[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 812 Introduced in House (IH)]
112th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 812
Commending the Albanian people on the 100th anniversary of the
declaration of their independence from the Turkish Ottoman Empire on
November 28, 1912, and commending Albanians in Albania and Kosova for
protecting and saving the lives of all Jews who either lived in Albania
or sought asylum there during the Holocaust.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 15, 2012
Mr. Rohrabacher (for himself and Mr. Nadler) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Commending the Albanian people on the 100th anniversary of the
declaration of their independence from the Turkish Ottoman Empire on
November 28, 1912, and commending Albanians in Albania and Kosova for
protecting and saving the lives of all Jews who either lived in Albania
or sought asylum there during the Holocaust.
Whereas in 1934, United States Ambassador to Albania, Herman Bernstein, wrote
that, ``There is no trace of any discrimination against Jews in Albania,
because Albania happens to be one of the rare lands in Europe today
where religious prejudice and hate do not exist, even though Albanians
themselves are divided into three faiths'';
Whereas in 1938, approximately 300 Albanian Jews lived in the Republic of
Albania, and more than 1,900 escaped to Albania from Nazi-occupied
Western Europe and the former Yugoslavia during World War II;
Whereas Albanians in Albania and Kosova, based on their unique history of
religious tolerance, considered it a matter of national pride and
tradition to help Jews during the Holocaust, and due to the actions of
many individual Albanians, the entire native and refugee Jewish
community in Albania during World War II survived the Holocaust;
Whereas Albanians sheltered and protected Jews in Albania and in Kosova, even at
the risk of Albanian lives, beginning with the invasion and occupation
of Albania by Mussolini's Italian fascists in 1939;
Whereas after Nazi Germany occupied Albania in 1943 and the Gestapo ordered
Jewish refugees in the Albanian capital of Tirana to register, Albanian
leaders refused to provide a list of Jews living in Albania, and
Albanian clerks issued false identity papers to protect all Jews in the
country;
Whereas in June 1990, Jewish American Congressman Tom Lantos and former Albanian
American Congressman Joe DioGuardi were the first United States
officials to enter Albania in 50 years and received from then Communist
Party leader and Albanian President Ramiz Alia a thick file from the
government's archives containing hundreds of news clippings and personal
letters sent by Jews to their Albanian rescuers after World War II, but
that the Communist government prevented from being delivered for 45
years;
Whereas Joe DioGuardi, upon returning to the United States in June 1990, sent
the file to Elli Streit in Tel Aviv, Israel, for delivery to appropriate
officials at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem for authentication;
Whereas Josef Jakoel and his eldest daughter, Felicita, Albanian Jews, led the
emigration of nearly all Albanian Jews to Israel in 1991 as the
Communist regime was collapsing;
Whereas Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Museum) has
thus far designated 69 Albanians as ``Righteous Persons'' and Albania as
one of the ``Righteous among the Nations'';
Whereas in February 1995, Congressmen Tom Lantos, Benjamin Gilman, and Jerrold
Nadler and former Congressman Joe DioGuardi spoke at a ceremony at the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, commemorating
the addition of Albania to the museum's ``Righteous among the Nations''
installation;
Whereas based on the information authenticated by Yad Vashem, Jewish American
author and philanthropist Harvey Sarner published ``Rescue in Albania''
in 1997, to call international attention to the unique role of the
Albanian people in saving Jews from the Nazi Holocaust;
Whereas in October 1997, the Albanian American Civic League and Foundation began
the distribution of 10,000 copies of ``Rescue in Albania'' with
forewords by Congressmen Lantos and Gilman to bring to the attention of
the Jewish people and their leaders the plight of Albanians in Kosova
living under a brutal occupation at the hands of Serbian dictator
Slobodan Milosevic, in order to forestall another genocide in Kosova;
Whereas in a statement at the 2005 Albanian American Civic League and
Foundation's ``Salute to Albanian Tolerance, Resistance, and Hope:
Remembering Besa and the Holocaust'', on the occasion of the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, Dr. Mordechai
Paldiel, then Director for the Righteous at Yad Vashem, commemorated the
heroism of Albanians as ``the only ones among rescuers in other
countries who not only went out of their way to save Jews, but vied and
competed with each other for the privilege of being a rescuer, thanks to
besa'', the code of honor that requires an Albanian to save the life of
anyone seeking refuge, even if it means sacrificing one's own life;
Whereas in 2006, Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, Balkan Affairs Adviser to the Civic
League and Executive Director of the Albanian American Foundation,
published ``Jewish Survival in Albania & the Ethics of `Besa''' in the
journal of the American Jewish Congress to document the saving role of
Albanians and how that role was revealed, in spite of the Communist
effort to suppress it;
Whereas, on December 2, 2008, Arslan Rezniqi was the first Kosovar Albanian
recognized by Yad Vashem's ``Righteous among Nations Department'', for
leading 400 Jewish families from Decan, Kosova, into safety in Albania,
and his son, Mustafa Rezniqi, who aided him as a teenager during World
War II, accepted the award from Yad Vashem for him, posthumously;
Whereas Arif Alickaj, the Secretary of the Municipality of Decan, risked his job
and his life helping the Rezniqis rescue Jews in Nazi-occupied Kosova by
issuing false identity papers to insure their safe passage to Albania
and for whom (like so many other Albanians from Kosova and Albania),
Jewish survivors could not be found to validate his role, even
posthumously, because of the Communist cover-up for 45 years of the
archives documenting the many stories of Albanian heroism;
Whereas Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi addressed the 2010 International Oral History
Association Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, and brought Leka
Rezniqi, the grandson of Mustafa Rezniqi (who died in May 2008), to join
her in revealing the ``underground railroad'' between Albanians in
Kosova and Albania that was essential to the rescue of Jews; and
Whereas Albania is the only country in Europe that had more Jews in it after
World War II than before it: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) commends the people of Albania and Kosova for
protecting and saving the lives of all Jews who either lived in
Albania or sought asylum there during the Holocaust;
(2) commends Yad Vashem in Israel for recognizing Albanians
who took action at great risk to themselves to protect Jews
during the Holocaust, for their humanity, courage, and heroism;
(3) reaffirms on the 100th anniversary of Albania's
declaration of independence in 1912, its support for close ties
between the United States and Albania and between the United
States and Kosova, which declared its independence in 2008; and
(4) commends the officers, board of directors, and members
of the Albanian American Civic League and Albanian American
Foundation for their unstinting work, since 1989, to bring the
plight of the Albanian people and the unique historic
connection between Albanians and Jews to international
attention.
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