Gavra Mandil (right) with Refik Veseli, 1943. The Mandils were a Jewish Yugoslavian family who survived the Holocaust by hiding with the Veselis, a Muslim Albanian family.
German forces occupied Albania and other Italian-occupied territories after Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943. With the country under German occupation, the Mandil family decided it might be safer to blend in with the masses of people in the Albanian capital of Tirana.
Mosa and Gabriela Mandil disguised themselves as Muslims and began looking for photographers in Tirana who might hire Mosa. They stumbled across the studio of Neshed Ismail, a former apprentice of Gabriela’s father. Ismail recognized the Mandils and insisted that they move into his apartment. The Mandils lived with Ismail, and Mosa worked at his studio. There, he took portraits of many German officers who did not realize he was a Jewish refugee.
Around this time, a young Muslim Albanian man named Refik Veseli had also moved to Tirana to study photography. Mosa began to teach Veseli at Ismail’s studio. When conditions in the city became too dangerous for the Mandils, Veseli invited them to hide at his family home in the town of Kruje to the north of Tirana.
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