Monument to Fascism in Central Pristina
Glas Javnosti – May 7, 2005 [Translated by Serbianna.com]

A memorial complex dedicated to the members of the notorious Skenderbeg SS Division, the Kosovo Regiment and the Albanian gendarmerie to be built on a surface of 1.5 hectares

Belgrade - As all of Europe prepares to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the victory against fascism in World War II, at a meeting held on May 4 the Pristina municipal assembly made the decision to build a monument and memorial part dedicated to fascist collaborators, Glas Javnosti learned from its sources in Pristina. The decision foresees the building of a memorial park on a surface of some 1.5 hectares and a monument in the location where Yugoslav officials at that time and Partisan forces executed fascist collaborators, the members of the Second League of Prizren.

This organization was founded in 1943 in Prizren upon the initiative of the Gestapo. The biggest role in the resurrection of the Prizren League belonged to Otto Meyer, a colonel in the Abwehr, who together with Karl Krempler, an SS colonel, and in collaboration with the Gestapo, activated their champion, Xhafer Deva. He was placed at the head of the League so they could more easily realize their influence on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. The military formations were the Albanian gendarmerie, the Kosovo Regiment, and the Skenderbeg SS Division, which engaged a total of more than 11,000 Albanians.

Recorded in the chronicle of acts of terror by Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija are crimes in Babuska municipality, forcible expulsion in Urosevac, executions in Velika Hoca, forcible detention (of the population) from Prizren and Grbol, murders in the village of Vitomirica.... Two hundred Serbs were killed just in the district of Djakovica and 5,000 Serbs were taken away to fascist camps in Albania. The participation of the Prizren League through its military formations in the extermination of Kosovo Jews is one of the most shameful episodes in the history of Kosovo. Out of 281 Jews arrested by the military formations of the Second League of Prizren, more than 200 were killed in the Belsen Nazi death camp. The entire Jewish population of Kosovo was destroyed and never recovered to its pre-war numbers.

The list of "murdered innocent patriots" (which is what the servants of fascism are called today in the decision of the Pristina municipal assembly includes Albanians who were former soldiers of the SS and the Wehrmacht, policemen of the occupationist gendarmerie, commanders of Albanian paramilitary formations and their helpers. Hence it comes as no surprise that the Municipality of Pristina is not planning any sort of commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the victory against fascism. The memorial tomb dedicated to the heroes and victims of Nazism during World War II in Pristina has been destroyed. The plates bearing the names of fallen fighters (Serbs, Albanians, Turks and Jews) have been removed and destroyed, and the monument is today covered with graffiti celebrating the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Pristina municipal assembly's explanation

On January 17 the Ali Hadri association of Kosovo historians and families of patriots of November 1944 addressed the Pristina municipal assembly (01. no. 353-682) with the request to establish a location for the raising of a monument dedicated to "patriots from the period 1944-45". The directorate for planning, urbanism and construction concluded, upon considering this proposal and consulting existing plans, that the most favorable and possible location would be the free space in the Taukbasta (Velanija) district in Pristina, where collaborators were executed in 1944-45.

English translation at: http://www.serbianna.com/press/009.shtml
Serbian original at: http://arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu/arhiva/2005/05/07/srpski/P05050601.shtml

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