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Post by tripwire on Nov 1, 2007 23:35:37 GMT -5
Exhibition honors Muslims who saved Jews news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071101/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_holocaust_muslims_1By SEAN GAFFNEY, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 1, 6:51 PM ET JERUSALEM - Tears welling in his eyes, an elderly Holocaust survivor on Thursday embraced the son of the Albanian man who saved him from the Nazi death camps, highlighting the little-known role played by European Muslims in helping Jews during World War II. The two met for the first time at a photography exhibition at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, honoring Albanians who sheltered Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Albania, a tiny European country with a Muslim majority, sheltered about 1,000 Jews who, except for one family, survived Nazi occupation, according to officials. "This is a very unique story," said Yehudit Shendar, the exhibition's curator. Though Islam has an anti-Jewish image, these were "Muslims who endangered their own lives to save Jews," she said. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Albanians sheltered between 600 and 1,800 Jewish refugees, risking death or imprisonment, officials said. At the end of the war, Albania was the only European country with a larger Jewish population than before the war. Yoshua Baruchowic, 84, wore a grim smile as he retold the harrowing story of his rescue. He stood next to Enver Alia Sheqer, the Albanian whose father saved him. For decades, Baruchowic exchanged letters with Sheqer, 50, and his father, Ali Sheqer Pashkaj, who died in 2004. They often sent family photos, and he called Sheqer his "brother." Despite many invitations, Baruchowic, who moved to Mexico after the war and became a dentist, refused to visit Albania while the communists were in power, and later because of political turmoil. Meeting Sheqer on Thursday, he said, "It's glorious. It's something I waited to do all my life." In 1941, a Nazi convoy transporting Jews passed the Sheqer family's general store deep in the Albanian mountains. Sheqer's father offered the soldiers food and wine. When they became drunk, he handed a message — hidden in a melon — to one of the prisoners, the 18-year-old Baruchowic. Though they had never met, Baruchowic agreed when Ali Sheqer urged him to flee to the woods. The young Jew hid while Sheqer's father feigned ignorance as he repeatedly stared down a Nazi gun barrel. He held out until the Germans left and then retrieved Baruchowic, hiding him for three years. "My father was a devout Muslim," Enver Sheqer said. "He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise." He said his father had to help Baruchowic because of the Albanian code of "Besa," which means "to keep the promise." The exhibition is named after that code and features black and white photographs of Albanians holding family photos and awards honoring their heroism. Israel has honored 63 Albanians as "Righteous Among the Nations," a title granted to non-Jews who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution. The photo exhibit is the product of five years of "headhunting" by American Jewish photographer Norman Gershman, who said he was inspired culling the archives at Yad Vashem. Working through several organizations, Gershman spent four years in and out of Albania tracking down survivors. "It started at Yad Vashem and now it's going to take off from here," he said. The exhibition is next going to the United Nations headquarters in New York for a display on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, he said. At the exhibit Thursday, Baruchowic and Enver Sheqer stood beneath a photo of Sheqer sitting at the foot of a statue of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, a resistance general who led the fight against the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. In the picture, Sheqer delicately clutches his chest while a furrowed brow looks poised for tears. A similar look covered his face as he struggled to the find words to describe meeting Baruchowic for the first time. "I have such a good feeling," Sheqer said. "I can't begin how to describe."
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Post by Teuta1975 on Nov 2, 2007 1:18:08 GMT -5
My neighbors were Jewish. They were such a fine family...quiet, talented, (their doughter used to be the best student in High School), ...almost aristocratic. We used to have coffees together. In 1990 they left Albania and went to Jerusalem! They said they would come back to visit Albania again someday. I don't know if they did! But they were good people.
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Post by meltdown711 on Nov 2, 2007 1:41:57 GMT -5
I didnt know any Albanian Jews by the time I was old enough to have descent convos or be aware they were long gone, but my family tells me stories about some of the Jews who lived in the country. None of them say anything bad, all of them praise the Jews in Albania as exceptional people, although very low in number(most of them had already left since Hoxha allowed them to leave).
