On Oct. 29, the South Brunswick High School’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies class hosted a class discussion with four guest speakers to discuss “Besa: The Promise,” an 86-minute documentary about Alban
By Anushka Desai, sophomore, Viking Vibe Staff
On Oct. 29, the South Brunswick High School’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies class hosted a class discussion with four guest speakers to discuss “Besa: The Promise,” an 86-minute documentary about Albanians who saved its entire Jewish population during the Holocaust.
Two of the four speakers, Atiya Aftab and Sheryl Olizky are the cofounders of the Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom, a local organization dedicated towards promoting friendship and understanding between different faiths, especially between Islam and Judaism.
Ms. Aftab is a Rutgers professor who teaches Islamic Law and Jurisprudence in the Political Science department.Her daughter, Zahra Bukhari, is in the Holocaust and Genocide Studies class the speakers visited.
”(In the Albanian tradition), Besa is the idea of refuge, of saving one who needs help,” said Ms. Aftab, “It’s also about loving your neighbor like you love yourself.”
These co-founders arranged the visit by contacting the school beforehand.
The third speaker was Majlinda Myrto, whose father-in-law’s family saved two Jewish siblings, a brother and sister, during the Holocaust.
Ms. Myrto is currently the Director of the “Eye Contact Foundation”, which advocates understanding and tolerance between people from around the world with different religious, political and cultural views.
She also deals with teaching the concept of Besa to students throughout the country.
The fourth speaker, Norman Gershman, is a renowned American photographer who spent almost four years photographing Albanian families and documenting individual histories during World War II.
His hard work and determination inspired the creation of the entire documentary, Besa: The Promise, and the book with the same name.
When Mr. Gershman heard about the remarkable story of an entire country that hid Jewish people while under the Nazi occupation, he approached his company and others with the request of doing a project on their stories.
Unfortunately, most companies had no interest in his offer, seeing as most of the people were now dead.
After being redirected to many different companies, he finally approached the Israeli-Albanian Friendship Association, which directed him to the Albanian-Israeli Friendship Association, located in Albania.
Soon enough, Mr. Gershman travelled to Albania and got to meet many different families with unique stories to tell.
”(There were) so many families that had saved the Jews, but would never even be recognized,” said Mr. Gershman.
The film is currently in more than 20 film festivals and Mr. Gershman’s pictures are in countless exhibitions across the world.
Marc Babich’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies class warmly welcomed these four speakers. Mr. Babich explained the class’s main focus and curriculum.
For the first half of the year, they study the Holocaust, and will spend the second half studying other genocide’s, such as in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Before the speakers arrived, the class watched the movie.
”They’re currently studying Nazi racial science, Nuremberg laws, and the implementation of Nazi policies after Hitler came to power,” Mr. Babich said.
The class also prepared many questions about the movie they watched, which helped fuel the discussion.
”It was a good experience, just hearing (Mr. Gershman’s) side of the story,” said Shahinaz Abdelhamid, a senior in the class.
Mr. Babich also mentioned how important it is for the students to actually talk to the speakers’ first-hand instead of just reading about them.
”(The speakers) were inspirational. It was a very special day,” Mr. Babich said.
The movie, which is mainly based on footage taken by Mr. Gershman, displayed the stories of multiple Albanian families, many of them Muslims, who saved their Jewish neighbors by hiding them in plain sight.
During WWII, almost all of Europe actively followed the Nazi’s orders to target and exterminate all Jewish people in the country.
Mr. Babich said how unique Albania was compared to the rest of the European countries, where many of the local people and the governments collaborated to find and exterminate all Jewish people.
Even if local citizens did not physically help capture them, they still knew what was happening in concentration camps, often located right in their own village and did nothing.
”If the other countries had just acted the way Albania did, we wouldn’t have (had) a Holocaust!” Mr. Babich said.
In Albania, he said, the entire country worked together to hide their Jewish population. It didn’t matter what Germany told them, everyone was Albanian, regardless of faith.
”The population saved not only local Jews but any Jews that came in,” said Mr. Babich.
The movie predominantly highlighted the Albanian concept of Besa, which translates as “faith” or “code of honor”. Besa, to the Albanians, is a 1,000-year-old custom about always helping anyone in need, regardless of faith, race or any difference in beliefs.
”To the Albanian people, it is inconceivable to turn away someone in need,” said Mr. Gershman.
Unfortunately, Albania’s extraordinary story is not so well known because after its liberation from Germany in 1944, Communists immediately came to power.For 50 years, Albania was separated from the rest of the world.
Therefore, Albania’s isolated state made it impossible for the people to tell its story. Today, Albanians still stay true to this concept, whether they live in Albania or not.
”It’s natural. They don’t even think about it,” said Mr. Gershman, “It’s like, ‘we save people, no big deal.’”
Ms. Olizky said how, in perspective with the other countries today, Besa is still completely original.
When she recently went to Poland, she questioned why there wasn’t much diversity in all the people.
”The people in Poland said, ‘Poland is for the Poles. We don’t have room for the others.’ And to think that this sentiment is no longer allowed is very naive,” Ms. Olizky said, “Anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim sentiment is huge and growing throughout Eastern Europe.”
This leads to the speakers’ intent on visiting South Brunswick High School in order to spread the idea of Besa.
”The concept of Besa is so needed in the world,” Mr. Gershman said, “It’s a wonderful, wonderful code of honor.”
He emphasized that the most important part of his career now is to talk to young students in middle school and high school and show them that there are still good people in the world.
”If people are to be more accepting and tolerant, it starts with you,” Mr. Gershman said to the class.