How Albanian Muslims sheltered Jews during the Holocaust: Refik Veseli and Besa

Before World War II, roughly 200 Jews lived in Albania. By the time the war ended, there were approximately 1,800–2,000. Across much of Europe, Jewish communities had been destroyed. In Albania, hundreds of Jewish refugees had found shelter.

In September 1943, after Italy surrendered to the Allies, German troops occupied Albania. The occupiers expected the country’s Jewish population to be handed over. Albanian authorities refused to cooperate with that demand, while local families sheltered Jewish refugees, often under false identities.

The photography apprentice who became a rescuer

One of those rescuers was a teenager learning photography.

In Tirana, 17-year-old Refik Veseli was apprenticed to Moshe Mandil, a Jewish photographer who had fled Yugoslavia with his wife, Gabriela, and their two children, Gavra and Irena. The two became friends. When German occupation made the capital increasingly dangerous, Refik offered to hide the Mandils at his parents’ home in the mountain town of Krujë.

Refik’s father, Vesel, helped bring the family from Tirana along remote mountain paths. The adults hid in a room above the family barn; the children lived among local youngsters, disguised as Muslim Albanians. Refik’s brothers helped shelter another Jewish refugee family, the Ben-Josefs, under the same roof.

Neighbours knew who the refugees were. Nobody reported them. The Veselis kept both families safe until liberation in late 1944.

Besa: a promise to protect

The family’s conduct reflected an Albanian code of honour called besa: a pledge to keep one’s word and protect those placed in one’s care. The tradition reaches beyond any one religion, but the Veselis were devout Muslims.

Years later, Refik’s brothers Hamid and Xhemal explained their parents’ conviction: “Every knock on the door is a blessing from God.” They said they had never accepted money from their Jewish guests.

That courage was not confined to one family. Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Albanian households hid Jewish refugees during the occupation. The German memorial site Silent Heroes notes that almost all of the approximately 2,000 Jews then living within Albania survived.

The story needs one geographical qualification: Jews in Kosovo, a territory incorporated into wartime Albania, suffered persecution and deportation. The remarkable survival figure refers to Albania itself, not every territory placed under Albanian administration during the war.

What happened after the war

After the war, the Mandils returned to Yugoslavia, where Refik continued his photographic apprenticeship. The families remained connected. In 1987, Refik and his parents were honoured by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

Europe’s history of the Holocaust contains countless examples of betrayal. Albania’s rescuers demonstrate what could happen when neighbours and officials made a different choice.

Featured photograph: Members of the Jewish refugee families and their Albanian hosts, Krujë, 1944. Historical family photograph, reproduced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Sources and further reading

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — The Mandil family photograph collection

Silent Heroes Memorial — “Besa”: Rescue as a Matter of Honor

Yad Vashem — The Veseli family

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — The Veseli family’s account and historical photographs