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donnie
Senior Moderator
Nike Leka i Kelmendit
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Post by donnie on Nov 2, 2007 9:31:26 GMT -5
As Meltdown said; correction; Albanians saved Jews. Not all of those who sheltered Jewish refugees were Muslims; some were Christian as well, and above all, they were Albanians first and foremost. A book has even been written about this topic by none other than an Albanian Orthodox surnamed Apostoli. Well done to those few Albanians who did the right thing ! Thanks for sharing this story. The 'few' Albanians? Arsehileas, where does that leave the Greeks then, with your 99 per cent killed Jews? Atleast the Albanians, be they 'few' or 'many' who did the right thing, saved all their domestic Jews and even saved Jews who were escaping neighbouring countries. Greece's official stance as an anti-Axis country does not annul its crimes during, but also prior and after World War Two. I find it funny how fascist policies & ideologies of the past are often excused with the official stance of the contemporary governments ... i.e. 'we fought the Germans, hence we could not have been responsible of fascist crimes, such as murdering and ethnically cleansing undesirable foreign elements'.
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Post by meltdown711 on Nov 2, 2007 11:10:42 GMT -5
"...[The Nazi] authorities were taking possession of the Jewish cemeteries, which dated from the time of the migration in 1492. The marble stones were all confiscated and laid down as pavement which, to the shame of Democratic Greece, the public walks over to this day." -- Misha Glenny, the Balkans page 514 talking about the German occupation of Thessaloníki
Greece/Greeks seem to have no shame.
I dont want to turn this topic into some chest beating nationalistic debate, but you dont know enough to make your comments.
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Post by Teuta1975 on Nov 2, 2007 17:34:45 GMT -5
I didnt know any Albanian Jews by the time I was old enough to have descent convos or be aware they were long gone, but my family tells me stories about some of the Jews who lived in the country. None of them say anything bad, all of them praise the Jews in Albania as exceptional people, although very low in number(most of them had already left since Hoxha allowed them to leave).
My neighbors were not Albanians. They were Jewish but spoke Albanian fluently. Lived in Albania 'till 1990.
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Post by ILIRI I MADH on Nov 2, 2007 23:05:10 GMT -5
I think Albanians are good hearted people in general, but we need to learn the one survival skill that will take care of our poverty problems, and that is cheating and stealing and killing in silent mode like all the successful people do. Because we are so honest of people we are poor, one albanian that wasn't that honest, made albania rich during its time, Enver Hoxha...I know it is a bad example to follow, but you can learn so much if you study your enemies, and bad people. Are they really bad, or they are selfish for their own good? Afterall hunting and killing was one of the way we humans evolved, so maybe it is not so bad afterall.
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donnie
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Post by donnie on Nov 3, 2007 5:23:58 GMT -5
How many Jews were living in Albania..... 10 ? I believe there were a couple of hundreds of Jews saved by the Albanians. Of course there were less Jews in Albania than Greece, the latter having had large concentrations of Sephardic Jews in towns such as Thessaloniki. But that doesn't take away anything from those brave Albanians who saved those Jews while risking their lives. One reckons that if anything, a couple of hundred Jews would have been easier to exterminate due to their numbers, than thousands of Jews ... yet the contrary happened, with thousands of Jews perishing in Greece.
