Muslims who saved Jews in Holocaust

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/5266403.html

Though Islam has an anti-Jewish image, these were "Muslims who endangered their own lives to save Jews," she said. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Albanians sheltered between 600 and 1,800 Jewish refugees, risking death or imprisonment, officials said. At the end of the war, Albania was the only European country with a larger Jewish population than before the war.

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Though they had never met, Baruchowic agreed when Ali Sheqer urged him to flee to the woods. The young Jew hid while Sheqer's father feigned ignorance as he repeatedly stared down a Nazi gun barrel. He held out until the Germans left and then retrieved Baruchowic, hiding him for three years.

"My father was a devout Muslim," Enver Sheqer said. "He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise."

He said his father had to help Baruchowic because of the Albanian code of "Besa," which means "to keep the promise."

The exhibition is named after that code and features black and white photographs of Albanians holding family photos and awards honoring their heroism. Israel has honored 63 Albanians as "Righteous Among the Nations," a title granted to non-Jews who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution.