-year-old cobblestone streets in Gjirokastra” and a beautiful excavated synagogue in Saranda from the 5th century CE.
According to Held, currently there are approximately 100 Jews in Albania, scattered in major centers, and there is no functioning synagogue.
“It’s a society of tolerance, and what they practice is healthy secularism,” she stated. “Yes, there are churches and mosques. I shot photos of a Muslim wedding during Ramadan where there was food, drink and dancing. And from what I was told, that’s quite typical.”