Written by Prof. Dr. Sabile Keçmezi- Basha. Extracted from “Gjilani me rrethina. Monografia komplet te gjitha kapitujt nga Ideri IX”. 2012. Translation Petrit Latifi

Abstract

This study examines the systematic terror, mass violence, and genocidal practices carried out against the Albanian population of Gjilan and the surrounding regions during the Second World War. It analyzes the role of the Yugoslav Army, Chetnik formations under Draža Mihailović, Bulgarian occupation authorities, and later Yugoslav partisan units (UNÇJ), highlighting continuities of anti-Albanian violence before, during, and after the April War of 1941. Particular attention is given to the transformation of Chetnik elements into partisan structures following wartime amnesties and the resulting escalation of atrocities during the consolidation of communist power in 1944–1945. Through documented massacres, eyewitness testimonies, and local data, the study argues that these actions constituted a coordinated campaign of ethnic persecution aimed at intimidation, displacement, and physical liquidation of Albanians. The resistance efforts in Gjilan are interpreted as a popular self-defense movement against foreign military domination and systematic repression.

These sections have been extracted from the 2012 published work of various Albanian authors of Gjilan. This particular section is written by Prof. Dr. Sabile Keçmezi- Basha and discusses the Serbian, Yugoslav, Partisan and Chetnik atrocities against Albanians.

Cited:

Terror and massacres of the Yugoslav Army and Chetnik units

The terror, violence and genocide that took place against the Albanians of Gjilan and the surrounding area during World War II, as well as the brutal measures taken by the Government and army of the former Yugoslavia against the Albanians on the eve of and during the April War of 1941, and the massacres carried out by the Chetnik Movement of Draža Mihajlović, as well as the massacres and genocide that escalated and were carried out by the UNÇJ units on the eve of the liberation of Kosovo from fascism and in the first months of the establishment and consolidation of communist power in Gjilan and the surrounding area are unprecedented in history.

Even after the capitulation of the Yugoslav Kingdom, not only the Albanian soldiers, but the entire Albanian people found themselves in a very difficult position, because for the then government, this people was considered an unnational, insecure and defeatist element. The officers and non-commissioned officers of the Yugoslav army openly expressed their hostile disposition towards the Albanians, considering them all potential enemies of Yugoslavia.1)

It was precisely because of such an attitude towards the Albanians on the part of the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Kosovo Division and the rear organs, especially the gendarmerie, that during the April War the position of the Albanian people in the Gjilan region deteriorated even further.

In almost all the ethnic Albanian territories that were occupied at that time, general chaos reigned, where heavily armed Serbian chauvinists began to appear publicly, killing and terrorizing Albanians, supposedly “to save the Serbs and maintain order”, even though they were still regular military units, even police ones.

One of the main tasks of the Chetnik Movement was to gather ultranationalist and chauvinist Serbo-Montenegrin elements to guide and instigate a holy war against the Albanians. It is well known that the ultimate goal of the Chetnik Movement was the murder and disappearance of Albanians, their expulsion from their lands, and their complete physical liquidation.

So, this was a chauvinist movement with a completely anti-Albanian character that engaged in and implemented a large-scale Serbian genocide against the Albanian people.

Even in the Bulgarian-occupied area of ​​Kosovo, Chetnik mistreatment, torture, and massacres, in alliance with the Bulgarians, began in 1941 with the establishment of Bulgarian power in these areas. One cannot fail to mention the mistreatment, crimes, beatings, and murders in Topanica. Tërnavë, Tërnoc, Pogragjë, Zhegër, Remnik, etc. The Bulgarian occupier, within which the Serbian and Montenegrin elements also participated to a certain extent, accepting the Bulgarian nationality as the Bulgarians of Moravia (Moravskite Bulgari).

Their anti-Albanian disposition, among other things, was manifested by prohibiting the wearing of turbans and national symbols and removing and desecrating them in public places. They banned the veil, raped and massacred the defenseless people, especially women and children.
From September 1943 to the end of 1944, as before, the Chetnik Movement in Kosovo consisted of Chetnik organizations as well as the First and Second Chetnik Corps of Kosovo, which operated in the neighboring territories of Serbia.

