Albaniens judar och arkitekten bakom minnesmonumentet

Stephen B. Jacobs. Foto från Jewish Week

 Jag läser i Jewish Week:

Stephen Jacobs was only 5 years old when sent to Buchenwald, where he hid in the tuberculosis ward of the camp hospital. Designing Shoah memorials brings him closure.

Detta är alltså arkitekten från New York som skapat minnesmonumentet i Albaniens huvudstad Tirana, invigt så sent som 9 juli i år (här kan du läsa min blogg om ceremonien). Albaniens politik under Hitlerterrorns år är unik i Europa, och jag är inte den förste som påminner om att landet hade fler judar efter kriget än före. Inte en enda albansk jude skickades till förintelselägren. Tvärtom tog man emot europeiska judar på flykt från länder som Österrike.

Mosa Moshe Mandil i Tirana 1944. En av många 
judar som överlevde tack vare exil i Albanien.

Born Stefan Jakubowicz in the Polish city of Lodz, Jacobs and his secular family would move to Piotrków — a city that became home to the Nazis’ first ghetto. The ghetto, which housed 25,000 people, was liquidated in 1942. 

Jacobs and his family — his parents, older brother, grandfather and three aunts — eventually were sent to concentration camps. The males went to Buchenwald, the females to Ravensbruck. He was only 5 years old at the time. 

At Buchenwald, Jacobs managed to survive both through luck and the assistance of an underground resistance that worked to save children. He spent his days at the shoemaker’s shop, which allowed him to get out of the daily roll call, where guards likely would have killed him because of his youth. Later he hid in the tuberculosis ward of the camp hospital, where his father was working as an orderly.