From Dodë Progni
Part four
-The massacre of Herec – criminal act of the Yugoslav and Albanian communist leadership-
I – THE “KRYEZIU” MOVEMENT
Memorie.al / “Kryeziu Movement” was the name of the Nationalist Anti-Fascist Movement, in Kosovo and Northern Albania, during the years 1940 – 1944, at the head of which were the brothers from Gjakova, Gani, Said and Hasan Kryeziu. Its strategic goal was the organization of the Anti-Fascist Movement in Kosovo, its liberation from Nazi-fascists, separation from Serbia and union with the mother country, Albania. The Kryeziu brothers, like hardly anyone else in Albania at that time, had understood since the beginning of the Second World War that the most possible way to solve the Albanian national problem was to secure support from a great Western power, such as Britain e Madhe, and that such a thing could only be achieved by fighting against the Nazis.
Continues from last issue
During this operation, the so-called “Peak” operation, Gani Kryeziu, with part of his forces, were engaged in the protection of British military mission officers, who were targeted by German forces, to be captured and destroyed., but they could not achieve this goal, due to their deployment in the forests of Berishë village and cooperation with Kryeziu’s forces.
While the communist leaders – who commanded the partisan forces, including those of Kosmet, such as Fadil Hoxha and his friends, not only did not organize any resistance, nor did they fire any rifle against the Germans during this operation, on the contrary, after they left the partisan forces completely shattered, they looked for the “mouse hole” to save their heads. And they found him deep in the Alps, in the remote village of Upper Curraj, where they stayed for several weeks. They returned to Krasniqe, only when they learned that the Germans had left the entire territory of the Gjakova Highlands.
Regarding this event, Beqir Ndou – figure “Number One” of the communist partisan forces, who stayed and fought in the Highlands of Gjakova, during the years 1941-1944, the former representative of the Central Committee of the KPSH for the war in the Highlands of Gjakova and Rrafshin e Dukagjini, in his memoirs, has stated that: “The Kosmet headquarters made big mistakes…! They had not organized information about the movements of enemy forces in the direction of the Highlands, although they were aware of a strict operation against the Highlands. And that he didn’t give any instructions, didn’t make any decisions, and none of the members of the Headquarters or the Provincial Committee, of the Yugoslav Communist Party, went to lead the war against the Germans.”
I specifically focused on these historical facts, related to an aspect of the activity of the Kosovar communist leaders, during the Anti-Fascist War, not to deny their merits in the anti-Fascist War, but to better demonstrate their malicious, hostile and not at all objective, towards the Kryezins and their anti-fascist struggle. To show how they managed to falsify and slander against the Kryezians to the extent that, even the blame that fell entirely on the Kosmet headquarters, they tried to blame Gani Kryezius and the nationalist forces that he commanded.
Especially Fadil Hoxha, who never stopped bragging about his “deeds” during the Anti-Fascist War, and even wrote books on this issue, such as “When spring is delayed”, etc., never showed a bit of manliness, to say the least. good words about the war that the nationalist anti-fascist forces of the Kryezinje fought.
Neither when the Kryeziu brothers were alive, nor when they were dead, he managed to affirm the fact that, more than once during 1944, he had fought together with the Kryeziu in Bytyç, on Dobrej Mountain, in the Branch of the Highlands of Gjakova, etc… Even Kryezini, with the generosity and spirit of cooperation that characterized them, had supplied Kosmet Headquarters several times with bread, food, clothing and weapons.
However, the communist leaders of Kosovo, not only never affirmed these facts, but on the contrary, accused the Kryezinjë of allegedly: “taking supplies from the Allies, weapons and various military preparations and food… and instead of giving them these weapons gave to the fighters of the Yugoslav National-Liberation Army, so that they could be used in the war against the Germans and the traitors of the peoples of Yugoslavia, Gani bey, he did not do this, but gave these weapons to his own people, who when they everyone dispersed to their own homes, or wherever, depending on who he sent and to whom he gave those weapons…”! According to them, Gani Kryeziu did these actions in order for the Yugoslav National-Liberation Army to be as weakly armed as possible”! This was one of the most absurd accusations that Kosmet’s headquarters had “fabricated” against Gani Kryeziu, which was presented to him in the Belgrade Military Court.
DENIAL AND PERSECUTION:
After the annihilation of the ‘Kryeziu Movement’, “de facto”, in September 1944, and their physical liquidation, December 1944, the communist regime of Yugoslavia and especially of Albania, engaged in a long defamatory and humiliating campaign, against the name and the deed of the Chiefs. First of all, they tried to deny their anti-fascist patriotic war. Enver Hoxha himself, completely contrary to the facts and documents of the time of the War, which are still preserved today, wrote: “One day, Gani Beg Kryeziu, came to us with a detachment on the mountain against the imagined invaders, and “in principle”, because in fact his squad did not fall in any attempt, did not throw a single rifle”!
