As documented by Mark A. Gabriel, the history of Islamic anti-Semitism is persistent, pervasive, and severe. To the extent that Albanian Muslims -- even if they were Muslim merely culturally or by default -- protected Jews from the Holocaust, they are worthy and remarkable exemplars. Will other Muslims follow the Albanians' example in future troubled times?
"Holocaust's untold heroes" by Hahzada Irfan in the Houston Chronicle, August 28:
Their story is rarely told, but Albanian Muslims took in fleeing Jews during World War II, saving thousands of lives.When no other European country dared to withstand the wrath of Nazi Germany, it was the Muslims of Albania who saved a large number of Jewish people from extermination.
Careful, Shahzada. Clarify your dates and facts, or have your credibility questioned.
Albania, a Muslim majority country in Europe, opened its borders during World War II and took in thousands of Jews fleeing from different countries... ...(Norman) Gershman...interviewed Albanians who had harbored Jewish people at that time and were still alive and the relatives of those who were not...Everyone had a different story to tell, but one thing was common."They were compelled to act the way they had by Besa, a code of honor deeply rooted in Albanian culture and incorporated in the faith of Albanian Muslims...They believed any Albanian would have done the same in a similar situation."
Even better had they said that any Muslim would have done the same, and then shown why with appeals to the Qur'an, Sunnah, and Islamic history. But unfortunately, that kind of demonstration is more challenging than general reference to "Besa" and to "Albanian culture...incorporated in faith of Albanian Muslims."
"The Albanian Muslims derived inspiration from their religion to save Jews," she said.
Then why are they not quoted as saying so, and explaining how they derived inspiration from their religion?
These stories have remained unknown for decades, even to students of the Holocaust. Rob Satloff, director of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., offers an explanation. "First, we -- Jews, Israelis, Western historians -- didn't look very hard," Satloff said. "And second, they -- Arabs and Muslims, even those who rescued Jews -- often did not want to be found"...Ellen Kennedy, interim director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, believes these stories remained untold because many surviving Jews and Albanians were reluctant to share them.
Why were they reluctant? Did they fear ostracism, or worse, retaliation? From whom?
"...They (the Albanians) were so different from those who perpetrate violence in the name of the same religion.""When survivors first began speaking about their experiences in the years immediately after the war, they were met with disbelief," Kennedy said. "The public simply could not imagine that such horrors occurred."
Not unlike public incredulity at Muslims persecuting Jews and other minorities in the present-day world.
Gershman's work is an attempt at building bridges between Muslims and people of Jewish faith... Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel, is the sponsor of this traveling exhibition...
This is absolutely ridiculous. The Albanian Muslims are among the most guilty of World War II for murdering many Jews and Orthodox Christian Serbs. They didn't save anyone. The Serbs were the true heroes because they tried (and unfortunately were not always successful) to save Jews from the Nazis.
As a side note, the links in this post don't really work properly, so perhaps someone can fix them...
And YET.... the Albanians in Kosovo formed the Skenderberg division of the Nazi SS and those as-hats sent thousands of Serbian Christians, Romas and Jews to the Nazi death camps.
Even the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Nuns, Monks and Priests were transported to Dachau.Sent along by Albanian nazis in the service to Hitler.
To this very day hitler and nazis are revered by Albanians in Kosovo.
Whereas the SERB and the JEWS died together on the ice floes in Serbia while being machine gunned by the Germans and their Hungarian allies. And the JEWS, ROMAS and SERBS died in the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the Bosnian muslims and Croats at the death camp of Jasenovac, in Croatia.
Croatian, Albanian and Bosnian SS units murdered innocents , HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of them!!
And Hitler promised them all Serb-free, Jew-free and Roma-free lands in Croatia , Bosnia and Kosovo for their bloody efforts.
And they have finally achieved that goal. WHO says mass murder does not eventually pay of???
Norman Gershman's work is an attempt at building bridges between his wallet & bank account. In collusion with Shahzada Irfan they seek to BOLDLY rewrite history itself for personal & ideological gain. I have tips they can go chasing all over Europe after:
Quite a few GERMAN, Polish, French, Greek, Ukranian, Lithuanian, Hungarian etc, families sheltered Jews from the Nazis. Some for no gain except their potential death. Some charged money in order to feed their own & the Jews. Some just wanted money & gave up the Jews when the money ran out.
Of course these folks were far & few as most gave up Jews to the Germans or persecuted these themselves for the thrill. But, Albania? As a matter of routine? They were too busy getting tossed between Russia, Austria & Italy.
