Glen Cove ceremony honors Albania's aid

Without the help of an Albanian Muslim community during World War II, Anna Kohen's family might never have survived.

Kohen's parents, who were Jews in Albania, fled to a mountainous village during the Holocaust, where, she said, they were hidden and protected by the Muslims there.

Sunday, decades later, at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove, Kohen officially got her chance to show her appreciation.

"Albanians are heroes," she said. "They saved their Jews."

Kohen then turned to Ferit Hoxha, the Albanian ambassador to the United Nations, noting that he represented the Albanian people. "Thank you for saving us," she said, to applause.

Sunday's panel brought together descendants of rescuers with descendants of those persecuted. Citizens of Albania, a Muslim-majority country, universally resisted the Nazis' call to denounce all Jews in the country, said Beth Lilach, senior director of education and community affairs at the museum. As a result, Albania was the only European country to end World War II with a larger Jewish population, she said.

The event came in the midst of a three-month exhibit at the museum on "Besa: A Code of Honor," about Albanian and Muslim rescuers during the Holocaust. "Besa" refers to the Albanian moral code that led Albanians to shelter and protect the roughly 200 Albanian Jews and 600 to 1,800 Jewish refugees who entered the country during the Holocaust.

"It's part of history that not many people are familiar with," Lilach said.

One descendant of an Albanian Muslim family, Qemal Biçaku of Manchester, N.H., spoke through an interpreter about the efforts of his father and grandfather to protect 26 Jews from the Nazis.

"We are very proud for whatever we have done during the Holocaust," said Biçaku, who added that his family was itself persecuted during Albania's Communist regime for helping the Jews.

Biçaku said he has also traveled to Israel to meet a descendant of one of the families his family helped.