228776e

Didactic approach
The Albanian curriculum stipulates that ‘practical activities’ should accompany specific
topics. All the textbooks except T3 therefore address the rescue of Jews in Albania by
requesting teachers and/or pupils to seek and provide their own historical documents.
However, this topic is not dealt with in the body of any of the textbooks outlined here, and
no books indicate what documents to select or how to implement them didactically in the
classroom. T5 goes into more detail about such rescues by requesting pupils to formulate
their own opinions about motivations for rescue in moral terms (such as hospitality,
religious tolerance, humanism and antifascism as national attributes, and the propensity of
Albanians to offer protection since they were also dependent upon the protection of others).
T1 and T4 name the didactic exercises at the end of each chapter ‘Control and Systematic
Knowledge’. The exercises generally require pupils to name and correlate dates and events,
explain key terms and respond to multiple choice questions.
National idiosyncrasies
Since the books are largely devoted to the world civilizations among which Albania is not
included, few references are made to this country’s role in the Holocaust. One exception is
the mention of the rescue of Jews by Albanians during the Second World War in the context
of exercises set at the end of chapters. These are presented either as open questions to be
researched by pupils or teachers, or else as a moral (rather than a historical) issue in which
moral virtues are ascribed to the Albanian people as a nation. 50
Bibliography
T1: Filo, L. and Sala, G. 2010. Historia e qytetërimit botëror. (bërthamë). [The History of World Civilizations.
Framework]. Tirana, Botimet Ideart. (history of world civilizations, age 17-18 years, in Albanian)
T2: Kumbulla-Goce, V. 2010. Historia e qytetërimit botëror. (Kurrikula bërthamë). [The History of World Civilizations.
Framework Curriculum]. Tirana, Shtëpia botuese filara. (history, age 16-17 years, in Albanian)
T3: Mezini, A., Gjeçovi, X., Sadikaj, D. and Bajraktari, J. 1997. Historia 3 [history for the Third Class]. Tirana, Shtëpia
botuese e librit shkollor. (history, age 16-17 years, in Albanian)
T4: Dërguti, M. and Treska, T. 2010. Historia e qytetërimit botëror 11 [The History of World Civilizations. 11 Class].
Tirana, Albas. (history of world civilizations, age 16-17 years, in Albanian)
T5: Paolucci, S., Signori, G. and Thëngjilli, P. 2010. Historia e qytetërimit botëror XI {[The History of World
Civilizations. 11 Class], Tirana, Pegi. (history, age 17 years, in Albanian)
50 The textbooks thus reflect the marginalized, if not expedient, use, of the Holocaust in the public sphere in order to
promote national pride and an image of Albania as a European country promoting ethnic and religious tolerance. See
Perez, D. 2013. ‘Our Conscience is Clean’. Albanian Elites and the Memory of the Holocaust in Postsocialist Albania.
J.-P. Himka and J. Beata Michlic (eds), Bringing the Dark Past to Light. The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist
Europe. Lincoln, The University of Nebraska Press, pp. 25-58, 51.
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