Another explanation, Ms. Cloyes DioGuardi says, is that in Albania, a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox country until Ottoman rule led to conversions to Islam starting in the 15th century, ethnicity has always trumped religion, and piety is less than zealous. “We knew our enemies wanted to use religion to divide and conquer us, but we knew we had the same blood,” said Akim Alickaj (a-LITCH-kye), an ethnic Albanian raised in Kosovo who owns a New York travel agency and whose father helped rescue Jews. “Religion changes, but nation and blood can’t be changed.”

Two other countries saved most of their Jews as well. When German occupiers ordered the deportation of Denmark’s 7,800 Jews in 1943, neighbors, colleagues and activists, in a virtually spontaneous outpouring of help and resistance, transported more than 7,000 Jews, largely by fishing boat, across a channel to neutral Sweden, according to Bo Lidegaard, editor in chief of the newspaper Politiken.

Bulgaria was allied with the Nazis and turned over 11,000 Jews from occupied Macedonia and Thrace for deportation to death camps. But when an order came for deportation of Bulgaria’s own Jewish citizens, members of Parliament and church leaders pressured the government to resist, and 48,000 Jews survived.

When the Nazis rolled into Albania in September 1943, taking the country over from the more lenient Italian Fascists, two Jewish residents of the city of Vlora — Rafael Jakoel and his brother-in-law — met with the mayor there. He told them, according to Mr. Jakoel’s granddaughter, Felicita, “As long as you are here, you don’t have to worry, but Germans are Germans so it’s better to go to the capital.”

Rafael Jakoel and his brother-in-law went to Tirana to meet the interior minister, Xhafer Deva, of what seemingly was a fascist government collaborating with the Nazis. The minister even showed them a list of Jews whom the Germans had asked for. Nevertheless besa was so forceful that he did not turn over the list, Ms. Jakoel said.