Once the Italians were ordered to round up Jews, they refused to collaborate with the Nazis any further. They marched en masse into Southern France, surrounded the Jews & would not let the Germans have them. Mussolini himself refused! {Nowthat's a story!} Eventually Germany sent enough troops to transport them.
The greatest show of solidarity with the Jews happened in Denmark. They did everything to confuse the Germans, including wearing yellow patches. When talk of transporting them arose, Danish fisherman up & down the coast took Jews to neutral Sweden the very night before, for no profit. All this is highle commendable.
To prop up the muslim image at the expense of history - despicable...
I will not even wait a MINUTE!!
The Serbs were NOT the PARTIZANS supported by the USSR...that was TITO and his CROATIANS.
The Serbs were the Chetniks who in addition to fighting NAZIS, saved over 500 AMERICAN airmen from Germans and Croatians. General Mailhovic of the Chetniks was awarded the American Medal of Freedom for his efforts on behalf of the Americans...but he was already dead...killed by Tito and his commies.
Read the Book, The Forgotten 500
Winston Churchill wrote in his biography, that "one of the biggest mistakes in his life" was to support of TITO and not the Chetniks( THE SERBS)... You see like our fellow poster NAKAL here, he was NOT aware that the British Govt.was infiltrated with commies spys for the USSR, KIM PHILBY was just one of them.
And those big time commies spys influenced the Brits and Churchill to back commie Tito. Those same spys LIED to Churchill and said that the CHETNIKS worked with the NAZIS.
All to make Tito look like a hero. He hated Serbs and the Orthodox Church and punished many a Serbian priest and Christian after WWII with jail or death.
Tito is rumored to have even turned several allied pilots to the Nazis for GOLD!
Greeks were NOT neutral in WWII to the cause of the Jews in WWII. Where DID you get that? My Godmother's family was in Greece during WWII and they suffered horribly at the hands of the nazis. They had family carried off to death camps never to be seen again.
I actually have a very close friend, who is Jewish, in France... she and her entire family were sheltered by French Huguenots( that is Protestants by the way).
Her parents were sent to one family on a farm and she and each of her 3 siblings, 2 sisters and a brother, to different families.
My friend is a member of the French Legion of Honor in France and has worked for several charities for many years and is now retired.
She claims many French children were saved from the Nazis, however their parents were captured and killed and the children grew up with their "host" families and actually lost their Jewish faith and identity.
She reports that some never even wanted to be identified as Jews anymore, especially the youngest ones.
I actually have a very close friend, who is Jewish, in France... she and her entire family were sheltered by French Huguenots( that is Protestants by the way).
Her parents were sent to one family on a farm and she and each of her 3 siblings, 2 sisters and a brother, to different families.
My friend is a member of the French Legion of Honor in France and has worked for several charities for many years and is now retired.
She claims many French children were saved from the Nazis, however their parents were captured and killed and the children grew up with their "host" families and actually lost their Jewish faith and identity.
She reports that some never even wanted to be identified as Jews anymore, especially the youngest ones.
Benjamin asked, "Will other Muslims follow the Albanians' example in future troubled times?"
Muhammad didn't, so unless they're apostate, ignorant, or insane, no.
The King of Morocco also worked to protect the Jewish community there from the collaborators in the Vichy France government during World War II. But he's was a non-white Arab, so I bet Spencer won't be mentioning him.
Nakal: Polish citizenry for years were accused of the most horrendous crimes against Jews. It has in recent years been documented there were many Polish sumpathyzers who took Jews in, adopted Jewish children, and their numbers were overshadowed by those who persecuted. The greater German citezenry were split by: hatred of Jews, and fear of Nazi discovery. Many, & I will say it again, MANY Germans were interred for helping Jews. Many Germans were vehemently against the Nazis but fear kept them in non-action.
The point is, Sarajevo was a twilight city in which Catholic church bells rang, as well as Orthodox & Islamist minarets could be heard by all in every neighborhood. The muslims could have cared less for Jews, as they were keeping distance from Catholics.
The Jews of Salonika, along with the Hungarian Jews were the last to go to Auschwitz. The Germans broke down the Salonika Jews' cemeteries & made buildings out of their tombstones.
Finally, sympathies for Jews existed in various degrees throughout Europe as an individual matter. Of course it wasn't on a GRANF scale, but happened more frequently than most knew. Again, IMHO no muslims helped any Jews.
William Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" has some good info about the Albanians and their cooperation with the Nazis. As does the book I'm currently reading, "Unholy Terror".
The fact is, the Serbs are pretty much amazing people. Even today, the most pro-Israel people of the Balkans are the Serbs--the prime minister of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has expressed support for Israel.
Hate to challenge you on your scholarly authority, Robert.
But there is something in Islam re asylum:
Yusuf Ali 9:6:Quran- translation
If one amongst the Pagans ask thee for asylum, grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of Allah. and then escort him to where he can be secure. That is because they are men without knowledge.
Great, isn't it? Give him asylum so that he "may hear the word of Allah".
If after repeated "invitations" to accept Islam the refugee still doesn't accept, what happens then?
Albania was a pretty mixed bag during WWII. There were partisans fighting fascism--but there were also fascist cadres. Many Albanians did desert from the armed forces after the Italian invasion, but in at least some cases that may have indicated an aversion to serving under kaffirs as an hatred of fascism.
Certainly, Albania served as the beachhead for Italy's brutal invasion of Greece.
I have the greatest respect and admiration for any Albanians who hid or aided Jews fleeing the Holocaust. The situation was hardly as clear-cut, however, as, say, with Denmark.
Albania, it is worth noting, was NOT a sovereign nation during the Second World War, as it was annexed by Fascist Italy in 1939, thus making it an Axis satellite. Doesn't the author of this piece know that?
This "culture" racket cuts both ways: But the ways that PC MC slices it, it always comes out to favor Islam:
1) When we find honor killings and FGM among Muslims, the PC MCs cry "it's just the 'culture', not the Islam!"
2) When we find Albanian Muslims sheltering Jews on the basis of a cultural attitude symbolized as Besa, suddenly we don't hear from the PC MCs "culture!" but suddenly, for some reason, they are quick to ascribe it to Islam!
Notice what's going on here. The PC MCs are following their paradigm:
When bad things are said about Muslims, suddenly it's just "culture". When good things are said about Muslims, why suddenly it has to do with their wonderful Islam, you see!
I have not had a chance to check Mr. Bostom's research, which contradicts what I know. See "Jews of Yugoslavia 1941 - 1945, Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters," by Jasa Romano. The book was never translated into English, but an English language summary exists on PDF at the Jasenovac Research Institute website. According to Mr. Romano's book, the Albanian Ballists, who allied themselves with the Nazis, killed off about 311 of Kosovo's 400 Jews. In Albania, Albanians rescued some 60 Jews and are being honored by Yad Vasem. Muslim propaganda, Albanian and otherwise, seems to be in good shape.
Wow, let's slam the Albanians for their Anti-semitism while ignoring all those good Catholics, Protestants and Orthodoxers in Europe who applauded and pitched into the Holocaust. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black here!
Yeah, let's here more revisionist theo-con history about how all the good Catholic Pole & Rumanians and Orthodox Ukranians stood by their Jews, all ten good ones.
No other European country dared withstand the Nazi wrath? Forgetting about Bulgaria, which although nominally on the Axis, refused to deport its Jews to extermination camps despite repeated entreaties by Nazis and their sympathizers? Bulgaria wound up with a bigger Jewish population after the fall of the 3rd Reich than before it began. (Most migrated afterward to Israel.)
No other European country dared withstand the Nazi wrath? Forgetting about Bulgaria, which although nominally on the Axis, refused to deport its Jews to extermination camps despite repeated entreaties by Nazis and their sympathizers? Bulgaria wound up with a bigger Jewish population after the fall of the 3rd Reich than before it began. (Most migrated afterward to Israel.)
"The greatest show of solidarity with the Jews happened in Denmark. They did everything to confuse the Germans, including wearing yellow patches." - brownkitty
As far as I know, it's a myth that the king and the general population in Denmark started to wear yellow stars or other Jewish signs.
However that doesn't change the basic fact that the vast majority of Danish Jews, something like 95%, were saved by a spontaneous action of the Danish people. It's quite an amazing story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skocUzic4Ls
The one thing I find hard with this article to grapple is the notion that Albanian Muslims can be seen as honourable.
After seeing the Kosovar Albanian refugees at Puckapunyal (Australian Army Base north of Melbourne),I find it really hard to believe that Albanian Muslims can be anything but 'honourable'.
The behaviour these people displayed whilst here in Australia could be summed up as nothing more than disgraceful and if the Australian Media reported on what happened at Pucka as well as Singleton (School of Infantry northern NSW) then these people (Albanians) would of been seen in a different light.
