The Holocaust in Albania

The Holocaust in Albania consisted of murders, deportations and crimes against humanity committed against Jews, Slavs, Roma and other minorities in Greater Albania by German, Italian and Albanian collaborationist forces while the country was under Italian and German occupation during the Second World War. Throughout the war, nearly 2,000 Jews sought refuge in Albania-proper. Most of these Jewish refugees were treated well by the local Albanian population, despite the fact that the country was occupied first by Fascist Italy, and then by Nazi Germany. Albanians, following a traditional custom of hospitality known as besa, often sheltered Jewish refugees in mountain villages, and transported them to Adriatic ports from where they fled to Italy. Other Jews joined resistance movements throughout the country.

For the 500 Jews who lived in Albanian-dominated Kosovo, the experience was starkly different and many did not survive the war. With the surrender of Italy in September 1943, German forces occupied Albania, Kosovo and other territories that had been annexed to the country. In 1944, an Albanian Waffen-SS division was formed, which arrested and handed over to the Germans a further 281 Jews from Kosovo who were subsequently deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. In late 1944, the Germans were driven out of Albania-proper and the country became a communist state under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. Around the same time, Axis forces in the Albanian-annexed regions of Kosovo and western Macedonia were defeated by the Yugoslav Partisans, who subsequently reincorporated these areas into the newly established Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.

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