By John L. Withers, II
Five years ago, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring January 27 an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
This year’s observance of the International Day of Commemoration is dedicated to “The Legacy of Survival,” emphasizing the universal lessons that the survivors pass on to succeeding generations. With fewer survivors alive each year to tell their stories, it becomes increasingly urgent to share this legacy with people everywhere, to encourage respect for diversity and human rights for generations to come.
With this in mind, President Barack Obama has named a high-level Presidential Delegation to Krakow, Poland to attend the commemoration of the 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz on January 27.
Albania’s role in rescuing Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust is not nearly as well known as it should be. It is something of which all Albanians can be proud. It has its roots in what U.S. Ambassador to Albania Herman Bernstein told The Jewish Daily Bulletin of New York in 1934: “There is no trace of any discrimination against Jews in Albania, because Albania happens to be one of the rare lands in Europe today where religious prejudice and hate do not exist, even though Albanians themselves are divided into three faiths.”
Albania can always do more to tell the world its remarkable story of preventing the persecution of Jews in its land. Some Albanians have been doing just that. Professor Shaban Sinani, for example. His numerous works document that even in the darkest years of the Holocaust, in Albania there was a coming together of all political beliefs and religious denominations — anti-fascists and pro-fascists, communists and nationalists, Muslims and Christians, believers and non-believers -to ensure that no harm would come to any Jew sheltered in Albania. I could mention as well the remarkable documentaries of Top Channel journalist and historian Monika Stafa.
I am pleased that Tirana Municipality is playing its own important part in passing on the legacy, by designating a location for a Holocaust Memorial Monument here in the capital.
I was pleased as well that last year, the municipality of Berat named one of its streets “Hebrews.” That too is a contribution to passing on the legacy of survival, to teaching coming generations the important lessons drawn from the Holocaust and from the heroic actions of Albanians during those terrible times.
In English we say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The photograph alongside these few words of mine illustrates the truth of that saying. It is a 1943 photo of Refik Veseli — he and his family were the first Albanians to be recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Yad Vashem Holocaust documentation center — holding the two daughters of the Jewish Mandil family who found refuge in Albania.
This photo, standing as it does in stark and uplifting contrast to thousands of pictures of Jews in other parts of Europe during the Nazi regime, speaks volumes about the bravery with which Albanians preserved their humanity during a time of barbarism. Albania has its own legacy, and it is one that the world deserves to know and to honor.
