Most of these Jewish refugees were treated well by the local population, despite the fact that Albania-proper was occupied first by Fascist Italy, and then by Nazi Germany.

Around the same time, Axis forces in the Albanian-annexed regions of Kosovo and western Macedonia were defeated by the Yugoslav Partisans, who subsequently reincorporated these areas into Yugoslavia.

Some scholars have argued that the traditional code of honour known as besa, an important part of the culture of Albania-proper, played a role.

Other academics have suggested the cause was the relative lenience of the Italian occupying authorities in 1941–1943, Germany's failure to seek out Jews in Albania-proper in 1943–1944 as thoroughly as they had in other countries, and also the Kosovo Albanians' distrust of foreigners.

Before the war, Albanian Jews predominantly lived in the southern part of the country, mostly in the city of Vlorë, which had been approximately one-third Jewish in the 16th century.

[2] In the late Ottoman era, Albanian national ideology had developed in such a way that it claimed affiliation with no one religion and aimed for reconciliation among the various faiths in the country.

[6] In 1934, Herman Bernstein, the American ambassador to Albania, who was Jewish himself, remarked that Jews were not discriminated against in the country because it "happens to be one of the rare lands in Europe today where religious prejudice and hate do not exist".

[7][a] Bernstein played a critical role in persuading the Albanian government to continue issuing Jews tourist and transit visas.

Also formed was an Albanian "national assembly", which quickly voted in favour of an economic and political union with Italy, thereby making the country an Italian protectorate.

[12] Under the direction of viceroy general Francesco Jacomoni, the Italian occupational authorities implemented laws that prohibited Jewish immigration to Albania, and mandated the deportation of all foreign Jews living in the country.

[12] As World War II progressed, Italy permitted occupied Albania to annex adjacent Albanian-inhabited territories to form Greater Albania, a protectorate of Italy that included most of Kosovo and a portion of western Macedonia, which had been detached from Yugoslavia after the Axis powers invaded that country in April 1941.

[2] As many as 1,000 refugees arrived, attributed by German sources to a Jewish organization which was responsible for smuggling Jews into the country.

[24] Under the direction of viceroy general Francesco Jacomoni, the Italian administration implemented laws that prohibited Jewish immigration to Greater Albania, and mandated the deportation of all foreign Jews in the country.

[29] The German occupational authorities then began to target for extermination all of the Jews living in Albania-proper and the Albanian-dominated regions of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia.

[30] The Jewish community in western Macedonia, which had remained untouched under Italian occupation, was targeted and several groups of Jews were dispatched to extermination camps.

[15] Foreseeing the arrival of German troops, beginning in September 1943, the Jews of Albania-proper fled the cities and hid in the countryside, where they were concealed by rural Albanians.

[33] In early 1944, the German occupational authorities again demanded that Albanian officials produce a list of all the Jews living in the country.

Two local Jewish leaders subsequently approached Albania's collaborationist Prime Minister, Mehdi Frashëri, for assistance.

Frashëri referred them to Deva, who had both a reputation for protecting Jews, as well as for ordering gratuitous acts of violence against his political opponents.

[39] On 14 May,[28] the division raided Jewish homes in Pristina, arrested 281 native and foreign Jews, and handed them over to the Germans.

Some experts have attributed the "exceptional difference" in Albania-proper to the besa, a traditional code of honour that was an important part of the culture of the Albanian highlands.

It has since come under criticism as an "almost folk explication" that is in fact "thoroughly limited", according to the historian Monika Stafa, who argues that "Albanian popular virtues" on their own could not possibly have successfully resisted the power of Nazi Germany's almost mathematical execution of its racial philosophy.

Stafa stresses the importance of the repeated refusal of the Albanian collaborationist authorities to hand over to the Germans a list of the country's Jews, noting that across Europe, the obstruction of German attempts to obtain comprehensive lists was associated with a 10 percent increase in a country's Jewish survival rate.

Fischer notes that the Germans acquiesced to the Albanian collaborationist government's refusal to hand over the lists because they wished to maintain the appearance that Germany was allowing Albania "relative independence".

[52] Kosovo Albanians tended to be more hostile towards foreigners, an attitude that the Professor Paul Mojzes attributes to the Albanian–Serbian conflict and persecution suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

As a result, most Kosovo Albanians welcomed the defeat and partitioning of Yugoslavia, and were particularly grateful to any power that offered them their "dream of Greater Albania" and opportunities to "settle scores" with the local Serb population.

Mojzes attributes the protection Jews received in Kosovo in the early years of the war to the relatively lenient attitude of the Italian occupational authorities rather than to the efforts of the local population.

He also states that Jews felt little need to hide their identities during the Italian period, and even celebrated their traditional holidays in public.

[63][64] The only public space in Albania dedicated to the Holocaust is a small display inside Tirana's National Historical Museum.

[70][71] In the same year, a Wall of Honor monument was erected in Prishtina's City Park (Parku i Qytetit) to commemorate the 23 Kosova Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.