If these noble Albanian Muslims did what they did why then has it taken so many decades to come to light?
Shelldrake - re. behaviour of Albanian Muslims whilst in Australia at Puckapunyal and at Singleton.
Do tell.
I assume you are not under some kind of gag order?
If you are not, and you are an eyewitness, or can provide a link to such, go right ahead and share.
dumbledoresarmy
I was at the time posted to Puckapunyal as a part of training staff SOA (School of Artillery). Before the lovely Kosovars arrived at Puckappunyal we, (Australian Soldiers), had a visit from a really lovely lady, ermm hmm, from (Dept of Immigration Multicultural Affairs), she as you would guess was of Albanian descent. We were talked down on as if we were some kind of Neanderthals and barbarians who are uncultured and backward.
We were told we ‘must’ respect these Albanians as they’re proud and honourable Muslims. We must not speak to their woman or look at them and accord them all the respect they deserve.
It came as a shock when we found out that the Albanians had free use of the area pool of a nighttime, I think it was for 1 or 2 hours but the amount of mess they made in that time was despicable. These people could not go to the toilet so they took it upon themselves to defecate in the pool or anywhere for that matter, urinate everywhere they possibly could even on the heater in the sauna and funny thing of all they EXPECTED the staff there to clean up for them. That pool was emptied and cleaned many times only for it to happen again and again.
Their billets were set out with all the latest mod cons, heating, televisions, computers their own cooks brought in to cater for them all at Australian taxpayers cost yet these selfish dirty ingrates weren’t happy with this. They had the nerve to complain about the accommodation and food they wanted more. These people couldn’t even use toilets they would poke their bums outside their door and crap over the side of the step, the toilet mind you was only 10 meters away.
The lovely Australian Government also paid these people an allowance yet when these people were taken for shopping trips into Seymour they couldn’t be bothered buying items they just stole them.
It was later leaked out as well there that the Albanian men were prostituting their children for cigarettes and money. Certain acts were observed by outside sources and there was a (hushed) case of attempted sexual assault of a female staff member. Few of us at the SOA actually heard that there were a few cases but were hushed up very quickly.
I personally came to see for myself the disgusting way that Albanian Muslim men act especially around our woman on a couple of occasions I observed female soldiers in our Gym being preyed upon by this filth. Just imagine how vulnerable woman would feel being surrounded by 10/15 drooling Albanians who haven’t even evolved to using toilets.
To top this off when it came time for these lovely people to be sent home they smeared crap all through the billets, beds, walls, floors didn’t miss out on this assault either.
When I saw these people on the news in no mans land suffering hardships before they came to Australia I felt truly sorry for them, after I saw the way they acted and treated people who bent over backwards to help them and cater for them I came to despise these people so much.
Sorry NAKAL but it's a myth. I can tell you that from the simple fact that the Germans never issued the order in Denmark that the members of the Jewish community here should wear the yellow star and as such there would be no reason for the king to wear the yellow star as a sign of solidarity with his Jewish subjects.
The myth was invented to show the general attitude of the royal family, aswell as the Danish people, towards the Jewish Danes and as such it was - like most myths I presume - based on something real.
It's a nice story but unfortunately it isn't true. I take no glee in saying that because I'm Danish myself.
See this link for the possible origins of the myth:
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/denmark.asp
Shelldrake - re. your posting above - September 5 2009 5.35 am, detailing the appalling behaviour of those Albanian Muslims who abused our Australian hospitality.
Have you been reading here long? How much have you learned, yet, about Islam as such?
Because if you hang around here long enough you will discover that Mohammedans seem to have a thing about sh*t.
I would argue, cross-referring to other examples of Mohammedan behaviour that have been reported on this site from time to time, and also recorded in history, that those Albanian Muslims at Puckapunyal did *not* do what they did, out of simple uncivilised ignorance of good manners and western custom (that is: not knowing what a western-style toilet was, or how to use it) or out of simple laziness (not willing to walk to the outhouse).
I would say that they sh*t all over everything in sight quite deliberately and consciously, in order to exhibit their total contempt for, and humiliation of, the hated kuffar, that is, the Infidel Australians. It was an act of aggression.
There have been cases, reported in the USA and in the UK, of Muslims working in food outlets, deliberately sprinkling their own powder-dried feces on food that was subsequently served to non-Muslims, and a Muslim who mixed up his own sh*t and p*ss with water, put it in a spray-bottle, and sprayed it all over children's books, and over food items in a supermarket.
