I’m normally a fan of Aaron Klein’s, so I was devastated to find that he had WND fall for the Albanian PR ploy regarding World War II that’s been making the rounds since 2005 (“Forgotten history: Muslims who save Jews; Exhibition honors Albanians who risked lives during Holocaust”). The Albanian Righteous of World War II are being used quite deliberately at this time to get American Jews to push Israel to recognize Kosovo. Essentially the same “exclusive” piece WND published this week had graced the pages of the Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh just two weeks ago, as the PR makes its rounds to all Jewish and Jewish-friendly publications, for the fourth year now. The same coverage that Klein gave to Muslims saving Jews appears on Islamic sites as well.
In 2007, I wrote a response op-ed for the New York Jewish Week after they also fell victim to the scheme. (The original Jewish Week link is no longer available, but the provided link serves.) More important is the direct response to Norman Gershman’s and Yad Vashem’s exhibit – and therefore Klein’s piece – here: “Can We Please Stop Using the Jews?”
One important point is that while Albanians are on top of their Jew-saving PR, it never occurred to Serbs – exponentially more of whom saved Jews during World War II – to compile a list of their Jew-saves for credit and flaunt it in the event that an expansionist rival would use its own Jew-saves as a weapon against them. Among the thousands of Serbian families who risked their lives to save Jews, only about 150 are documented at Yad Vashem, still more than the 60-some Albanian Righteous documented there and getting all the attention.
There is an insidious and ironic motivation behind this parading of World War II’s Albanian Righteous: to promote the birth of the supremacist state of Kosovo. Gershman is one of a handful of Jewish front men helping out with the Kosovo theft, wittingly or not. Last year he got his exhibit into the famed 92nd St. Y in New York, as well as into the halls of the UN. Here is one eight-minute film by him, meant to be positive, which nonetheless reveals the true nature of “Besa,” the Albanian honor code that Gershman’s exhibit, and now WND, celebrate. Besa is part of the blood code that makes Albanian society so terrifying. It is primitive, and it’s nothing to be glorified.
In general when dealing with questions of Albanian Righteous vs. Serbian Righteous and who has the greater affinity for/history with the Jews, in addition to the numbers that tell the story one must look at the wider history: Jews and Serbs died together in World War II concentration camps and mass executions. Both were targeted then. And both are targeted today. Albanians were not targeted; Albania was an Axis ally that contributed SS divisions to the Nazi cause. And the Albanians are not imperiled today; indeed, they are getting a second state – they are expanding.
It’s true that the Albanians have never particularly had it in for the Jews, but they’ve always been out to exterminate the Serbs – and when opportunity knocks (WWII, 1999), they make new friends fast. Let’s keep in mind that it wasn’t Serbs who rounded up almost all the Jews of Kosovo (annexed to Albania) during World War II for the Nazis; it was Albanians. That is not a reflection on the Albanian Righteous, but it is key to the big picture.
Among the Albanian-generated buzz phrases going around is that “all of Albania’s Jews were saved” and that “Albania had more Jews at the end of the war than at the beginning.” That’s because Albania had only 200 Jews to start with. One must ask why. The answer is that most had left Albania by the end of World War I because of persecution. In addition, Italy controlled Albania early in World War II and was not interested in the Final Solution. Today Kosovo has 50 Jews left and Albania has fewer than 10.
This is what is relevant. For Yad Vashem’s purposes, both the Albanian Righteous and the Serbian Righteous are correctly viewed as equal. But before setting pen to paper, as the responsible journalist that I know he is, Aaron Klein should have first asked why we are hearing exclusively, and so much, at this time about the Albanian Righteous, far less numerous than their enemy Serb Righteous. What I have stated above is well chronicled at the Jewish Virtual Library.
Julia Gorin is an opinion writer specializing in the Balkans, as well as editor of “Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing and Suspect Musing of Billary.”