This falsifier of history, in 1944, had praised Gani Kryeziu, calling him; “Unofficial President of the National Liberation War in Gjakova”. And just a few months later, without a hint of shame, he contradicted himself, calling Gani Kryeziu a “collaborator of the Nazi-fascists and an enemy of the National Liberation War”. Others, his servile Verbanjakas, have stated that, “Kryeziu’s forces consisted of 30-60 mercenaries, who were shooting hills from a rifle, just to say that they are fighting…! They did any attack enough to make the BBC talk.”
And that allegedly, “in a joint action with the partisan forces, Gani Kryeziu’s mercenaries withdrew, while the partisans continued the fight”, and other such nonsense. The last defamation is addressed to the events of August 19, 1944, when Kryeziu’s nationalist forces attacked the Germans in the Kam, Kepenek and Zogaj mines. These battles, which we have explained and documented in detail above, were the most successful battles that Kryeziu’s forces had conducted during the summer of 1944. But after the war, the communists tried to claim the authorship of this success. For this reason, they reached the point of falsifying archival documents, removing the name of Gani Kryeziu, and presenting this attack, allegedly carried out by partisans, while for Kryeziu’s forces, they said that they “retired”.
These falsifiers also benefited from the fact that the documentation of that time, especially that of the enemy, often did not distinguish Kryeziu’s forces from those of the communists, naming them “Gani Kryeziu’s partisan and communist forces”! It is a pity, when you see how former participants of the Anti-Fascist War manage to falsify the documents of this war, which are kept in the state archives, just to deny the war and the sacrifices of their fellow nationalists. They never managed to affirm the truth about the war that Kryeziu’s forces fought, which gave the freedom of the Motherland three times more martyrs than the “Bajram Curri” battalion, which, until the liberation of Albania, was known as the largest communist partisan unit in the Highlands of Gjakova.
These loyalists of Enver Hoxha, reached there, in the middle of Bytyç province, they erected the most astonishing tombstone that Albania has known, on which these words were written: “From September 3, until October 3, 1944, the forces of the heroic III Brigade, defeated the mercenaries and gave the deserved punishment to the agents of the Intelligence Service, and helped to liberate Tropoja”. According to this funny epitaph, the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Albanian National-Liberation Army, having done “heroism”, by “liberating” Bytyci and Tropoja from the “mercenaries of the Intelligence Service” (we are talking about Kryeziu’s forces. – D.P. ).
And this “heroism” was done to us, from September 3 to October 3, 1944, precisely at the time when it is documented that Kryeziu’s forces fought and shed blood for the liberation of the mineral area: Bytyҫ, Vogovë, Devë. Isn’t this an unscrupulous distortion of the history of the Anti-Fascist War?!
In fact, this epitaph contained in itself a deliberate, absurd and insulting accusation against the Black Chiefs, calling them: “agents and spies” of the English. Enver Hoxha and communist propaganda, as well as historians such as; Arben Puto, Faik Lama, etc., for 45 years in a row, have described the Kryezites as “agents” of the British, bringing as an argument their very good relations with the British during the Anti-Fascist War, 1940-1944.
Unfortunately, the “enverian choir”, which tried to deny and denigrate the Anti-Fascist War and the figure of the Kryeziu brothers, was joined by the historian from Gjakova, Dr. Ali Hadri. This historian with indisputable professional skills, who has browsed through thousands of documents in the archives of Albania and Yugoslavia, on the Anti-Fascist War in Kosovo and Albania, and without any doubt, it must be admitted that he had full knowledge of the undeniable contribution of the Chiefs, in the Anti-Fascist War, in his book: “I bled in the National Liberation Movement”, in a completely irresponsible way, he distorts the facts and historical documents, when he says: “Against the National Liberation Movement, there were also irredentists and followers of Gani Kryeziu, who were under the influence of England, English espionage”!
This author, in about 300 pages of this book, dedicated only one page to the activity and the Anti-Fascist War of the Leaders. Even in those few lines, he only talks about their relationship with the English, paraphrasing some expressions from the book: “No ranks, no distinguishing marks”, by Petër Kemp. And what is worse, in their conclusion, he introduces a very stale lie, typical of communist propaganda, when he says: “The National Liberation Movement tried to convince Gani Kryeziu and Selman Riza to cooperate in the war against the occupier German, but in this regard, no result was achieved, because they did not want to fight, but waited for “liberation” from the western allies, and in this way, to ensure the restoration of the old – the establishment of their feudal-bourgeois power.
The designation of the Chiefs as “agents” in the service of English espionage was used with the purpose of denigrating them. Through such settings, not based on facts and documents, communist propaganda in Kosovo and Albania aimed to tarnish as much as possible the image of the Blacks. They tried to convince people that allegedly, the Kryezins worked and fought only for the interests of the English, or as Enver Hoxha says: “Gani Kryeziu was a tool of Anglo-American imperialism”. This labeling is completely incorrect, tendentious, malicious and too absurd to be believed. It is easily understandable the fact that, in the alliances of that time, between the Chiefs and the English missionaries, the word “agency” has no place. If we were to label the Chiefs agents of the English, then the English officers, such as: Tony Simcox, Peter Kemp, Juljan Emery, etc., we should label them: agents of the Chiefs. Enver Hoxha could more rightly be called an agent, not only of the Serbs, but also of the English, with who stayed and collaborated until the end of 1944.