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Post by suart on Nov 3, 2007 11:28:19 GMT -5
Kosovo and the Holocaust: Falsifying History
By Carl Savich
The Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Albania are estimated at 591 from 1941 to 1944, when a Greater Albania was sponsored by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. There were 33 known families of Albanian Jews living in pre-war Albania. The largest Jewish community consisted of 15 Jewish families living in Vlora. According to the 1930 census, there were 204 Jews living in Albania. At the Wannsee Conference in 1942, when the Final Solution was organized, the total Jewish population of Albania was listed as 200 Jews. By 1939 there were Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria The two factors that explain why more Jews in Albania were not killed are that Albania was under Italian control and Albania had a very small Jewish population. Italian forces in Albania rejected the Final Solution as “the German disease” and did not enforce anti-Jewish measures. This is why Albanian Jews were “rescued” in Albania, not because of anything the Albanians did themselves. There was no history of ideological anti-Semitism in Albania. But this was true of every country in the Balkans. A history of anti-Semitism did not exist in Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Hungary, or Romania. So Albania was not unique in this regard in any way. The small number of Jews in Albania also played a key role in why they were not killed. During the Italian occupation, they were able to disperse and blend in the general population. When Germany occupied Albania in 1943, the Jewish population was already beyond reach. What role did Albania play in the Holocaust? Albanian apologists maintain that no Jews were killed in Albania during the Holocaust. Is this accurate? What is the context of this statement? Albanian apologists have consciously and methodically falsified the Albanian role in the Holocaust. The way this was done was to totally suppress the fact that Kosovo-Metohija was a part of Albania from 1941 to 1944. Also left out is the fact that a Greater Albania was in fact created that included not only Kosovo-Metohija, Kosova in the Greater Albania ideology, but southern Serbian territory, territory in southern Montenegro, and western Macedonia, or Illirida. Albanian apologists distort history by implying that it was Albanians that rescued Jews. But in fact it was the Italian occupation forces that opposed the Final Solution and who rescued Jews. Another falsification is the omission of the role played by Xhafer Deva, a Kosovar Albanian Muslim, in the Greater Albanian state and in the Holocaust.
Rescue in Albania by Harvey Sarner was published in book form in 1997 just in time for the Kosovo conflict and the start of the KLA terrorism campaign sponsored by the US/EU/NATO. It began being used as a propaganda tract immediately. The book was to pave the way for US military intervention in Serbia. It was first published as a booklet in 1992 as “The Jews of Albania”. It was released following the aliyah or emigration of the entire Jewish population out of Albania. They settled in Tel Aviv and other towns and cities in Israel. Little is revealed about the author. This throws up red flags. But Sarner did play a major role in the emigration of Albanian Jews to Israel. So the publication initially was payback or a goodwill gesture from Sarner for the emigration out of Albania to Israel. Israel got 300 new citizens and Albania got the pamphlet “The Jews of Albania”, a thank you note.
Who is Harvey Sarner? He is a third generation American of Jewish-Polish descent. Sarner is a retired American attorney. He is not a historian. The book is essentially a hack job. Sarner has paid or “subsidized” visits to Israel of “Righteous Gentiles”. He has written another book, General Anders and the Soldiers of the Second Polish Corps in 1997. Yad Vashem has listed 118 Serbs as “Righteous Gentiles” who rescued Jews during the Holocaust while only 61 Albanians have been so honored.
But Sarner conveniently doesn’t mention this. He is the chairman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers. He has worked with Jews in Poland, Ukraine, and Albania. His primary focus is on Jewish emigration to Israel and in documenting those non-Jews who have “rescued” Jews during the Holocaust.
Rescue in Albania is nothing more than a thinly-veiled propaganda tract. His subtitle is: “One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from Holocaust.” The book features an Albanian and Israeli flag on the cover. Van Christo, the Albanian president of the Frosina Foundation, has used the book for “fund raising purposes” to obtain money for the separatist campaign in Kosovo. Lobby money can buy you a lot of lies. That is the American way. And Sarner knows that.
