Events

Film Screening - BESA: The Promise

BESA: The Promise

Sixty years after World War II, a Muslim Albanian must fulfill a promise made to the Jewish family his father rescued during the Holocaust. This documentary tells the never-before-told story of how Albania opened its borders to shelter Jewish refugees, even as it endured a brutal Nazi occupation.

Free film screening at the Avon Cinema, 260 Thayer Street, Providence
Tickets available at the Avon box office at 5:30 p.m. on the day of the screening
Film: 6:00-7:30 p.m. 
Q+A: 7:30 p.m. 

BESA: The Promise follows two men joined together in a remarkable and unexpected quest: Norman H. Gershman, a renowned Jewish-American photographer determined to record the bravery and compassion of the Albanians; and Rexhep Hoxha, a Muslim-Albanian toy shop owner who sets out to return three precious books to the last surviving member of the Jewish family his father sheltered sixty years before. When these two men meet, an extraordinary and utterly unexpected personal drama is set in motion – one that bridges generations and religions…uniting fathers and sons…Muslims and Jews.

The screening is followed at 7:30 p.m. by a Q+A with Johanna Neumann, who is featured in the film. Neumann is a German native who fled with her parents to Albania in 1939.

Cosponsors:
Brown & RISD Muslim Chaplaincy
Brown University Office of Chaplains and Religious Life 
Brown University Office of the President
Brown RISD Hillel
Rhode Island Council for Muslim Advancement 
Rhode Island State Council of Churches
Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom
The Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island