The position of this movement, led by Draža Mihajlović, remained the same even after the withdrawal of German forces from Yugoslavia. The cleansing of the country from Albanians – their collective revenge and displacement.3)

The instructions of the Chetnik High Command, among other things, state: “only collective and organized revenge will achieve
the effect of racial revenge”. According to the plans of this command, after the victory of the Chetniks, Kosovo should have been completely cleansed of Albanians.4)

The Chetnik leadership of Drazha Mihajlovic and that of the government of Milan Nedić, the first in the mountains and the second as quislings, with the Serbian government sometimes as a complement and sometimes as a precursor, exerted unprecedented pressure on the ethnic Albanian lands, calling into question the state and the very existence of the Albanian people.

They constantly endangered the territory of Gjilan on the eastern and northern borders with their own forces. Both of these forces, as well as other Slavic forces, were united by anti-Albanianism, therefore, the leadership of the PKJ and the LNÇJ headed by Tito amnestied the Chetniks of Draža Mihajlović, making it possible for them to enter the UNÇ brigades of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo. Thus, the Albanians and Kosovo became the factor that united and brought the communists and the Chetniks closer because they had the same goal – the liquidation of the Albanians.

It is also important to emphasize the fact that whenever the Chetniks found themselves in trouble, whether from communist, Albanian or Bosnian forces, they tried to make contact with the Albanian leaders, but the latter, knowing their intentions well, did not even want to hear about any cooperation, even though communist propaganda for obvious reasons often accused the Albanian leaders of collaboration.

Although in the territory of Kosovo and neither in that of Gjilan during the War During World War II, the Chetniks were unable to achieve their goals of mass extermination of Albanians, and in its peripheral regions they committed unprecedented massacres, especially in Sandzak, Gollak and Karadak.

Another massacre was carried out by the Chetniks in the Presevo mosque on September 17, 1943, where under the leadership of the Montenegrins Jagoš Janjević from Reka e Tërnavës and Zafirević Deniqi, masked, entered the city and threw bombs from the window into the mosque while the believers were praying tarawih.

In this chauvinistic and genocidal act, 4 Albanians died (Lutë Mehmeti, Rexhep Demi, Ramiz Agushi and Tafë Tërnava) and 32 others were injured. Although the Albanians were allowed by the German commander to take revenge on anyone they wanted within 24 hours without any responsibility, they did not take revenge on the Serbian minority in Presevo, which, as always, showed maturity and maintained their composure and pride.

It is well known that the Chetnik forces of Drazha Mihajlovic received “grit in their mill”, as the people say, after the well-known decision of the Presidency of the KACKJ of 20.XI.1944, which concerned the amnesty of persons who had been in the Chetnik units, which, among other things, stated: “a general amnesty is granted to all persons who have participated in the units of Drazha Mihajlovic”.

Although this amnesty had nothing to do with war criminals, the Chetnik forces were indiscriminately incorporated into partisan units, especially those units that planned to penetrate Albanian-populated territories. Their chauvinism and that of some partisan unit leaders who pretended to be communists was especially evident in Kosovo and other Albanian-populated areas.

Now camouflaged under the partisan flag, they began to implement all the plans and projects that they had not been able to implement when they were part of Drazha Mihajlovic’s Chetnik units, precisely because of the resistance that the Albanian people had put up against them.

The terror of the UNÇJ partisan units in the territory of Karadak
The Karadak mountain range, after the division of Yugoslavia in 1941, belonged to the Bulgarian occupation zone. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia, knowing the disposition of the Albanian people towards this power, successfully and cunningly used it for anti-fascist activities and activities throughout the Second World War.

In this territory, from 1941 until the time of the final operations for the liberation of these areas from the fascist forces, many activists of the Communist Party, fighters as well as units of Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo found refuge, which in this territory, thanks to generosity, the well-known Albanian hospitality and the anti-Bulgarian disposition, were safer than anywhere else.

However, many of these activists, when pursued by the fascist and quisling forces, presented themselves as lambs, while towards the end of the war, when their time had come, after they had taken command and led the partisan units of the UNÇJ, they began to behave like wolves, expressing all their chauvinistic anger against the Albanian people.
It is interesting to note that the number of victims killed by the partisan units and detachments of the UNC of Yugoslavia until 1944 was not so great, not because these units had a fair attitude towards the Albanians, but because during the war they did not present any large military force, as well as due to the fact that during the war they needed allies against fascism and peace and security in the rear.

