Photo: AgronBeqiriPh The house of Nazi collaborator Dzafer Deva in South Mitrovica is being reconstructed by the EU and UNDP into a Regional Cultural Center. Critics speak of a "shocking", "shameful and anti-civilization" project that "mocks the victims of Nazism"
The reconstruction of the house of "loyal Nazi collaborator" Džafer Deva in the southern part of Kosovo Mitrovica into a Regional Cultural Center was initiated and implemented by the European Union and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This was condemned not only by Serbia, but also by Israel.
The "Kosovo Hitler", whose house is being turned into a cultural center, was an associate of Nazi Germany and most responsible for the persecution of Jews from Kosovo and Metohija during the Second World War. On the first day of the occupation, as the head of the Kosovskomitrova section, he issued a decree confiscating the property of all Jews under his jurisdiction, and sent 500 of them to the Staro Sajmište camp in Belgrade. He was a member of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service. While he was the Minister of the Interior of Greater Albania, a large number of Albanian anti-fascists were killed. He is one of the founders of the Kosovo Regiment, a volunteer militia of Albanians that transformed into the Skanderbeg SS division, known for numerous crimes against Serbs in Peja. After the war he escaped to the USA. Until his retirement, he worked in the administration of Stanford University and organized the anti-communist Albanian diaspora in America. He died in 1978 in San Francisco.
The reconstruction of Deva's house is part of the UNDP project "Cultural heritage as a driver of dialogue between communities and social cohesion", which makes the whole thing even more bizarre.
When asked by the media to explain this activity, UNDP expressed concern over the controversy that connects the past of the building and the current work on "alternatives for the benefit of the local community and dialogue between communities". In the Serbian part of Kosovo, this answer was interpreted as washing the biography of the "Kosovo Hitler". Since the reconstruction began, Kosovo's Defense Minister Armend Mehaj has asked for increased attention from NATO because of "destabilization attempts in the region."
The director of Israel's Simon Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, stated that "the initiative to pay tribute to the devoted collaborator of the Nazis, Jafer Deva, is a mockery of the victims of the Nazis and their local collaborators." He called the project "shocking".
Recalling that "this glorifies one of the proven war criminals from this area from the Second World War", the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade believes that the conversion of that building into the Regional Center for Cultural Activities of South Mitrovica is, to say the least, "a shameful and anti-civilization procedure."
The Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and the Minister of Culture and Information, Maja Gojković, requested that the project be stopped, stressing that it "grossly threatens not only the dignity of the victims of crimes committed during the Second World War and the cultivation of the culture of memory, but also the efforts that are being made today in order to establish a dialogue".
In the northern part of Mitrovica, they do not expect a positive outcome of the protest, because in 2015, the house of Redžep Mitrovica, the Prime Minister of Albania during the time of Nazi Germany, was renovated with the help of the European Union. The curator of the Museum of Genocide Victims, Stefan Radojković, believes that both reconstructions are "promoting the narrative that Kosovo Albanians saved Jews during the Second World War" and that is why 2000 of them ended up in Albania after the liberation, and not the fact that Jews fled to Albania because had a more favorable attitude towards Jews than Nazi Germany.
S.Ć./FoNet/Kosovo-online
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