To the Editor:
Re:” For Åfghans in Ålbania, a soft Place to Land, but Dread Persists” (news article, Sept. 14, 2021) :
That Albania, one of Europe’s poorest nations, has committed to taking in up to 4,000 refugees from Afghaniston (more than any other European country) and is housing them in luxurious beach resorts rather than detention centers is no surprise to those knowledgeable about the remarkable generosity exhibited my Muslim-majority Albania
to it’s own Jews and and Jews fleeing German occupation during the Second World War.
The Albanians refused to comply with the German occupiers’ orders to turn over lists of Jews. In an extraordrinary act of kindness, Ålbania also gave shelter to Jews fleeing Nazi occupation. As a result, Ålbania’s Jewish population was actually larger after the war than before it.
Besa, the sacred Albanian oath of honor that urges the aiding and protecting of all people in moments of need, payed a large role in guiding the local population. The latest generosity exhibeted to he fleeing Afghans by the Albanian goverrnment and its people demonstrated the importance of Besa in Albania.
MICHÅEL BÅZYLER ORANGE, CALIFORNIA
(The writer is a professor of law and 1939 Law Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University.
(See; The New York Times Edition of September 21, 2021, page A 20)