The partisan units of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia were particularly distinguished by their anti-Albanian, fascist and genocidal activity, in whose ranks, especially towards the end of 1944, a considerable number of Chetniks and VMRO-ists were also included, who did not aim to liberate the country from fascism, but whose primary aim was the physical extermination of the Albanian people. Several partisan units of Kosovo, which were mainly commanded by Serbian and Montenegrin military personnel, were also active in the massacres and abuses.

There is no village or neighborhood in Karadak, just as it is difficult to find any village or neighborhood in Kosovo, where during this period abuses and massacres were not committed by the most serious of these “liberators”. It is impossible to mention all the units and places where they committed crimes. The VIII Brigade of Presevo, the XII Brigade of Bujanovac, the Partisan Aradha of Skopje, the XVI, XVII and XVIII Macedonian Brigades, the Boka Brigade, the Pirot Brigade, several units of the Partisan Brigades of Kosovo, etc. were especially distinguished for crimes.

The violence and terror inflicted on the Albanian people by the Partisan-Chetnik formations was terrible. The methods and means used during the execution ranged from the “lightest” – murder with a bullet to the lowest barbaric slaughters and cuts. To lose track of the crimes, the victims were usually massacred in the evening when it got dark until dawn, and in most cases they were accompanied by the powerful beating of drums and other instruments with a deafening noise.

This noise was According to witnesses, the order stifled the voices of the victims being executed. The most common forms of execution were: murder by bullet, stabbing, sawing, scalding with water, suffocation with boiling porridge, setting a trap, a stone on the head, hitting with a pickaxe, a mallet, a crowbar, a rifle butt, a bayonet, a red-hot iron, hanging by the neck, hanging upside down, cutting off the body’s extremities while alive, castration and cutting off the genitals, as well as many other forms that are difficult to imagine today.11

The 16th Macedonian Brigade, commanded by Gllisha Sharanoviqi, from October 6 to November 14, 1944, west of Skopje, liquidated about 200 Albanians under the pretext that they had been in the service of the occupier.13 In Blace alone, it killed and massacred all the males.14
About the massacre of Blace and several other villages in Karadak, such as and Melihate Deda also reports on the abuses of some UNÇJ units against the Albanian people in this territory in a letter sent to the Provincial Committee in December 1944.

Among other things, she informs this committee that the commanders of the UNÇJ units, who operated in these lands, publicly declared that “they had orders to kill at least 50% of the Albanians.” The 17th Macedonian Brigade, which operated in Karadak during the period November – December 1944, is particularly notable for its unprecedented crimes against the Albanian people of this region. In Isivuk, it slaughtered and scalded nearly 100 Albanians in the presence of their mothers.

The slaughtered, half-alive, were thrown into mass graves and then scalded with boiling water. To satisfy the most inhuman anti-Albanian lusts, a mother was forced to boil water and pour it over the massacred, among whom were her 3 sons and her husband.16 In the village of Gruhali, all the men were also killed.

The unprecedented anti-Albanian terror of the UNÇJ units, and especially of the 17th Macedonian Brigade, was so severe and great that even Miladin Popović in a letter to Josip Broz Tito in November 1944, after condemning the massacres committed by the 17th Macedonian Brigade in the Gjilan region, demanded their cessation and the punishment of the Brigade Headquarters.

After the establishment of military administration on February 8, 1945, a general mobilization of young people followed in Kosovo to send them to the war fronts in the northern and northwestern regions of Yugoslavia. In this vein, in the spring of 1945, after the suppression of the uprising in Drenica under the leadership of Shaban Polluzha, the military authorities in Gjilan mobilized a considerable number of young people for partisan units, who were sent to Tivara through Prizren and Shkodra.

Some of them were liquidated along the way, and some not only experienced the massacre of Tivar but also died there in early April 1945.
Based on some field data, during November and December 1944 and early 1945, nearly 8,000 Albanians were killed and massacred in the territory of Anamorava, for which this area holds a black record compared to other parts of Kosovo.18

Unable to mention the names of all those massacred and liquidated by the Partisan-Chetnik units in this territory, on this occasion we are only noting the settlements and the number of those liquidated by the UNÇJ units, consequently the Serbo-Macedonian-Montenegrin chauvinist chetas.

