In the hush of high-mountain air, where the stone-terraced fields of Albania meet the sky, there lives a word as ancient as the ancestors: besa. In its simplest form, the word means “to keep the promise”. But in the Albanian soul it is far more: it is a covenant of honour, a vow placed by one human being on the life of another, the life of one’s guest or wanderer, to shelter them, to guard them, to lay down one’s own safety for their sake.
In a stranger’s knock at the door of a mountain home, when both were bound by neither blood nor faith, the host hears the word of besa. The hearth is lit, the guest is welcomed, the night is given. The promise is sealed—not in ink or ledger, but in dignity. “One who acts according to besa is someone to whom one can trust one’s life and the lives of one’s family.”
Besa is more than hospitality: it is the ethical backbone of mutual trust. To break it is to lose one’s face in the community; to uphold it is to claim the highest possible virtue. It is spoken quietly in mountain villages, passed in the steady gaze of elder women and wise men, carried without fanfare. And when the storm rages—be it war, famine, or fear—besa endures, rooted in the soil of the Albanian heart.
When Darkness Came: Jews in Albania during WWII
Against the backdrop of destruction and persecution across Europe during the Second World War, the story of Albania shines as an extraordinary exception. The small Balkan country—though occupied by Italian and then German forces—became a sanctuary guided by the principle of besa. Refugees fleeing Nazi-terror found their way to Albanian villages and towns. The local families took them in, sheltered them, supplied false papers, hid them in mountain homes. The rescuers refused to hand over lists of Jews to the occupiers. [1] One widely-cited assessment states: “Albania, a European country with a Muslim majority, succeeded in the place where other European nations failed … almost all Jews living within Albanian borders during the German occupation … were saved.”[2]
It was on the foundation of besa that this astonishing outcome emerged. “Besa dictates there are no foreigners, only guests. And, guests must be protected at all cost.”[3] Thus, when the Germans demanded lists of Jews, when the pressure mounted, when fear stalked the land—some Albanian families stood firm, sheltered their guests, honoured their vow. A German report noted the difference: in Albania proper nearly all native Jews and foreign Jewish refugees survived. [4]
This is not to say there were no tragedies; there were. But compared to much of occupied Europe, the survival rate was exceptional, and the credit is often given to a cultural-ethical foundation: besa.
Dr. Sabri Tefiku (1886-1954) — healer, builder, Albanian soul
In this tapestry of honour and humanism, one thread is my grandfather, Dr. Sabri Tefiku—a figure of dedication, learning, and patriotism. Born in Tirana in 1886, he took his early studies at the Zosimea Gymnasium in Janina, then proceeded to complete his medical faculty studies in Istanbul in 1911.
In 1928 he went to Paris for specialization at the Institut Cochin. By 1932, when the new Civil General Hospital in Tirana opened, he began working there as a pathologist, later becoming its General Director in 1937 [5].
It was in that role that he demonstrated not only clinical excellence but visionary leadership: he lobbied to bring foreign doctors to Albania, including leading specialists, which laid a key foundation for the development of neurosurgery in the country. A recent study of neurosurgical history in Albania notes his presence at the 1935 staff of the King Zog I Hospital, alongside Prof. Walter Lehmann and Dr Sabri Tefiku. (Nico, et al., 2023). Though acclaimed as a skilled physician, he suffered the consequences of changing regimes and post-war upheaval. [6]
