Zog I of Albania had Albanian origins. As King, he was honoured by the governments of Italy, Luxembourg, Egypt, Yugoslavia, France, Romania, Greece, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. Zog had been engaged to the daughter of Shefqet Bey Verlaci before he became king. Soon after he became king, however, he broke off the engagement. According to traditional customs of blood vengeance prevalent in Albania at the time, Verlaci had the right to kill Zog. The king frequently surrounded himself with a personal guard and avoided public appearances. He also feared that he might be poisoned, so the Mother of the King assumed
Zog nit keyn mol "То не тучи - грозовые облака" ("Those aren't clouds but thunderclouds"), originally from the 1937 film "I, Son of Working People" (story by Valentin Kataev). Hirsch was inspired to write the song by news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. During World War II, "Zog nit keyn mol" was adopted by a number of Jewish partisan groups operating in Eastern Europe. It became a symbol of resistance against Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust. Yiddish in transliteration <poem> zog nit keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg, khotsh himlen blayene farshteln bloye teg. kumen vet nokh undzer