I have been working with Albanian tradesmen and builders living in England for many years. Albanians are a very proud people. They will always remind you about their countrymen’s courageous behavior during the Holocaust and their role in saving Jews, whom they refused to betray. In fact, the Jewish community in Albania was the only one in Europe that grew in size under the Nazi occupation.
Albert Einstein escaped the clutches of the Nazis by obtaining an Albanian passport, and he crossed through Albania on his way to safety in the United States.
But Albanians are also cognizant that their country is considered—erroneously, they say—unsafe and rife with organized crime. During my conversations with Albanians, they often urged me to visit their country so that I would be impressed by its beauty and experience their hospitality.
And so here I am. It’s a clear day as my plane descends into Tirana, the country’s capital. Through my small window, I can already see mosques with their tall minarets dotting the landscape. But although it is a Muslim-majority country, Albania has a history of treating its Jews fairly.
My recent trip to Kosovo—an Albanian-majority country bordering Serbia—was very positive (see Ami, Issue 647). Notwithstanding that it was shortly after October 7, the people there were happy to see me walking around proudly as a Jew. However, the Kosovar Jewish community is dependent upon the Jewish community in Tirana, where its sefer Torah is held for safekeeping due to the lack of suitable facilities and the fact that there is no functional shul in Kosovo.
But although Albanians have a positive attitude toward their Jewish neighbors, the number of Jews living in the country is dwindling. I have come here to experience its culture and find out more about the vanishing Jewish communities in Albania and along the Ionian coast.
Tirana
I land at Tirana International Airport. Before leaving England, I had booked a rental car from a company that assured me it had a desk in the airport terminal. (Some small airports in Europe have off-site car rental companies, which I dislike due to the inconvenience of having to take a shuttle bus to get there.) It turns out that the company was not quite truthful. It does have a desk in the terminal, but it’s unmanned. There is a map directing travelers to its “real office” a few blocks away—and there isn’t even a shuttle. Disappointed because my schedule is tight, I make my way there on foot.
I have only been in the country for a few minutes, and I’m already experiencing the unique Albanian culture. Despite my visible Jewishness, no one stops or even so much as glances in my direction, and it is like that throughout my stay. A thought occurs to me: Is it possible that the Albanians’ stark indifference to religion is what has caused the decline of its Jewish population? I will find out later.
The car rental agent is a middle-aged man named Ador, who guides me down a potholed road leading to the derelict parking lot where my vehicle awaits. Not missing a beat, he gives me a short lecture about Albania’s role in saving Jews during World War II.
“We are the only country under Nazi occupation where the Jewish population grew in size,” he says proudly. Then he adds frankly, “We weren’t particularly close to the Jews; that’s just who we are as a people. The Jews needed an open door, so we offered them one. We would do the same for any nation or people in need.”
Without expecting a response from me, he picks up his monologue. “Albania has a bad reputation, but it’s simply not true. In the United Kingdom you have a rate of six crimes per 100,000 people; here it is only three crimes per 100,000 people. We are the third-safest country in Europe,” he claims matter-of-factly.
I am not convinced that these numbers are accurate, but I sense the pride in his voice, and I’m not about to challenge him.
I ask Ador if he remembers living under the brutal dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, the totalitarian communist leader of Albania who devastated the country. Ador was a young boy at the time, but he remembers that dark period vividly. “Two of my uncles were imprisoned by the Nazis for joining the partisans,” he says. “They were then reincarcerated and tortured by the Hoxha regime following his rise to power due to their work for the underground. We have a history in our family of fighting against evil.”
Enver Hoxha was a paranoid ruler who quarreled with the West and eventually fell out with his only ally, the USSR. Hoxha was worried that his country would be invaded by the West and the Soviets at the same time, so he funneled all of his country’s resources into building doomsday bunkers. Over 700,000 fortified bunkers were built across Albania to protect it in the event of a nuclear attack. Many of the bunkers still exist (see Aim!, Issue 670).
It is no wonder that more Albanians live outside their native land than in it. According to Ador, only 2.7 million out of seven million Albanians worldwide actually live in the country.
Berat
My next stop is Berat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This ancient city nestled in the lush Tomorr mountain chain has a rich culture and history. Many tourists flock to the city for its beauty and history, but I have come here for other reasons; I want to uncover the lesser-known Jewish history of the city.
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