In this propaganda tract, Sarner says nothing about the 21st SS Division “Skanderbeg”, made up primarily of Kosovar Muslim recruits, nothing about the genocide committed by Albanians against the Serbian and Jewish populations of Kosovo, and the genocide in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Croatia. He says nothing about the destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches and cathedrals in Kosovo. He says nothing about the murder of Serbian Orthodox priests. Is it ignorance? It is willful ignorance. He suppresses and deletes anything negative about Albania and Albanians. A fundamental aspect of propaganda is that it is one-sided, subjective, and tells only half the story. Under this definition, Rescue in Albania is pure propaganda. Sarner begins his book on the Holocaust with a discussion of Greater Albania,
"The Four Vilayets” under Ottoman Turkey: Janina, Shkodra, Kosovo, and Manastir. This is merely a parroting of the Greater Albania ideology. Sam Vaknin, in “The Myth of Greater Albania”, October 18, 1999, in the Central Europe Review, argued the opposite view: “Historically, there was never a ‘Greater Albania’ to hark back to.” But this is absolutely and patently incorrect and false. Vaknin conveniently and inexplicably suppresses and deleted any mention of the 1878 Albanian League of Prizren, whose sole raison d’etre was to create a Greater Albania. In 1943, the Nazis sponsored the creation of a Second League of Prizren, whose goal again, was to create a Greater Albania. The Kosovar Albanian Muslim Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division was created to establish a Greater Albania. In fact, from 1941 to 1944, there was a Greater Albania which Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created.
Vaknin seems to have amnesia on this point. He apparently has deleted the period 1941 to 1944 from his memory. This is convenient for his argument. Four years in the history of Kosovo and Albania are erased from the history books. It is as if the period 1941 to 1944 never even existed. The supporters of Greater Albania and the creation of an independent Kosova are in serious denial and self-repression. Why? They don’t want to admit to themselves, or anyone else, that Adolf Hitler devised and developed the Greater Albania and independent Kosova policies long before they did. Adolf Hitler was there first. Hitler was prescient and way ahead of the curve on Kosovo. And this is why there is denial, amnesia, and psychological self-repression. The result is a falsification of history. There was a Greater Albania to hark back to, and Sarner does an excellent job in re-creating the Greater Albania ideology. Greater Albania may be a “myth” to Vaknin, but it is not a myth to Albanians but the primary focus of their national being and identity. Greater Albania is a hard factual reality for Albanians. Vaknin makes a semantic distinction that is irrelevant and meaningless. When Kosovo is 100% ethnically pure Albanian and all the Kosovo Serbs and Roma and Jews have been killed or driven out and Serbian Orthodox churches destroyed, the border between Old Albania and New Albania, i.e., Kosovo will be meaningless. Kosova will just be a second Albanian state and the distinction between Albania proper and Kosovo will be moot. Kosova will, for all intents and purposes, and in a practical sense, be part of a Greater Albania. Vaknin’s argument is specious and totally wrong. This discussion of a Greater Albania is just recycled by Sarner from handouts his Albanian minders provided to him. There is no question that Sarner has been provided Albanian handlers to help him with his facts. What Sarner was not told is that these so-called Albanian Vilayets have non-Albanian majorities and were never part of Albania. This is the myth of Greater Albania. Janina is in northern Greece and has never been part of Albania. The population is majority Greek. There is a small Albanian minority in that former Ottoman Turkish “vilayet”. Manastir, or Bitola today, is in southern Macedonia which is majority Macedonian with a minuscule Albanian population. It was never part of Albania. Shkodra is the territory around southern Montenegro. Montenegro has a minority Albanian population and has never been part of Albania. Kosovo-Metohija is the cradle of the Serbian Orthodox church and of Serbian culture. The towns, cities, and villages all have Serbian names from the medieval period when it was part of Serbia. The oldest Serbian Orthodox churches are located in Kosovo. Albanian settlement and colonization during the Ottoman Turkish period could not erase its Serbian heritage. Moreover, Kosovo-Metohija was never a part of Albania. In fact, there had never been an Albanian state until 1912. But Sarner is silent about all of this.
Fitzhum created the 21st SS Division Skanderbeg with Xhafer Deva, made up mostly of Kosovar Muslim Albanians. As noted by Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews (1961), Skanderbeg played a major role in the Holocaust, rounding up the Jews in Greater Albania who were subsequently sent to Bergen-Belsen where they were killed.
Sarner sought to make a distinction between Albania proper and Kosovo. He defined Kosovo as part of “the annexed territories”. But this is a bit of a ruse and a phony scam. Kosovo was made a part of Albania in 1941. Kosovo was called the “New Albania”. The Interior Minister of Albania was a Kosovan or Kosovar Albanian Muslim, Xhafer Deva. Deva was one of the most influential Albanians in the Albanian Government. And he was from Kosovo. Sarner seeks to obfuscate this obvious fact by creating a spurious and meaningless distinction. Sarner admitted that Jews in Kosovo were being sent to the concentration camps where they were killed: “All around them…in the annexed territories, Jews were being transported to the death camps.” He admits that Kosovo Jews were being killed. He doesn’t admit that it was the Albanians who rounded up the Jews so that they could be killed. Why the omission? He is writing propaganda. He seeks to falsify the Albanian role in the Holocaust.
He grossly exaggerated the uniqueness of the “rescue” of Jews in Albania: “In Athens, the Jews refused to supply a list and there was a 50% survival rate.” He is factually wrong. In fact, the survival rate was 66% in Athens for Jews. Athens, like Albania, was in the Italian occupation zone. This explains why the Jews were “rescued”, not because of Albanian actions. It would be analogous to a cheerleader claiming credit for a win of the football team. In short, the Albanians had nothing to do with the so-called rescue. This is giving the Albanians credit for something that they were not responsible for. It is a falsification of history. It is out and out propaganda.
By contrast, in Bulgaria, an estimated 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were “rescued”. But Bulgarians did allow the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace, then a part of a Greater Bulgaria, to be deported and killed by German forces. Sarner harped on the propaganda statement that there were more Jews in Albania after World War II than before it. But this is misleading. There were only 200 Jews in all of Albania proper during the war. These Albanian Jews were “rescued” because the Italian occupation forces did not support the German Final Solution. Because of this fact, Jews in Eastern Europe all fled to Italian zones of occupation to escape German incarceration and deportation. The Italians also “rescued” Serbs from genocidal attacks by Croatian Ustasha forces, Bosnian Muslims, and Kosovar Albanian
Muslims. Albania was part of the route to then Palestine, containing several ports. Jewish refugees passed through Albania because it was on the way to Palestine, not because of an Albanian desire to “rescue” Jews. This is an absurd propaganda construction concocted by Sarner and his Albanian handlers .
Why this obsession and constant harping on “the list”? Sarner wrote his book when the Holocaust movie Schindler’s List (1993) was released. He wants to make the connection very easy to follow for his readers. He doesn’t want to complicate things for them too much. Oskar Schindler did not divulge a “list” of Jews to the Nazis, and the Albanians did not divulge a list to the Nazis. It is very easy and simple to follow. Oskar Schindler was a “Righteous Gentile”, as were the Albanian “Christians and Muslims” who “rescued” Jews. This explains why there is an overemphasis on “the list”. Sarner does not examine World War II at any length. Although his subject matter is purportedly on World War II and the Holocaust, there is very little on the Holocaust itself. He finally gets around to discussing the Holocaust period in “Chapter 7”, which he titled “The Germans”. Most of the book is on Jewish settlement in Albania and the 1930s period when Jewish-American Herman Bernstein was the US Ambassador to Albania. There is almost no account of the Holocaust and World War II. Why is this? This is because Sarner does not want to elucidate, but obfuscate. He wants to cover-up, not reveal.
He starts off with an incorrect assertion: “The fact” is “ that the Albanian Government and people did not cooperate with the Germans...” According to Sarner, Xhafer Deva, the Kosovar Muslim Interior Minister denied the list of Jews to the German forces on page 43. He offers no evidence for these statements. Factually, the Albanian Government and people did cooperate with the Germans. Indeed, Deva helped to organize the Nazi 21st Waffen SS Division “Skanderbeg”. Moreover, there was an Albanian Muslim Battalion of about 300 men in the Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS “Handschar/Handzar”. Rudi Sommerer was the commander of the Albanian Battalion in the Handzar Nazi SS Division. Kosovar Albanian Muslim Nazir Hodic was a prominent member of the Albanian Battalion in Handzar. This Albanian Battalion would later form the core of the Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division. The SS designed special gray skull caps for the Albanian Nazi SS troops. The Albanian Skanderbeg SS Division also had its own symbol created by the SS and worn as a collar patch, a goat’s head helmet supposedly modeled on the one worn by Skanderbeg himself. Sarner doesn’t even discuss the Balli Kombetar (BK), an ultra-nationalist group committed to creating a Greater Albania that would include Kosovo. Sarner says nothing about the known and widespread collaboration of the Balli Kombetar with the Italian and German occupation forces.
