Albania var det eneste tyskokkuperte land hvor det var flere jøder etter krigen enn før. Grunnen var at muslimene gjemte rundt 1.000 jøder fra nazistenes klør. Yad Vashem åpner en fotoutstilling om den ukjente historien.

I den forbindelse er 63 albanere erklært som Righteous Among the Nations, betegnelsen på ikke-jøder som har reddet jøder.

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.»

Exhibition honors Muslims who saved Jews