Sheqer Eli

Sheqer, Ali In 1941, most of the Kosovo region in southern Yugoslavia became a part of Italian-controlled Albania. A year later, under German pressure to hand over Jewish refugees from Kosovo, the Italians decided to move the Jews to the towns of Berat and Kavajë in Albania, south of Tirana. Among these Jews was also Yeoshua Baruchowic, b.1919, from Priština, and his brother Baruh, b.1915. They moved first to Berat and subsequently they settled in Skodra. Yeoshua served as an assistant to the dentist Xhevat Bekteshi and was active in the anti-Fascist underground. His brother Baruh joined the ranks of the Albanian partisans and fell in battle. With the German occupation of these territories in September 1943, Yeoshua was arrested by the Gestapo because of his political activity. The Germans sent their political prisoners to Germany in four trucks. Yeoshua, who was the only Jew, rightly assumed that if his identity was discovered, he would meet a bitter end. He jumped from the truck and began to run until he reached a small square in the town of Leifize at the foot of the mountains, and there entered the canteen of Ali Sheqer. He told the owner that German soldiers were pursuing him, and the owner hid him temporarily in the canteen shelter. In the evening, Ali Sheqer took him to the mountains and found him a hiding place there. Yeoshua told him that he was an escaped political prisoner seeking a hiding place and protection. Ali Sheqer did not say anything but in the morning he came back and took Yeoshua to his home in the village of Lifize. Ali Sheqer lived in a small house with his family of ten. They all warmly received Yeoshua as a guest and for three months they shared the little that they had with him. In times of danger when a German patrol came near, they found alternative hiding places for him and they all kept the secret. From there he went on to his friend in Skodra until the Liberation in November 1944. On March 18, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized AliSheqer as Righteous Among the Nations