Sarner maintained that in 1943, the German occupation forces made a request for a list of Jews living in Greater Albania. The Germans established an Albanian national committee that created the Regency that governed Greater Albania. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis asked the Regency for the list of Jews according to Sarner. The real reason the Jews in Albania proper were not rounded up and deported was because under Italian occupation they had dispersed and were difficult to concentrate. German forces and Albanian collaborators made an effort to kill all the Jews of Greater Albania, but the German forces had to withdraw from Albania and the war ended before this could be accomplished. But in Kosovo-Metohija, then part of a Greater Albania, and Xhafer Deva’s birthplace, Albanians did round up all the known Jews, who were subsequently sent to the death camps and killed. The reference to “the list” is a smokescreen and Sarner is a pettifogger.
The reason there was a “rescue” in Albania was because the Italian government did not support the Final Solution and prevented its implementation. The German anti-Jewish policy was termed “the German disease” by the Italians.
Albanians, however, did play a major role in the Holocaust, the mass killings of Albanian Jews. Sarner plays dumb. All anyone has to do is to check Raul Hilberg’s seminal Holocaust book, The Destruction of the European Jews from 1961, to learn that Albanians played a key and fundamental role in the Holocaust. Sarner calls Kosovo a part of “The Annexed Territories”. He doesn’t reveal that Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created a Greater Albania. He doesn’t tell us that Kosovo-Metohija, parts of Montenegro, southern Serbia, and western Macedonia were all parts of a Greater Albania. Why? This is the exact same goal today of US foreign policy and of NATO. It is Adolf Hitler’s vision. But today, Hitler’s vision is taken up and revived by the US and NATO and Joe DioGuardi and Thomas Lantos. But Hitler did it first. But of course, Sarner is unaware of all this. His is a blissful ignorance. He does concede that Kosovo was made part of Albania: “In April, 1941” Kosovo “was annexed to Albania…”
Here is what Sarner says about Kosovo: “The Jews in the ‘annexed area’ were not as fortunate as the Jews in Albania proper. Life in the annexed territories was not as secure and there were unfortunate incidents of Jews being abused by the local people.” So he does grudgingly admit that Albanians did participate in the anti-Semitic outrages against the Jewish population, although he does not use the word “Kosovar Muslim” or “Albanian” but refers to “the local people”.
There was a Jewish family that was killed in Albania. The Jewish family Ardel was killed by the Nazis in Albania, but Sarner qualifies this as being a family of partisans. They were killed not because they were Jewish, but because they were partisans.
What about the Balli Kombetar (BK, National Front in Shqip), which emerged after October, 1942 in Vlora, a BK stronghold, where it was founded by Midhat Frasheri? Why does Sarner omit any discussion of the BK? Was the BK an anti-Nazi resistance movement? Was the BK a Nazi/fascist collaborationist group? Sarner suppresses and covers up any information on the BK. Bernd Jurgen Fischer, the foremost US historian on Albania during the Holocaust, a professor of history at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis---Fort Wayne, explained the role of the BK as follows: Much of the Balli Kombetar, which had remained aloof, was finally convinced to throw in its lot with the Germans.” Fischer noted that three members of the BK joined the Rexhep Mitrovica cabinet in January, 1944. Mitrovica was a “Kosovar” or “Kosovan” Albanian. Mitrovica was the Prime Minister in the Nazi-created Greater Albania regime, later replaced by the Zogist Fikri Dine. Xhafer Deva, a Kosovar Muslim, was the interior minister under the Nazi regime. Thus, the two highest positions, the prime minister and interior minister of Greater Albania, were held by Kosovars from Kosovo. Kosovo Albanian Muslims ran Greater Albania.