When a bunch of PLO jihadist gangsters were holed up inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, they deliberately sh*t all over everything.
Oriana Fallaci in 'The Rage and the Pride' seethes with fury as she describes Muslims in Italy deliberately p*ssing on beautiful, historic public artwork.
And I recall someone posting here at jihadwatch, some years ago, who had witnessed what the prisoners routinely did to the American soldiers who had the job of guarding them during their journey to Guantanamo Bay, and then at the prison itself: the Mohammedans would defecate in their own clothing, then scoop up handfuls of it and throw it in the faces of the soldiers. It was their wont to obtain other bodily fluids, to throw at the female soldiers.
I do not think that even the most embittered Nazi or Japanese POW (or for that matter, any Allied soldier POW) during WWII ever sank so low as to deliberately defecate in front of his guards and then throw the results at them, like monkeys sometimes do in the zoo.
hello dumbledoresarmy,
No I haven't been on JW long, I actually heard about Mr Spencer from Muslims in Australia posting on other blogs so I decided to check him out for myself. All I can say is that I'd much prefer to read Mr Spencers comments and POV than take notice of Muslims as i've come to learn that Muslims love 'deceit' and lies.
What I came to learn about the Albanians is that they aren't short on disgusting and disgraceful behaviour. To this day I am totally baffled to the reason why the Australian Federal Government would not allow what happened at Aus Military bases to become made public. The Australian people were totally mislead and kept in the dark to the happenings and that in itself is not right.
If only people knew what goes on they'd certainly have a different mindset.
As what you posted about the food incidents I totally believe it. I personally would 'NEVER' buy anything, food or otherwise from Muslims especially Albanians, dirty disgusting people they are.
"Albanians saving Jews" is a myth being aggressively spread by the dastardly anti-Serb American Jewish neoliberals and neocons: DO NOT FALL FOR IT! This is why I am trying to raise awareness of the neoliberal-neocons, especially among the friends of Israel and Israeli Zionists, the prime targets of that lie campaign.
There is a saying in my native Caucasus mountains in Southern Russia: When a crow eats dung, it also tries to throw it with its wings on everybody else around. It is not enough for the nn's, the worst of the Jewish people, that they aided the unspeakable evil done by the West unto the Serb people. They are also trying to throw the dung of their anti-Serb "Kosova" disgrace on the Israeli Zionists, the best of the Jewish people. It bothers them a great deal that noble Jews such as Jared Israel, Julia Gorin, Francisco Gill-White, the great hero Ariel Sharon, heroes Rafael Eitan, Tamar Gozansky, Limor Livnat, Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick and Eleanore Gordon publicly condemned the US and Europe for their crimes against Serbia. Hense the Satanic campaign to deceive the Zionists and drug then in into evil. The nn's have already achieved some inroads into Israel through deception. There is nothing sacred to those criminals. One of them even fooled the curators of Israel's Yad Vashem memorial by pushing his fraudulent "exibit" into the museum on "Albanians saving Jews according to their besa code of honor". The truth is it was the Italian Fascist Army that was occupying Albania who saved thousands of Jews and Serbs from Nazi Germans, Nazi Croats, Nazi Bosnians and Nazi Albanians. The Serbs and Jews desperately fled into Italian-controlled areas for their lives. The Italians also saved Jews and Serbs from Albanians in Kosovo until 1943. Just as soon as the Italians withdrew, the Albanians there began frenzied butchery murdering or forcing to flee most Serbs ans ALL the Jews in Kosovo.
Folks! Wake up to the incidious nn agenda! A good way to start is to google "The Serbs did not oppress Kosovo Albanians ... quite the opposite", "Rescued from the memory hole" and "In one Yugoslav province, Serbs fear ethnic Albanians", as well as "Kosovan horror hospitals" and "It began with a lie".
Israeli and other Jewish Zionists! Revolt against the nn's in your midst! Refuse to walk in the councel of the wicked!
Glory to Zionism! Down with the nn's!
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
The same dastardly neoliberals-neocons who aggressively push their "Albanian Muslims saved Jews" fraud, are covering up the truth about Hajj-Amin al-Husseini and his "Palestinian", Bosnian and Kosovar Albanian Islamo-Nazis, and their role in the Holocaust. They resist any attempt to include ANY reference to Husseini in ANY Holocaust exibit any where, fighting any such effort tooth and nail, hoof and horn.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.