Memorie.al / The killings carried out by the forces of the 16th Macedonian Partisan Brigade were done in the name of liquidating the forces of ‘Balli Kombëtar’. Whether a 14-year-old child, or a seventy-year-old woman, and elderly people of various ages, most of whom were in their seventies, can be a member of ‘Balli’ cannot be commented on otherwise than as a crime against humanity. The facts given in this case clearly show the dark intentions of the communist leaders of that time!
November 16, 1944, found the village of Bllacë under the gun barrels of the 16th Macedonian Brigade. Therefore, this day, in the memory of the villagers of Bllacë, has left deep scars; it has something special. On this day, one of the greatest massacres on the territories of ASNOM’s Macedonia was carried out. Not three full months had passed since that assembly, when the 16th Macedonian Brigade surrounded the village of Bllacë, placing it under complete siege, not allowing people to leave the village.
Every 50 metres, armed guards were posted, preventing any movement of the people. The 16th Brigade entered the village on November 14, 1944, and informed the villagers not to be afraid, that “nothing would happen to them”, and so on. The villagers took these lies as truth, and as a result, a considerable number of residents remained in the village. At the same time, the villagers were asked to prepare food for the soldiers, which they did not fail to provide, even in large quantities.
The command of the 16th Brigade was set up in the house of Aziz Lusjani, from where they coordinated their actions, and also summoned those who had left the village to return as soon as possible, otherwise, if they did not comply with the order, their fate would not be safe. In this way, a considerable number of the people of Bllacë were deceived, falling into the trap of betrayal by the partisan commanders.
The 16th Macedonian Partisan Brigade stayed in Bllacë for three days.
But on the morning of the third day, they ordered the villagers to gather at the village mosque, locking everyone inside. Here the false promises of the commanders of the 16th Macedonian Brigade were exposed. After forcing all the gathered villagers into the mosque, they tied their hands and at the same time began beatings, mistreatment, and the foulest insults. The people placed in the mosque were taken out one by one, their hands tied, to be sent to the slaughterhouse prepared in advance. Thus handcuffed, they started them on the road to a place called “Toçi’s Stables”.
The number of those tied reached 130–140 people, of various ages, from children to the elderly and others. The soldiers of the Macedonian brigade began killing people even before reaching the place called “Toçi’s Stables”. The killings began in the village when the soldiers killed the old man Sinan Luçi, and after killing him, they set his hut on fire, burning it as well. On the threshold of the house, the following people were also killed: Daut Fera, Zyber Koka, Life Tusha (an old woman), Minah Shehi, and one from the “Lusjani” neighbourhood.
During the escort of the people of Bllacë to the place “Toçi’s Stables”, unprecedented tortures were used. Upon arriving at the aforementioned place, they sent some of them back to the village, supposedly to take or hand over weapons, while they began killing the rest of the villagers. They would take three or four people and place them in front of a machine gun, which poured out uninterrupted fire. Pools of blood crossed the field of the “Toçi” neighbourhood. Witnesses recount that the partisans of the 16th Macedonian Brigade killed anyone they could reach.
At this place, over 50 men from Bllacë lay dead. Their blood reddened the Arbëresh land. The crime committed by members of this brigade is also testified to by their graves, located to the left of the “Toçi” neighbourhood. They speak of this dreadful event, in which innocent people were killed. These people barely managed to put bread in the mouths of their children. Yet their lives took another course, one they had never foreseen.
All of the above shows that the executed were civilians, unarmed, taken directly from their homes. This fact is reinforced by the evidence that among them were elderly people, old women, who could not escape the soldiers’ bullets. Meanwhile, in the registry books, the names of the executed persons do not appear at all, which is another fact showing how the perpetrators of the crime wanted to cover up what they had done. The Bllacë massacre also has a second episode, which took place immediately after the first episode, in which over 50 men and young people also lost their lives.
The plans of the 16th Macedonian Brigade were well prepared and did not stop. Having carried out the execution of over 50 men at the place called “Toçi’s Stables”, they took the remaining people of Bllacë whom they had sent back to the village, whose hands they had tied, and started them on the road leading to the place called Kodër e Epër.