The collaboration of the Balli Kombetar with the Nazi and fascist forces is well-documented and well established. According to Fischer, “elements of the Balli Kombetar supported the Germans.” Fischer offered conclusive historical evidence and documentation that the Balli Kombetar, although opportunistic, concerned with gaining power, and forcefully annexing “Kosova” to a Greater Albania, was a Nazi/fascist collaborationist group. In February, 1944, British liaison officers reported that it was difficult for the partisans and resistance groups to attack the German forces because “they were being screened by elements of the Balli Kombetar and that these forces had become a normal part of any German force.” Bill Stone, in a review of Bernd Fischer’s book Albania at War, 1939-1945, wrote: “The National Front, however, fragmented completely and for the most part its local leaders chose to cease their already limited resistance activities and collaborate with the occupiers.” This is conclusive proof that the BK was a Nazi/fascist grouping. Fischer leaves no doubt about the role of the BK during the Holocaust. This is why Sarner deletes and covers up any mention of the BK.
Some Balli Kombetar units cooperated with the Germans against the communists, and several Balli Kombetar leaders held positions in the German-sponsored regime. Albanian collaborators, especially the Skanderbeg SS Division, also expelled and killed Serbs living in Kosovo. …The nationalistic Geg chieftains and the Tosk landowners often came to terms with the Italians, and later the Germans….
Logically speaking, it would not help in the creation of an independent Kosova if it was revealed that the BK was a Nazi/fascist group that also sought the same thing, but with Adolf Hitler’s help, instead of Bill Clinton’s. The syllogism would not work.
Sarner incorrectly implied that Albania escaped all the horrors of the Final Solution and Holocaust. But this is not true. Albania too experienced the Holocaust. The German occupation forces imposed anti-Jewish laws in Kosovo. Kosovo Jews wore “J” for “Juden” or “Jew”. Kosovo Jews wore white armbands with the word “Jude” in black letters. ID cards were stamped with a red “J”. Josef Fitzhum was determined to carry out the Final Solution in Albania. Fitzhum ordered the Jews of Vlora deported. And at least one Jewish family was killed. Sarner finally got around to admitting that Albanians played an active and major role in the Holocaust: “In Prishtina, capital city of the annexed territories, the local authorities complied with German demands and jailed 60 Jewish men.”
The Albanian Government played an active role in the Holocaust. On April 1, 1942, the Albanian Minister of the Interior gave instructions to the Albanian Prefect of Police that Jews who came after the war started should be “gathered on a field of concentration.” On March 20, 1942, he had ordered that the Jews be imprisoned and a list of Jews provided. In Note C, The Fields of Concentration, Sarner conceded that this euphemistic language meant a concentration camp: “This was the name given to what were otherwise known as concentration camps. These were camps for civilians and…their populations were mainly Jews….The camps were surrounded by barbed wire….It was an ugly place.” This is a very roundabout and disingenuous and dishonest way to admit that the Albanian Government set up concentration camps for Jews in Albania.
It is artful spin and propaganda. But it is also a malicious attempt at falsifying history. Sarner is rewriting history, creating a phony and bogus history.
Sarner even finally conceded that the Albanian Government and Albanian authorities took an active part in the extermination of European Jews: “In June, 1943…the Albanian police chief suggested the jailing of certain Jews:
‘According to our investigation the Jews listed below are dangerous because they are propaganderizing [sic] against the Axis (Rome-Berlin) and they want to organize and hold meetings. We think these people should be taken away from here as soon as possible to one of the concentration fields, because their staying here could be dangerous to the regime.’”
To complete the circle, Sarner finally grudgingly admits that the Albanian Government and people played a major role in the Holocaust and Final Solution: “In April, 1944, the Germans shipped 400 Jews from the annexed territories to Bergen-Belsen; 100 survived the war.” Sarner then grudgingly admitted that the Albanians participated in the murder of at least 300 Albanian Jews, Jews who lived in Greater Albania.
