In the Balkan Kosovo, with a Muslim majority around 80 percent, on May 23, during a week of events promoting "tolerance and reconciliation," the Kosovar Albanian government dedicated a monument of remembrance to the nearly unknown place of Kosovo in Jewish history.
Na Kosovu (Balkan) s muslimanskom većinom od oko 80%, je 23 svibnja, u toku tjedna "tolerance and reconcilliation" vlada posvetila spomenik za sjećanje na "gotovo nepoznato Kosovo u židovskoj povijesti". Podignuta je kamena ploča na trgu koji gleda na parlament u glavnom gradu Prištine.
U komemoraciji su sudjelovali službeni predstavnici islamske zajednice, katoličke crkve (najveća nacionalna albanska manjina na Kosovu) te političari i diplomati mnogih zemalja. Posvećenje spomenika bilo je veoma svećano uz počasnu stražu i govor premijera Hashim Thacija koji je podsjetio na Holokaust i njegovo značenje u društvima u posljednjih šest decenija.
Na njemu piše "To je mjesto gdje je bila do 1963. godine posljednja sinagoga na Kosovu. Ta je memorijalna ploča podignuta na sjećanje na Židove Kosova koji su stradali u nacističkim logorima u Holokaustu. Narod Kosova neće ih nikada zaboraviti"
Kosovo je bilo mjesto za stotine židovskih izbjeglica s Balkana i drugih djelova Europe koji su bili zaštićeni od Albanije.
Thachi je rekao: "Oni su našli sigurno utočište u našoj zemlji - nažalost samo neki od miliona onihh koji su stradali". Izraelski diplomat Yosef Levi je izjavio da Izrael neće zaboraviti spašavanje nekoliko tisuća Židova od strane Albanaca. Rabin Levi Matusif ( europski židovski lider) je recitirao psalme i molitve, a albanski istraživač Saimir Lolja je napisao članak "Spašavanje Židova na Kosovu", na engleskom jeziku u "Tirana Times". Kosovsku židovsku zajednicu vodi Votim Demiri, koji je sudjelovao u gradnji memorijala.
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Albanian scholar Saimir Lolja, in an article titled "The Rescue of Jews in Kosovo," described how protection of Jews from the Nazis in the Albanian lands during World War II was undertaken by Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians. One Kosovar Muslim man, Arsllan Mustafa Rezniqi, has been honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Holocaust memorial center at Yad Vashem in Israel. Rezniqi constructed a house on his property to shelter Jewish families.
A handful of Jews were deported from Kosovo after a Nazi-directed raid in mid-1944. But most Jews who went to Kosovo and Albania were saved by local officials who provided them with false identity papers, or moved them from place to place. The Germans, who occupied Albania in 1943, demanded a list of Jews, and authorization to deport them, from the Albanian authorities, but were told that jurisdiction over the Jewish community belonged to the Albanian government alone. This action was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1998...
The Kosovo government has also pledged to construct a Museum of Kosovo's Jewish Heritage. A vestigial Jewish presence long survived in the historic Kosovo city of Prizren. Before the 1998-1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo, the community was headed by Nexhat Fetah, son of a Jewish mother and Muslim father. The Kosovo Jews are led currently by , who participated in the activities surrounding the synagogue plaque.....