The malicious tendency of labeling the Chiefs as “agents” is made even more absurd by the fact that, for the relations of the Chiefs with the English, there is abundant and very comprehensible documentation, from which the simple and correct conclusion is reached that, just as the English tried for the interests of their country, to secure the support and support of the Kryezinj, and others, in the war against the Nazi fascists, the Kryezinj, for the interests of their country, tried to secure the support and English support. The cooperation that was achieved between the two parties, and that could be further strengthened in the future, was achieved on the basis of mutual interests. He did not and would not bring any harm to Albania or Kosovo. Therefore, it cannot be called anything other than bilateral cooperation, for the benefit of the war against Nazi-fascism.
In the end, the fact is important that, until today, no one has managed to publish even a single document, which compromises the Black Chiefs, as agents of the realization of any Anglo-American plan, to the detriment of freedom and the independence of Albania and Albanians. The end of the 20th century, with the role played by the Anglo-Americans in the independence of Kosovo, is the best evidence that proves the correctness of the opinion of the leaders that, sooner or later, the role of the Anglo-Americans would be decisive in the solution of the Kosovo problem.
After accusing them of being: “tools of English imperialism, collaborators of the Nazi-fascists, war criminals and collaborators of the Serbian Chetniks, Nedic and Mihajlovic, Enver Hoxha created other absurdities; accused the Blacks as agents connected to the Yugoslav communists. “In Yugoslavia,” he says, “criminals of our people have gathered, those who have served Italian and German fascism, to oppress the Albanian people and are serving the Tito-Rankovic clique.” Such are the agents Gani Kryeziu…etc. These thugs, armed by the UDB and sold for dollars and dinars, sneak into our country to spy, sabotage and kill our patriots”! The absurdity of this accusation is quite clear, due to the fact that, neither in the headquarters, nor in the forces of Kryeziu, there was never a place for any Serb nationalist, nor communist.
The opposite had happened with the communist partisan forces, led by the Albanian communist leadership and Enver Hoxha himself. But these fantastic alibis, of the “Enverian” type, that agents and poly-agents fabricated, whenever their own political interests in power demanded them, were deliberate attempts to denigrate the Black Chiefs and to deceive the people in Kosovo and Albania.
It is not possible that Enver Hoxha did not know that in 1949, Gani Kryeziu, was locked in the cells of the Sremsko Mitrovica prison, and that in 1952, he had been dead for a year. However, his perverted mind “brought Gani Kryeziu out of the grave” and presented him to the people of Shkodra, Kukës and Tropoja, as an organizer of Titista gangs. And he did this, to blacken the image of Gani Kryeziu as much as possible. To neutralize the possible influence of Said Kryeziu, who was in the West, and had become one of the most popular figures of the Albanian emigration, for patriotic and anti-communist activities. As well as, to orient the State Security Party, to keep under strict control, those people and those provinces, who had been connected with the Kryezins. In a word, the criminal hand of the State Security was left free to strike without mercy, anyone who dared to say even a good word about the Kryeznij.
The communist government put pressure, persecuted, imprisoned, exiled and physically annihilated hundreds of comrades-in-arms and sympathizers of Kryezinje;
– Ali Brahim Zherka, prominent nationalist fighter, gang commander in Kryeziu’s forces, battalion commander in the XXV Assault Brigade, known in the Gjakova Highlands and beyond, for bravery and sacrifices in the war against Nazi fascists. He had given the blood and life of his two nephews to the Anti-Fascist War and the freedom of the Motherland; Xhemajl and Zeqir Halili. Immediately after the liberation, as a former comrade-in-arms of Kryeziu and as a man of authority in Bytyç, he faced the pressures and dirty provocations of the people of the State Security. Unable to cope with them, he is forced to leave his homeland and take the escape route with all the family members, leaving his brother’s daughter, 18-year-old Bute Zeneli, killed at the border.
– Rrustem Avdyl Mulosmani, a well-known figure of the Anti-Fascist War in the Highlands of Gjakova. Former member of the partisan battalion, “Bajram Curri” and member of the Presidency of the National Liberation Council for Krasniqe. He had joined the nationalist forces of Kryeziu in July 1944. Two months later, on September 15, 1944, he heroically fell on the battlefield, fighting face to face with the German Nazis. As a former fighter of Kryeziu’s forces and as the son of the well-known anti-communist, Avdyl Qerimi, the communist regime denied the bloodshed and the sacrifices he made for Albania’s freedom. For 45 years, he was not declared a martyr of the Motherland. He killed, imprisoned, exiled and persecuted his family and relatives during all the years of that regime. Memorie.al
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