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| The street of the Jews in Vlora |
The Minister of Culture of Albania, Elva Margariti posted on her Facebook profile:
A story to be told. It is the story of the people on the run, of the persecuted who found refuge in a small country that opened the doors to them, who protected them, gave them their names ...
The National Museum of the Jews in Vlora, right where a large community of Jews merged with the children of the sea, will be the model of a contemporary museum, which will include us in human history, testimonies, voices, images.
The National Council of Museums paved the way for the idea of the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Vlora, drafted by the Albanian-American Foundation for Development, under the consultancy of Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, for setting up this museum.
Generations must know this history of sacrifice, coexistence and faith, reads in the Facebook post of the minister.
The Jewish Museum in Berat
In 2018, a museum dedicated to more than 600 Jews saved during the Second World War was founded in Berat by Simon Vrusho.
The 'Solomon' museum - inaugurated in 2018 - is dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust and, in particular, to the Jews of the city of Berat.
Located on the main road to the Castle, the museum focuses mainly on the more than 600 Jews rescued during the Second World War in Berat. In addition, it aims to bring to light evidence of a period of almost 500 years, from 1520, when it is supposed that the first 25 Jewish families arrived in Berat from Italy and Spain.
The origins of the Jewish community in Albania
Most of the Jewish community in Albania comes from Ioannina: thirteen families and their descendants originating from the Castro district, who in the period between the two world wars formed a small community of craftsmen and merchants based in Vlora opening shops elsewhere.
This community survived the Nazi war and occupation. After the war, like most of the Albanian small bourgeoisie, they were expropriated from the communist regime and over the years integrated into mixed marriages with other religious communities.
In the 1950s, the small Albanian Jewish community began with the first attempts to leave for Israel, but this right was denied by the former communist dictator Enver Hoxha. Since the early 1980s, with the improvement of Albania's relations with Greece, some of them returned to visit Ioannina.
In the mid-nineties, however, with the help of the American Jewish community and other Jewish organizations, most of them left the country, bringing with them their Albanian history of over a century.