THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT COUNTED MORE JEWS AFTER WWII THEN BEFORE IT
Did you know there is a country that had a larger Jewish population after World War II than it had before it?
There was a rise of 900% of Jews living in there, from about 200 registered in late 30s to 2000 after 1945.
This is because it sheltered and protected jews reaching the country from all over occupied Europe, even though it was occupied itself.
Around late 30s and early 40s, when the Nazis were exterminating Jews, it started circulating word that there was a small country in east Europe where Jews were safe and protected.
So many Jew families started immigrating (with false documents) to Albania to find shelter.
Hunted and persecuted throughout Europe, they found a rare safe heaven in Albania.
Albanians might be simple people, unused to high philosophers and intellectuals, but with high morals and humanity, who would always put human life and justice first.
According to "The Code of Lekë Dukagjini", the moral code of Albanians, the Albanian household belongs to God and to the guest. It is therefore a moral obligation for them to not only respekt their guest, but to also protect them.
And Albanians actively went out of their way to protect and hide their Jewish guests, as they stayed loyal to the Besa, the moral promise that Albanian people would accomplish to death.
Albania's king Zog I instructed their embassies in Europe to grant visas to Jews.
Albanian soldiers at the border obviously recognized the fake documents the refugees were carrying but never questioned it, instead leaving them inside the country where the local population helped them untill the very end.
Whenever someone in need of help would knock at their door, Albanians would always offer them hospitality and protection, feeding and sheltering them, without exception.
Local populations assured Jews that before the Nazis would get them, they would have to go through Albanians dead bodies first.
Some of them were hidden in Albanians houses under the false identities of relatives of the house owners, some were taken as workers in their shops or their fields, others would find protection on the isolated mountains of Albania, where the locals would give them food and living goods, others were hidden in hospitals with the pretense that they were under quarantine for some really contagious illness so the Nazis would not dare to get in.
They all got new Albanian names together with new Albanian documents.
Most of them obtained the Albanian visa and some were een issued Albanian passports.
The local Albanian government utilized its authority to the maximum by refusing to hand over lists of Jews to the German forces.
Everyone knew the Jewish families and the Nazis were all over the place, but even so, in around 10 years, not a single Jew was handed over to the Nazis. Not a single person spied on them or threatened them. Not once was ever questioned if it was the right thing to do.
Every single person, from government officials to simple citizens, did everything they were able to do to save them but most importantly they put their lives at stake, and many were even killed by Nazis because they refused to hand over their protegees.
Albania is now remembered on the monument of The Righteous Among Nations in Yad Vashem along with the names of 69 Albanian families who directly protected many Jewish refugees risking their own lives.
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