Before arriving at this place, they killed the 70-year-old old man Aziz Doçi, and his son Riza, who had not yet reached his 14th spring. Not long passed before a group of “four members” managed to untie their hands and flee from the column. Since they could not kill the escapees, they took three people from the column and shot them on the spot.
This execution was carried out as a sign of revenge for those who had managed to escape. Witnesses recount that from this moment on, beatings, mistreatment, and insults began, reaching the peak of savagery at the place called “White Earth”, when the second wave of killing of the people of Bllacë started. They emptied their fury at this place, which is located at the exit of the town of Hani Elezit.
At this place, the killings were done along the road. Wherever they reached, they executed innocent people. This cruelty lasted a long time, until the killings did not cease. At the place “Sour Water”, the last killings of the people of Bllacë took place. The killing was carried out there in the evening, while the brigade had continued on its way to Kaçanik, leaving over 50 dead and massacred along the Skopje-Pristina highway.
The killings carried out by the forces of the 16th Macedonian Brigade were done in the name of liquidating the forces of “Balli Kombëtar”. Whether a 14-year-old child, or a seventy-year-old woman, and elderly people of various ages, most of whom were in their seventies, can be a member of “Balli” cannot be commented on otherwise than as a crime.
The facts given in this case clearly show the dark intentions of the communist leaders of that time. Those who carried out the killing of the people of Bllacë on November 16 later returned to the scene of the crime, but this time they had another mission – to hide the crime. Some fellow villagers testify that unknown persons returned to the scene and levelled the graves of the executed.
The desire of the perpetrators was to erase the traces. Therefore, they undertook many actions to prevent the fate of the murdered from being revealed. We can argue this with very accurate data. In a book (text) describing the history of the actions of the Macedonian brigades in the Karadak of Skopje, there is no mention whatsoever of any military actions taking place in the region of the village of Bllacë. The question naturally arises: how and why were these people killed or died?
How can it happen that in one day, 111 people die?! Could it be that some plague fell, causing the death of these people?! Can it be believed that even their burial was done in such a way, in two places, several kilometres apart? Even more unbelievable will be the fact that those people died on the same day and from the same “disease”.
Regarding the events of November 16, 1944, when 111 people were killed in Bllacë, there were also reactions from Albanian communists in Kosovo, such as the reaction of the Albanian communist Melihate Hoxhiq-Deda. “Source data show that commanders of Yugoslav units (meaning also Macedonian ones) had secret directives to kill at least 50 per cent of the Albanian population.
Against such a plan, the communist and anti-fascist activist Melihate Hoxhiq-Deda reacted with horror. This reaction came as a result of the killing of 128 Albanians in Bllacë of Kaçanik, on 16 and 17 November 1944” (Taken from the text by Dr. Muhamet Pirraku: “The Yugoslav Re-occupation of Kosovo – 1945”).
This and all the other data, the testimonies of those who survived the massacre (28 people), make only one thing clear: that these people were killed by the partisan-chetnik forces of the Karadak of Skopje region, under the command of their commanders, Dushko Terziovski and Nikodin Urdareviq, who on one occasion engage in a dialogue like this: “Druzhe komandante, shta se tiçe meni, dosta si ubio”! (“Comrade Commander, as far as I’m concerned, you have killed enough”!), says Nikodin to Dushko. He replies thus: “Sve za tebe sam ubio, bre majku ti jebem”! (“I killed them all for you, hey, I’ll f*** your mother”). These two were the commanders of the military forces that committed the crime on November 16.
Nikodini was the leader of the Chetnik forces in Gora (Montana) of Skopje, while Dushko was the commander of the partisan forces in this region. This is another fact, of the cooperation between partisan and Chetnik forces, in the case of the killing of 111 people of Bllacë on November 16, 1944, and that the crime was committed by these and no one else. May God grant that such cases never happen again?/Memorie.al
