Articles

Article Published on "IslamOnline.net"

BESA...When Muslims Saved Jews

By Dina Rabie, IOL Staff

"They came in as guests. They were given Muslim names, they were living with Muslim families," Gershman told IOL.

CAIRO - Norman Gershman has become accustomed to the reactions from people who see his photos and read his stories about Muslims sheltering Jews and saving their lives during the Holocaust.

"I had people say 'Muslims save Jews! How is that?'" the American Jewish fine art photographer told IslamOnline.net in a telephone interview.

Premier Berisha Receives Mr. Norman Gershman

Prime Minister Sali Berisha received today afternoon Mr. Norman Gershman, the renowned photographer from the United States of America of Jewish descent.
Mr. Greshman has opened in Albania the exhibition entitled: “BESA: Albanians Who Saved Jews in World War II”, held under the auspices of the U.S. embassy in Tirana and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Albania.
 
Attending this meeting were also Mr. Flamur Gashi, Director of the National Institute of Diaspora in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Albania and the representatives of the Pan-Albanian Federation of America, Vatra ("The Hearth") Ms. Majlinda Myrto, Mr. Sejdi Hysenaj and Mr. Kastriot Gramshi.

During Holocaust, Albanians treated Jews like guests.

 Albania
During Holocaust, Albanians treated Jews like guests

 

Somebody saved Anna Kohen's family. When Nazis marched into Albania in 1943, a few years before she was born, Kohen's parents fled the costal city of Vlora for a village in the mountains. Six decades later, Kohen still wonders about the Muslim family that absorbed her own Jewish one.

"I want to go and find the ones that saved my parents," she said recently from her Manhattan dental practice, where a file holds two clues she unearthed last year: the rescuers' first and last names. "I always knew that they saved us. I never forgot."

Article Published in "The Jerusalem Post"

Sheltered from the Nazis in Albania

Greer Fay Cashman , THE JERUSALEM POST

Albania was the only country in Europe in which there were more Jews after the war than there had been before the war, American photographer Norman Gershman said on Thursday at Yad Vashem.

He spoke at the opening of his exhibition honoring Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

Gershman, who is Jewish, and who lives and works in Aspen, Colorado, has spent four years traveling the length and breadth of Albania to photograph families who provided a haven for Jews during the Holocaust years.

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme

"In 1943, at the time of Ramadan, seventeen people came to our village of Shen Gjergi.
All of us villagers were Muslims. We were sheltering God’s children under our Besa."
Lime Balla
* Yad Vashem presented the BESA Project at United Nations for Holocaust Memorial Day on January 29th, 2008.

Muslim Apple

Female Muslim American blogger recently reviewed our exhibit at Yad Vashem. Click here to read the her review.

Holocaust Remembrance Week Activities Week 2008

On Tuesday, January 29th at 6:00pm, co-sponsors Yad Vashem and the
Permanent Mission of Albania to the United Nations, presented
“BESA: A Code of Honor, Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews during the
Holocaust”. For more information about this historic event, please click here for the UN web site or here for the Yad Vashem web site.

Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
May 7, 2008
Albanian Muslims Who Sheltered Jews Honored at Program
Source:
Voices
 
SOUTHBURY - There are no foreigners in Albania, there are only guests.

The words of Drita Veseli, a member of a family of Albanian Muslims who sheltered Jews during World War II, express the spirit of Besa, an unconditional hospitality unmatched in the world.

EMEL magazine

"It is written in the Qur’an, “Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world.” It is written in the Talmud, “If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world.” And there was a time not so long ago when, once again – the Spanish 
Inquisition being another – Muslims came to the aid of Jews during their 
darkest hour. Somaiya Khan-Piachaud recounts this incredible story."

Click Here for the Full article on Emel.com