Thus, at this time in Çar, 23 Albanians were killed, in Shipashnica 8, in Hogosht 6, in Sllubica 11, in Pogragja 5, in Dobërçan 4, in Kopernica 3, in Inatoc 3, in Dobrosin 2, in Përlepnica 22, in Busavata 8, in Malisheva 17, in Gosponica 29, in Gare 2, in Makresh 24, in Llashtica 23, in Stanoc 4, in Presheva 600, in Gjilan and the surrounding villages nearly 1,000, in Vruçec 2, in Livoç të Poshtëm 9, in Livoç të Epërm 12, in Tërpezë 5, in Koretin 3, in Rogaçica ​​2, in Sfircë 23, in Tugjec 5, in Gjyrishec 3, in Lisockë 6, in Shahiq 2, in Dazhdince 2, in Sopot 75, in Krstic 2, in Topanice 2, in Tërstë 3, in Pozharan 23, in Konçul 10, in Bukurocë 13, in Bozhec-Rekali 3, in Marec 23, in Rubovc 4, in Llucan 13, in Miratoc 15, in Tërnave 10, in Allashec 4, in Izvor 2 etc.

Mass exterminations of Albanians and massacres in Gjilan

Since November 17, 1944, as a result of the completely unreasonable and arbitrary mistreatment, looting and murders of Serbian chauvinists in the territory of Gjilan and its surroundings by UNÇJ units, the Nationalist Anti-Communist Resistance Movement, together with the Albanian democratic forces and the people of this area, made efforts to engage in self-defense against the Serbian-Communist Red Terror.

The Headquarters of Zone IV for the Defense of Kosovo from the Communists and Slavic Chetniks, which was formed within the framework of the Second League of Prizren and which had the obligation to protect the Ferizaj-Kaçanik-Gjilan area, organized several meetings with its activists.

The preparations were aimed at self-organization and protection of the population from the crimes committed by the units and the organs of the communist government. However, it seems that the organs of the communist state and the OZN had ample information about all the preparations that the Albanians were making.

The attempt of the Albanian nationalist forces to liberate Ferizaj on. 2.XII.1944 from the communist government was used as a pretext to kill and massacre the Albanian population en masse without sparing even women and children. Thus, for example, in just 2-3 days, about 1,500 Albanians were killed and imprisoned. The number of victims in the following days was also large, exceeding several thousand.

Immediately after the penetration of the UNÇJ units and the Bulgarian army forces into Gjilan, as well as with the consolidation of the communist government, the reactivation of the Serbian-Montenegrin pro-Chetnik elements began, for whom the opportune moment came to realize their goals of physical liquidation of the Albanians. Thus, within a short time, the prisons were filled with Albanians and their liquidation began without any procedure.

Every evening, 40-50 people were shot without any evidence that they had committed any crime. Among those shot were also prominent intellectuals of this area, such as the journalist Sylejman Ashkiu and Esat Berisha, a member of the Central Committee of the Second League of Prizren. Due to the unprecedented famine, even in Gjilan, the people began to self-organize to protect their national dignity, as well as to protect themselves from the collective extermination that was threatened.

Thus, the anti-communist, democratic and nationalist movement formed the Resistance Headquarters under the command of Idriz Hajrullahu. On the morning of 23.XII.1944, they attacked and temporarily took control of Gjilan, but due to the large UNÇJ forces in the city and the reinforcements that came from Pristina, and especially to
spare the Albanian people, the attackers withdrew from the city that same day.

However, after their withdrawal, units of the 17th Macedonian Brigade, members of the notorious OZN and groups of Serbian chauvinists in the city began unprecedented massacres and massacres of the Albanians of the city, especially against the unprotected part: women, children and the elderly, since the men had left the city to escape this massacre.

This massacre and massacres are also confirmed by the testimonies of two leaders of the communist government in Gjilan at the time: Lubo Shotra, head of the OZN and Halil Fejzullahu, commissar of the local command. The former, among other things, states: “After the Partisan Battalion, groups of soldiers entered the city, who in an unorganized manner began to take revenge on the people, while we all continued the pursuit, those unorganized groups of fighters and locals remained in the city, who began to enter houses and kill the innocent Albanian people.

Lubo Shotra tells how he accidentally saved Mulla Shaip from being shot, who had been with the leading structures of the communist government in Gjilan the entire time, and was therefore a member of the municipal KNC.

