An exhibit of vital heroism

MARK J. STEIN

At the onset of the Second World War, the Jewish population of Albania was approximately 200. At the close of the war, it was larger. This is not a mere statistical aberration occasioned by in-migration, though indeed, there was in-migration of perhaps 600-1,800 families during that time period. Add to the remarkableness of this situation the fact that Albania is largely a Muslim country and that these Muslims failed to cooperate with the Nazis in any significant manner whatsoever in delivering their Jewish neighbors to certain death.

The story of this snippet of history is presented in a traveling exhibition of photographs currently showing, entitled BESA: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II. The display is curated under the auspices of the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures (CCSMSC) at Simon Fraser University. Before coming to Vancouver, it was at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, at the United Nations headquarters in New York City and, most recently, at the Holocaust Museum in Houston.

The exhibition is primarily the work of Norman Gershman, who, along with the aid of Stu Huck, spent some five years, from 2003 to 2008, photographing, chronicling and interviewing Albanians who took part in these extraordinary actions. The exhibit presents photographs and information gleaned from interviews with them, their children and some of those who were saved. Gershman is the founder and director of the Eye Contact Foundation, which promotes tolerance through the use of portrait photography.

Visitors to the exhibit learn about the Albanian Muslims who took in their Jewish neighbors, sheltered them, gave them Muslim identities where it proved useful, sometimes dressing them up as local farmers. They did this with no fanfare and often with no real attempt to disguise their actions. In fact, it appears that they pretty much did it – and forgot about it. The story of their actions lay mostly dormant until recently.

Eventually, the story did come to light: how Albania’s Jews – a minuscule 200 out of 803,000 Albanians – made it safely through the Shoah with the help of Muslims, predominantly members of the local Bektashi Shia. The assistance afforded the Jews was grounded in Besa, the Albanian code of honor, which still today serves as the highest ethical code in the country. Besa means, literally, “to keep the promise.” One who acts according to Besa is someone who keeps his word, someone to whom one can trust one’s life and the lives of one’s family.

Derryl Maclean, director of CCSMCS said, “The Besa exhibition counters the widely held notion that Jewish-Muslim relations were always and necessarily confrontational. In the highly charged milieu of [Second World War] Albania, Muslims went to considerable lengths and much peril to protect their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis and, in the process, rescued most of the Jews of the region. They were compelled to do so, they insist, due to Besa, a principle drawn from both Islamic and traditional sources.”

Researchers at Yad Vashem have tried to document acts in which Jews were saved and also to describe the thought processes of those Chasdei Umot ha’Olam (Righteous Among the Nations). Their research on the phenomenon paints the following profile: “Faced with Jews knocking on their door, bystanders were faced with the need to make an instant decision. This was usually an instinctive human gesture, taken on the spur of the moment and, only then, followed by a moral choice. Often it was a gradual process, with the rescuers becoming increasingly involved in helping the persecuted Jews. Agreeing to hide someone ... would evolve into a rescue that lasted months and years.”

Such a long-term rescue effort does indeed characterize many of the Albanian Besa photographed for this exhibit. Queried about the why of such behavior, one of the Besa interviewed by Gershman, replied: “In our homes, first is God, second is our guest and third is our family.”

Baba Haxhi Dede Reshat Bardhi, another of those profiled, explained: “We Bektashi see God everywhere, in everyone. God is in every pore and every cell, therefore all are God’s children. There cannot be infidels. There cannot be discrimination. If one sees a good face, one is seeing the face of God.”

Another said, “No Besa without Koran, and no Koran without Besa.” On the surface, this statement seems anachronistic, for the Koran existed before and independently of the Albanian Besa. Muhammad’s revelation began in 610 CE, not 1943, when the occupying German army demanded that Albanians hand over Jews.

According to Bill Jeffries, director and curator of SFU’s galleries, “Besa was not the only principle operating at that time; interviewees cite ‘being a Muslim’ as a reason to behave as they did; as well, in some cases, a mutual regard for ‘giving shelter to fellow royalists.’”

In an essay for the exhibit, Jeffries wrote, “The stories in the Besa images provide a magical example of people being tolerant and supportive of people who are not like themselves. The behaviors discussed, if extended globally, would make this an amazingly pleasant planet.”

Though not produced directly for the SFU exhibit, an eponymous book titled Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II shows Gershman’s photographs and was published by Syracuse University Press in 2008. The book forms an important educational role in Gershman’s Eye Contact Foundation and is available for purchase at the exhibit and online.

Randi Winter, a travel specialist and writer, is the local Eye Contact representative. In an e-mail to the Independent, Winter described a chance meeting in Aspen, Colo., that brought her and Gershman together. “There was an instant connection and visiting his home ... his larger-than-life photographs literally drew you into the soul of each portrait through their eyes and hands. Norman had traveled to the former USSR in the 1980s with John Denver to photograph concerts, his first commission.” While there, Gerhsman “photographed dissidents. He planned to go to the Greek Olympics when he called to say he had changed his mind. The righteous were getting older and no one was documenting them,” Winter wrote. “That took him to Albania and Kosovo five times, always finding more stories than the 63 Yad Vashem had [already] recognized. For five years, he knocked on doors only to be told, ‘What, Muslims who saved Jews? Are you crazy?’... Gershman’s background in the financial world and as a headhunter kept him single-mindedly focused.

“Yad Vashem finally called for access to his photos and designed an exhibition. Norman generously arranged to bring his family and several of the people from Albania and Kosovo. I was compelled to go, and it changed my life,” Winter continued. “Emotional reunions 60 years later between the rescued and the rescuers are part of the documentary [film] that is in post-production.... This project is not only changing lives, it is saving lives.”

Yad Vashem has meticulously documented this phenomenon; Gershman has lovingly photographed it. There are among the Besa Albanians Muslims many blessed and celebrated as the Righteous Among the Nations.

BESA is at the SFU Harbor Centre Campus, Teck Gallery, 515 West Hastings St., until Oct. 29. Contact the gallery at 778-782-4266 or visit sfu.ca/artgallery for information. Starting Nov. 1, 2010, BESA will move to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Mark J. Stein has been working informally as part of an ad hoc committee for the exhibition. He and his wife recently relocated to Vancouver from Upstate New York, where he served as a hospital chaplain and leader of a small Conservative shul.

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