On Tuesday at the National Library in Pristina, the book “Flower of Vlora” by the author Anna Kohen was promoted.

“The Flower of Vlora” is the autobiographical book of a Jewish author born in Vlora who later moved to the United States of America.

An event that spans from 1938 to the present day, “The Flower of Vlora” is a hilarious but also tense story of a Romanian-Jewish family.

They are one of the oldest Jewish communities that have and the oldest community in Europe) of Anna Cohen in Albania and how the Muslim Albanians saved them from the Nazis. Arriving in Albania in picturesque Vlora shortly before World War II, her family joined a small community of Greek-Romanioto-Jewish merchants. They sold cloth and had a paint shop.

During World War II, they took refuge in Muslim families to hide from the Nazis, taking Muslim names and pretending to be Muslims. Some of her family that remained in Greece, including her mother’s entire family, were killed in the death camps.

The book “The Flower of Vlora” then focuses on the Romanian traditions of the family of Dr. Kohen, which were forced to celebrate in secret due to the suppression of religion by the Albanian dictatorship. Remaining stateless since then, they had no documents and could not become members of the Communist Party. So the family had a bold plan to leave Albania for the West, right under the eyes of the secret police. After leaving, Kohen eventually became a dentist in Greece and then in New York City, learning the trade of implants from their inventor, and establishing her own successful clinic.