Halil Fejzullahu, among other things, states about these genocidal acts: “At the main mosque I met a group of more than 100 Albanians and 120 Macedonian soldiers. When I noticed that each soldier was beating an Albanian with the butt of his rifle, I ordered the soldiers to drop their weapons. After I realized that they were being sent to be shot, I sent them all to the Command and after the investigations I conducted, I found that only 5-6 of them had been compromised.”

We consider it necessary to emphasize on this occasion that none of them had been collaborators of the occupier, nor had they committed any crime, so they were punished only because they were Albanians. Hajredin Vullkani, a fighter of the 5th Kosovo Brigade, whose unit arrived in Gjilan, was horrified that same day by what he saw with his own eyes in the city streets, which were full of corpses, including those of women and children.

To better understand the causes of this massacre, he and some friends knocked on the door of a house. “While we were waiting and talking about these massacres, an old woman appeared, who, when she realized that we did not speak Serbian, invited us to come inside. The first word that woman said was: Save us, I saw God! Save my children!” This fighter adds in his memoirs: “As soon as we entered the room, several other women and girls gathered around us.

They also approached us as if they were their brothers. It is rare for Muslim women (I am talking about Albanian women) without a veil or a sheet to approach a stranger. Even more so now when there was no man in the house, because everyone had fled to who knows where.”27 This also shows the state in which the inhabitants of Gjilan were and what they experienced on 23.XII.1944.

After these massacres, the order of the Commander of the Operational Headquarters of the UNC of Kosovo, Fadil Hoxha, followed, where the units in the field were warned to stop shooting and killing Albanians, but, the results are known, the killings and massacres did not stop, they only increased.

What was said above gives us the right to conclude that the days that The massacres that took place after the resistance movement forces’ efforts to liberate Gjilan were the worst in the history of the Albanian people of this region. The military and police organs of the communist government and the OZN, for several days in a row, committed unprecedented massacres on the defenseless people of the city.

They had ordered the residents not to close the doors of the courtyards neither day nor night, so that they could enter at any time to massacre innocent people. And they did all this under the pretext of pursuing the enemies of the people. The number of innocent victims at this time was so great that after Tivar, Gjilan is rightfully the largest grave of Albanians during the Second World War.

The perpetrators of these crimes were Serbo-Macedonian ultra-chauvinists, who were also helped by some local collaborators who were in the local government. All this purge was carried out under the perfidious guise of consolidating communist power.

Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that one of the organizers and perpetrators of these anti-Albanian crimes was Vlado Popovic, then secretary of the CPY District Committee for Gjilan, son of the deputy of the Yugoslav Kingdom, Tomë Popovic, the bloodsucker of the Albanian people.

According to incomplete sources, in the years 1944-1945 alone, thousands of people were killed and massacred in the wider region of Gjilan by the anti-Albanian coalition, not to mention the great material damage to movable and immovable property.

The efforts of the nationalist forces and Albanian volunteers in Gjilan, led by Mulla Idrizi, were an effort by the people to liberate and save Gjilan from foreign forces, who were carrying out an unprecedented genocide against the Albanian people. This was an attempt in the continuation of the liberation wars at the time when the Second World War was ending. The attack on Gjilan, that is, the attempt to liberate it, was a simple national war against those who abused our people, always peace-loving, to the end, or was it against those who were deceived and betrayed in various ways.

It was a war neither political nor ideological nor incited from abroad, as some try to qualify and justify it, but it was a liberation war against foreign military forces, who behaved as occupiers in our lands under the flag of Tito’s communists.

I consider the attack on Gjilan to have been a people’s war, and history teaches us that people’s wars are armed wars of all strata of the people for freedom, independence, national and social liberation, and for the protection of the territorial integrity of the homeland. They are organized and directed by a leadership that emerged from the bosom of the people themselves.

Such was the leadership led by Mulla Idrizi, who led this liberation war to liberate and save the people of Gjilan from the clutches of the Serbo-Macedonian partisan units, which mainly consisted of Chetniks dressed and disguised in partisan uniforms.

Source

“Gjilani me rrethina. Monografia komplet te gjitha kapitujt nga Ideri IX”. 2012. p. 178. Authored by Sabri Tahiri, Mehmet Halimi, Sabile Keqmezi, Fehmi Rexhepi, Aliriza Selmani, Ismajl Kurteshi, Lirije Kajtazi, Emin Selimi, Reshat Ramadani, Ejup Haziri, Enver Sadiku and Salih Mustafa.