Kosovo: Honoring Nazis and the SS

Kosovo Albanian teacher gives Nazi salute to Nazi German occupation forces as she escorts Kosovo Albanian schoolchildren in Kosovoska Mitrovica, 1942.

Kosovo Albanians have similarly honored and commemorated the legacy of Nazis and the SS. Kosovo Albanians have named a high school in Pec and a street in Prishtina after Nazi Albanian ultra-nationalist Bedri Pejani. The Pec high school or secondary school, known as Gymnasium “Bedri Pejani”, consisted of 58 classes, 1,766 students, and 115 teachers. In Prishtina, a street has been renamed “Bedri Pejani Street”. In the Kosovo town of Vucitrn, a street has been named “Rr. Bedri Pejani”. “Rr.” is the abbreviation for “Rruga”, Albanian or Shqip for “street”. This is outrageous because it is right under the noses of the “international community”. Indeed, the Kosovo Albanians are thumbing their noses at the international community. Hypocritically using a Holocaust propaganda paradigm against Serbs while openly honoring and celebrating Nazis who helped kill Jews during the Holocaust. The moral hypocrisy is appalling.

Who was Bedri Pejani?

Bedri Pejani was the Kosovo Albanian president of the Albanian Second League of Prizren, set up by Nazi Germany in 1943, whose goal was to create a Greater Albania under Nazi German sponsorship. Pejani was a Nazi collaborator under the Nazi regime established by Germany in 1943. Pejani wrote Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, the “architect of genocide”, a letter on March 19, 1944, in which he requested that Himmler organize Albanian military formations as part of the Nazi Waffen SS. In his letter to Himmler, Pejani wrote:

Excellency,

the central committee of the Second Albanian League of Prizren has authorized me to inform you that only your excellency is united with the Second Albanian League, that you should form this army, which will be able to safeguard the borders of Kosovo and liberate the surrounding regions. …

…. Bedri Pejani

Hans Lammers sent Bedri Pejani’s letter to Himmler. Himmler received the letter and wrote Lammers back about the planned formation of two Kosovar Albanian Muslim SS Divisions:

Most respected party friend Lammers! I received your letter of  April 29 together with the letter of the president of the central committee of the Second Albanian League of Prizren.At this time one Albanian division is being formed. As things now stand, I plan to form a second division, and afterwards an Albanian corps will be formed. …

Heil Hitler!

Yours very faithfully,
H. Himmler

Himmler would form the Albanian Kosovar Muslim 21st Armed Mountain Division of the SS “Skanderbeg”, Albanische No. 1. The war ended before Himmler could form a second Kosovo Albanian Muslim Waffen SS Division. The first task of Bedri Pejani’s Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division, made up primarily of Kosovo Albanian Muslims, was to round up the Jews of Kosovo, who were subsequently transported to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, where they were gassed.

It takes unprecedented gall and arrogance to honor Nazis and the SS while simultaneously accusing the very people you plan to exterminate and dispossess of their territory as Nazis themselves. What Kosovo Albanians rely upon to achieve this deception is the ignorance and stupidity of “the international community”.

PHOTO 1: A rare photo of Kosovo Albanian Muslim Bedri Pejani wearing Ottoman Turkish fez, second row from the top, seated seventh on the right. This photo shows the Albanian Committee of Kosovo in 1919-1920 in front of an Albanian national flag. Pejani and the Kosovo Committee sought to annex Kosovo to a Greater Albania. When Germany occupied Kosovo-Metohija in 1943, Pejani became a major Nazi collaborator. Pejani personally requested from Heinrich Himmler that Kosovo Albanian Muslims be allowed to join the Nazi Waffen SS.

PHOTO 2: A Kosovo Albanian teacher gives the Nazi “Heil Hitler!” salute as she escorts Kosovo Albanian schoolchildren before the Nazi German occupation forces in Kosovska Mitrovica, 1942.