Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. For the first time the memorial will honour Muslims who saved the lives of Jews during World War II:
"For the first time, Yad Vashem will inaugurate an exhibition this week on Muslims who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
The exhibition, which opens on Thursday, focuses on more than a dozen of the scores of Muslim Albanians previously recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" - the Holocaust center's highest honor - for risking their lives to save Jews during World War II...
..Before World War II, only about 200 Jews lived in Albania. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis crossed the border from Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, Austria and Serbia.
When the Germans occupied Albania in 1943, the Albanian population refused to comply with the Nazis' orders to turn over lists of Jews residing in the country.
The lifesaving assistance the Jews received in the predominantly Muslim country was based on Besa, a code of honor which literally means "to keep the promise." Nearly all the Jews living within Albanian borders during the German occupation were saved; in fact, there were more Jews in Albania at the end of the war than before it started, Yad Vashem said.
"The extraordinary story of Albania, where an entire nation, both the government and the population, acted to rescue Jews is truly remarkable," said exhibition curator Yehudit Shendar. "Many, if not all, were heavily influenced in their choice by Islam... This very human story, told through these sensitive portraits, combine to highlight a little-known but remarkable aspect of the Holocaust."
"This is a story that has rarely been publicized," said Holocaust survivor Ya'acov Altarat, 74, from Tel Aviv, who escaped to Albania with his parents as a boy of eight in 1941 and found refuge there for the duration of the war. " (Source: Jerusalem Post)
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