Johanna Gerechter Neumann
1930-2017
May 14, 2014 by Antonia Blumberg
JOHANNA NEUMANN, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, TELLS STORY OF BEING SAVED BY A MUSLIM FAMILY IN ALBANIA
Johanna Neumann was nine years old when her family escaped from Nazi Germany to seek refuge in Albania. They spent six years there and survived the war thanks to a number of Muslim families who sheltered them along the way.
Neumann’s is one of many stories that demonstrate Albania’s often forgotten efforts to shelter Jews during the Holocaust and which inspired the new documentary, Besa: The Promise.
NOVEMBER 6, 2013
"How did I become aware of Kristallnacht? [Nov. 9 to 10, 1938] was not in the era of TV, of radio, etc. I walked by our synagogue. Hordes of people were standing in front of it and throwing stones through the beautiful stained-glass windows. They had gone into the synagogue, ransacked it and threw the Torah scrolls into the streets"
“How did I become aware of Kristallnacht?” asked Holocaust survivor Johanna Neumann of Maryland. “[Nov. 9 to 10, 1938] was not in the era of TV, of radio, etc.”
It did not have to be. Neumann, who was 8 years old at the time, discovered the horrors of the Night of Broken Glass, which continued into the morning, on her walk to school.
“I walked by our synagogue. Hordes of people were standing in front of it and throwing stones through the beautiful stained-glass windows. They had gone into the synagogue, ransacked it and threw the Torah scrolls into the streets,” Neumann recalled.
ALBANIAN PRIME MINISTER SALI BERISHA ADDRESSES 450 GUESTS AT AN INVITATION-ONLY SCREENING OF BESA: THE PROMISE AT THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM. MR. BERISHA PRESENTED AN HONOR TO JOHANNA NEUMANN, WHOSE FAMILY WAS RESCUED IN ALBANIA ~ April 26, 2012
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APRIL 24, 2012
“We aren’t going to be around much longer to tell the story of our history”
“We aren’t going to be around much longer to tell the story of our history,” said Johanna Neumann, a museum planned giving associate, who lived in Albania during the war. Albania did not deport any Jews to concentration camps.
“They put their lives on the line to save us"
"If it had come out that we were Jews, the whole family would have been killed"
“What these people did, many European nations didn’t do" "They all stuck together and were determined to save Jews"
JANUARY 27, 2017
The group also recognizes the Pilkus, a Muslim family in Albania who harbored young Johanna Neumann and her mother in their home during the German occupation and convinced others that the two were family members visiting from Germany. “They put their lives on the line to save us," Neumann, now 86, told TIME on Friday. "If it had come out that we were Jews, the whole family would have been killed."
“What these people did, many European nations didn’t do," she added. "They all stuck together and were determined to save Jews."
"They saved us and these were good human beings, and as I said before, the majority of them were Muslims, and we have nothing but respect for these people"
While we admire Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie, Shindler’s List, on Oskar Schindler saving the lives of the Polish Jews, new stories of human courage and dignity were narrated when Johanna Neumann, a Holocaust survivor, recounted to the Muslim visitors to the Museum how she and her parents were saved by Albanian Muslims: “They saved us and these were good human beings, and as I said before, the majority of them were Muslims, and we have nothing but the highest respect for these people.” The names of these Muslims from Albania, Njazi and Liza Pilku, are inscribed at the Holocaust museum and Yad Vashem among the "Righteous Among the Nations."
DECEMBER 21, 2006
“Everybody knew who we were, and nobody would have thought of denouncing us”
At the event, Johanna Neumann, a Holocaust survivor, described how Albanian Muslims saved her and her family from the Nazis. She said Albania at the time was 85 percent Muslim and that she and her family were protected by Muslims in their town. “Everybody knew who we were, and nobody would have thought of denouncing us,” Neumann said.
JANUARY 27, 2016
“[My father] certainly thought that it could never happen in Germany. It did happen. Slowly, but it did happen.”
At this time of open hostility to Muslims in America, museum staff arranged for Johanna Gerechter Neumann, who fled with her family to Albania after Kristallnacht, to talk about how Muslims protected them from Hitler. Her father, a patriotic German and World War I veteran, “certainly thought that it could never happen in Germany,” she said. “It did happen. Slowly, but it did happen.”
THE LIGHT OF ALBANIA:
HOW THOUSANDS OF JEWS FOUND REFUGE IN EUROPE’S ONLY MUSLIM COUNTRY
APRIL 21, 2016 BY LARRY YUDELSON
When it comes to European countries where Jews endured World War II, Albania is first in the alphabet — but seldom first to mind.
Yet the story of how Europe’s only Muslim country held the Holocaust at bay even while being occupied by Nazis is one that Johanna Gerechter Neumann wants you to remember
ALBANIANS SAVED JEWS FROM DEPORTATION IN WWII
DECEMBER 27, 2012 BY AIDA CAMA
Predominantly Muslim Albanians saved almost 2,000 Jews from deportation to the concentration camps during World War II. The family of US author Johanna Jutta Neumann was among those rescued."The Albanians were fantastic - after the war, there were even more Jews there than before," Johanna Jutta Neumann said.