Then Sarner creates a propaganda smokescreen by arguing absurdly that the Albanians only helped to kill only 40% of the Jewish population of Kosovo, then a part of Greater Albania: “
Finally, in Footnote 2, Sarner explained why he wrote the book and its ultimate purpose. The book was written essentially as a propaganda tract, a falsified history of the Holocaust, in order to garner support for the creation of a Greater Albania or “independent” Kosova. This is the method to Sarner’s madness. There almost always is some secret purpose, isn’t there? These “experts” always have a hidden agenda that they peddle. Propaganda is, rarely, if ever random. Propaganda is meticulously coordinated and planned out. In propaganda, there is no such thing as an accident or something happening by chance. The book had a clear-cut goal and purpose all along. Propaganda is written for a specific purpose and goal. As Adolf Hitler himself noted, propaganda is not written for “blasé young gentlemen”, but to convince the masses, to persuade key groups, key target audiences. In this case, the target audience was powerful and influential establishment Jews in the US.
. As Hitler noted, propaganda appeals to the emotions and subjective and irrational nature of man. This is what Sarner is appealing to.
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Post by suart on Nov 3, 2007 11:59:06 GMT -5
Not long time ,just a month ago, in the albanian media was published a written letter of an intelectual albanian jews; Robert Shvarc, he had written it to his son. Among other words he wrote: We, the jews of Albania were not saved because them (the albanians) loved us but, because here in Tirana the Gestapo did not have a settled office, unlike in Prishtina or else.
As well as that he also mentions the fate of his cousins in Scutary(Skadar) that were sent by Balli Kombetar to the consentration camps and perished.
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viktor1
Membrum
DARDANIAN
Posts: 247
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Post by viktor1 on Nov 3, 2007 12:12:58 GMT -5
muslims muslims muslim muslims...........WHAT A F-U-C-K !!!!
Most of the Alboz r Atheist and thers is more than 38% Christians and most of labanian muslims live in south Kosova.
We r Albanians , fcuk all that propagandas!!!
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Post by tripwire on Nov 3, 2007 15:18:25 GMT -5
There is a huge difference between saving .025% of the Jewish population of any given nation and 98% of the same in another, even if the end result shows large numbers. The final tally shows the general humanity and treatment of minorites by the general population of that given nation.
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Kanaris
Amicus
This just in>>>> Nobody gives a crap!
Posts: 9,587
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Post by Kanaris on Nov 3, 2007 15:42:37 GMT -5
So let me understand this.... If your perspective Jewish populations was like 2000 people and you managed to save 1700.... you're a great compassionate nation? IF your Jewish population is 400,000 and you managed to save 25 thousand.... you're an evil empire even though the Nazis targeted you mainly because of your huge Jewish population.....
Albanian did nothing special..... nothing to waste bandwith to be repeated here.... like I said you guys probably saved a few jews.... and I am almost positive that they paid you to do so... one minor detail that is being left out..
No one in the Balkans is known for being great humanitarian people.... no one....
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Post by meltdown711 on Nov 3, 2007 16:02:08 GMT -5
Albanians are, something that is repeated continuously by westerners, whether it was Byron or a saved Jew.
And as for paying the Albs, there is no evidence for that, none, your just adding things based on your own biase.
And its not just about the saving, look at the quote above, Greeks are still trampling on the graves of Jews, as if they dont care (and probably dont)
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Post by tripwire on Nov 3, 2007 16:17:18 GMT -5
" IF your Jewish population is 400,000 and you managed to save 25 thousand.... you're an evil empire "
No, this is not what is gleaned from this information. This shows that your every day people, neighbors of Jewish citizens, are found to be lacking in honor, integrity and empathy/sympathy for the persecuted minorities who happen to live next door or on the top of the 'hill', and that the general population have a tendency to discriminate and treat minorites less than they treat the majority. They look upon the minorities as having less value than the majority ethnic group.
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