Family Of Beluli Sadik & Son Rruzhdi

We lived in the small village of Novosel in Kosovo. My father owned a pastry shop. Our entire family fought against the Italians, the Bulgarian fascists and the Germans. The Bulgarians jailed me in 1941, when I was twenty years old. It was easy to bribe them with a chicken and I was released.

In 1942 a prisoner train from Serbia came through our region. Chaim Cohen escaped with seventy-two other Jews into the mountains near our village. We sheltered Chaim in our home when he sought asylum. At first we found it strange that he never took off his clothing. He even slept in his clothing. It was because Chaim had sewn gold coins into his garments. We assured him that no one in our family would steal from him. We then dressed Chaim as a woman in traditional Muslim clothing, including a veil. After three weeks we sent him to my sister's house where her father-in-law provided him with false Albanian papers. My father then walked Chaim to the Albanian border.

We know that he spent three years in Elbason, Albania, and opened a textile shop. After the war he immigrated to several countries in South America, to Italy, Israel, Serbia and then finally to Brazil. We know all this because Chaim visited us with gifts, first in 1957 and then again in 1981. We also were privileged to meet his family on his second visit.  Under the communists our family suffered. My father, as a nationalist, was first condemned to death and then his sentence was commuted to ten years in prison.

Our family are Albanian nationalists and devout Muslims. It was through the Koran and Besa that we felt the courage to shelter Chaim. No one in our village knew. We acted from our hearts.