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The Holocaust in Albania consisted of murders, deportations and crimes against humanity committed against Jews, Slavs, Roma and other minorities in Albania by German, Italian and Albanian collaborationist forces while the country was under Italian and German occupation during the Second World War. Throughout the war, nearly 2,000 Jews sought refuge in Albania. Most of these Jewish refugees were treated well by the local Albanian population, despite the fact that the country was occupied first by Fascist Italy, and then by Nazi Germany. Albanians, following a traditional custom of hospitality known as , often sheltered Jewish refugees in mountain villages, and transported them to Adriatic ports from where they fled to Italy. Other Jews joined resistance movements throughout the country. For the 500 Jews who lived in Albanian-dominated Kosovo, the experience was starkly different and many did not survive the war. With the surrender of Italy in September 1943, German forces occupied Albania, Kosovo and other territories that had been annexed to the country. In 1944, an Albanian ''Waffen-SS'' division was formed, which arrested and handed over to the Germans a further 281 Jews from Kosovo who were subsequently deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. In late 1944, German forces were driven out of Albania and Communists led by Enver Hoxha came to power in the country. At the same time, Axis forces in the Albanian-annexed regions of Kosovo and western Macedonia were defeated by the Yugoslav Partisans, who subsequently reincorporated these areas into the newly Communist Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. A total of approximately 600 Jews were killed in Albania, Albanian-annexed Kosovo and western Macedonia during the war. As up to 1,800 Jews were living in Albania at the end of the war, it is estimated that the country emerged from the Second World War with a population of Jews eleven times greater than at the beginning. Most of these subsequently emigrated to Israel, but several hundred remained until the fall of Communism in the early 1990s before they did the same. In 1995, the Republic of Albania was declared Righteous Among the Nations for the role that dozens of Albanian families played in saving Jewish refugees in the country during the Second World War. As of 2011, 69 Albanians have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. ==Background== According to the census of 1930, 24 Jews lived in Albania. In 1937, the Jewish community, which then numbered nearly 300, was granted official recognition in the country. With the rise of Nazism, a number of German and Austrian Jews took refuge in Albania, and the Albanian embassy in Berlin continued to issue visas to Jews until the end of 1938, at a time when no other European country was willing to do so. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, most Albanians had never had contact with Jews because of the small number of them in the country. As a result, antisemitism was less widespread in Albania than in other countries. Before the war, most Albanian Jews lived in the town of Korçë, in the southeastern part of the country. The Jewish community in Kosovo, part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, numbered approximately 500. The least developed country in Europe, Albania was subjected to Italian economic and political influence throughout the 1930s. On 25 March 1939, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini gave Albanian King Zog I an ultimatum demanding the acceptance of an Italian military protectorate over Albania. When Zog refused to accept, the Italians invaded on 7 April 1939, and deposed him. Afterwards, they re-established the Albanian state as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy, then installed a quisling regime headed by the biggest landowner in the country, Shefqet Vërlaci. An Albanian "national assembly" was established, which quickly voted for the full economic and political union of Albania with the Kingdom of Italy, led by Italian King Victor Emmanuel III. Under the direction of viceroy general Francesco Jacomoni, the Italian administration implemented laws that prohibited Jewish immigration to Albania and mandated the deportation of all foreign Jews in the country. Within a month of the Italian occupation, the Albanian Fascist Party ((アルバニア語:Partia Fashiste e Shqipërisë), or PFSh) was formed. It enacted laws that prevented Jews from joining it and excluded them from professions such as education. Composed of ethnic Albanians and Italians residing in Albania, the party existed as a branch of the Italian Fascist Party ((イタリア語:Partito Nazionale Fascista), or PNF) and its members were required to swear an oath of loyalty to Mussolini. All Albanians serving the Italian occupiers were required to join, and it became the only legal political party in the country. As the war progressed, Italy transformed the Albanian Kingdom into Greater Albania, a protectorate of Italy that included most of Kosovo and a portion of western Macedonia which was detached from Yugoslavia after the Axis powers invaded in 1941. Kosovo Albanians enthusiastically welcomed the Italian occupation. Although officially under Italian rule, the Albanians in Kosovo controlled the region and were encouraged to open Albanian schools, which had been prohibited under Yugoslav rule. They were also given Albanian citizenship by Italian authorities and allowed to fly the Albanian flag. Nevertheless, the Italians kept hundreds of thousands of troops in Albania and surrounding areas. Yugoslav sources indicated that there were approximately 20,000 Italian soldiers and 5,000 Italian police and frontier guards in Kosovo, and 12,000 soldiers and 5,000 police and border guards in the Albanian-annexed portion of Macedonia. At the same time, Italian military authorities warned that at least ten hostages would be shot for every Italian soldier killed or wounded in these regions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Holocaust in Albania」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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