SHOA SURVIVOR RECALLS HER MUSLIM RESCUERS
MAY 7, 2014 BY DEBRA RUBIN
When Jews were being murdered in much of the Christian nations of Europe during the Holocaust, Johanna Neumann and her family found shelter among the Muslims of Albania.
While many non-Jews helped Jews throughout Europe, said Neumann, they did so at the risk of “being denounced by their neighbors to the government.”
But in Albania, “no one ever denounced a single Jew,” she said. “No one in Europe did what the Albanians did.”
JANUARY 22, 2013
Johanna Neumann speaks at the 100th Anniversary of Albania in Washington DC on Nov. 28th 2012.
JUNE 21, 2012
In this interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor Johanna (Gerechter) Neumann shares her memories of Kristallnacht, the November 1938 pogroms.
NOVEMBER 4, 2013
Google+ Hangout with Holocaust Survivor Johanna Neumann.
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Watch as Holocaust survivor Johanna Neumann shares her experiences with Omar, a Syrian man who fled the Assad regime and found refuge in Germany. Their exchange took place in The Portal, an installation that allows Museum visitors to have a face-to-face conversation with someone in another part of the world.
OCTOBER 21, 2009
Photographers Norman Gershman and Stuart Huck speak about their exhibition of photographs of Albanian and Kosovar Muslims who risked their lives to save the lives of Jews during World War II. They are joined by Johanna Neumann (pictured at 27:35), a German Jew who survived the holocaust in Albania with assistance from Muslims.
JANUARY 28, 2016
On Wednesday, January 27, 2016, we held our International Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony. Featuring remarks from Peter Wittig, the German Ambassador to the United States, and Johanna Gerechter Neumann, a Holocaust survivor, this program included a candle-lighting ceremony and victims’ names reading.
MARCH 11, 2016
I Am Your Protector sponsored an interfaith ceremony at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring MD on March 10, 2016. The event honored the untold story of Muslim protectors who risked their lives to save their Jewish brothers and sisters during the Holocaust. The keynote was Johanna Neumann, a Holocaust survivor whose family was saved by Muslims.
“Somehow my mother found out that King Zog of Albania told his border police that if Jews came and wanted to enter the land, not to ask questions, but to let them come in”
OCTOBER 10, 2013
“Somehow my mother found out that King Zog of Albania told his border police that if Jews came and wanted to enter the land, not to ask questions, but to let them come in,” said Neumann, who fled to Albania with her family in 1939, and remained there, moving from one town to another, staying one step ahead of the Nazis, who occupied Albania in the summer of 1943.
ADAMS-ASHBURN MOSQUE HOSTED AN
INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE & GENOCIDE AWARENESS WITH HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR JOHANNA NEUMANN WHO WAS SAVED BY ALBANIAN MUSLIMS.
January 30, 2017 by Veronike Collazo
Nazi Holocaust survivor Johanna Neumann stood in front of the crowd and spoke about how she and her family were saved by Albanian Muslims. Neumann’s story was one of many messages at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center’s (ADAMS) Holocaust Remembrance gathering on Jan. 29 at the group’s Sterling community center and mosque.
The messages delivered by speakers had a special significance coming on the same weekend as President Donald Trump’s executive order effectively banning immigrants and refugees from several Muslim-majority countries.
HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR REVEALS THE UNEXPECTED ACT OF KINDNESS THAT SAVED HER LIFE OVER 70 YEARS AGO
2016 BY KAYLA BRANDON
Johanna Neumann was born in Hamburg, Germany on December 2, 1930. She tells Independent Journal Review her family had lived there almost 200 years before life for Jewish people took a turn for the worse.
MUSLIMS WHO SAVED JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST: LESSON PLAN FOR USE WITH THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON EXHIBIT
JULY 17-FEBRUARY 7, 2010
One key goal of many educators is to model effective citizenship. By studying the role of rescuers as a part of a Holocaust study, the character traits of morality, courage and integrity can be discussed. Another significant aspect of studying this area of the Holocaust is to remind students that none of the events were inevitable and that choices were possible that affected the outcome of many lives. This lesson focuses on one particular life, that of Johanna Gerechter Neumann, and the decisions made by the Pilku family in Albania.
Holocaust Remembrance Day Marked in DC
JANUARY 28, 2016
Holocaust survivors also shared their stories throughout the day at the Museum. Johanna Gerechter Neumann, originally from Hamburg, spoke of finding refuge in Albania during the war. There, thousands of German and Austrian Jews lived alongside Albanian Muslims. The Albanian government and its people continued to harbor Jews even after Germany invaded in 1943.