Over the centuries, Kosovo’s territory has belonged to different states (Serbia, Ottoman Empire, Yugoslavia). Since 2008, Kosovo has been an independent republic with partial diplomatic recognition. During World War II, the country was occupied by Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria. It is estimated that 1,000 Roma were killed.
Roma in Kosovo before World War II
The first mentions of Roma on the territory of Kosovo were recorded in Prizren and Dečani [Albanian: Deçan] and date from the 14th century. When Kosovo became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1459, the Roma minority were among the groups which had particular tax and other obligations towards the Ottoman authorities. Roma lived mostly in the urban areas of Prizren, Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica [Albanian: Mitrovica]. According to Ottoman documents, they were engaged mainly in blacksmithing, but also in horse dealing, fortune-telling and other occupations. Roma also served in armed auxiliary units of the Ottoman army. In the 19th century, the majority of the Kosovan Roma were settled, while smaller groups travelled as traders, artisans and seasonal workers. According to a survey conducted in 1853, there were 603 Romani households in Prizren alone.1Crowe, A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe, 195–196, 199, 209, 268.
After the First Balkan War (1912), most of the territory of Kosovo was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia (Kosovo, Prizren) and the Kingdom of Montenegro (part of Metohija [Albanian: Dukagjini], Peć [Albanian: Peja] and Đakovica [Albanian: Gjakova]). During World War I, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops occupied Kosovo, which became part of the Yugoslav state (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; since 1929 Kingdom of Yugoslavia) after the war. The area was divided administratively and territorially into the Zeta, Morava and Vardar Banovinas.
According to the census of 1931, 12,792 Roma were registered on the territory of Kosovo, including 5,514 in the areas of Zeta Banovina (Đakovica: 1,812; Istok: 830; Kosovska Mitrovica: 1,274; Peć: 1,598), 887 Roma in Morava Banovina (Vučitrn: 656; Podujevo: 231) and 6,391 Roma in Vardar Banovina (Gnjilane: 3,368; Gračanica: 2,191; Kačanik: 97; Prizrenski Podgor: 26; Šar Planina: 709). The majority of Roma was of Muslim faith (around 98%); only a small proportion was Orthodox (2%) or Roman Catholic (>1%).2Publikationsstelle Wien, Die Gliederung, 177–217, 307–351, 379–411.
Under Italian and German Occupation
In April 1941, the Axis powers under the leadership of Nazi Germany occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the territory of Kosovo remained under control of Italy (annexed to so-called Greater Albania), Germany (the northern parts with Kosovska Mitrovica [Albanian: Mitrovica] became part of German-occupied Serbia) and Bulgaria (around eight per cent of the eastern parts). With the beginning of 1943, the activity of the anti-fascist partisans under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) increased in this area and became a significant concern for the occupation authorities.
After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the former Italian zone was occupied by the Wehrmacht. From May 1944, the newly founded 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS (Schutzstaffel) ‘Skanderbeg’, which consisted predominantly of Albanians under German command, was active in this area and committed many crimes. In October 1944, the Germans began to withdraw from the Kosovo area, while Albanian Ballists (forces of the nationalist and anti-communist movement Balli Kombëtar) still resisted. It took until March 1945 for the partisans to gain control of the whole Kosovan territory, which after the war became an autonomous province within the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.
Persecution of Roma
The current state of historiographical research does not allow reliable conclusions about the intensity of the persecution of Kosovan Roma by the various occupation authorities. While the Roma in the German-occupied northern part of Kosovo were subject to the repressive regulations of the Military Commander in Serbia, little is known about their implementation in this area. With respect to the larger Italian-occupied zone (Greater Albania), there are no signs of a targeted anti-Roma policy. It is likely that most casualties among Kosovan Roma were caused by the increasing German anti-partisan and retaliation measures after the Italian capitulation. However, the lists of war victims compiled by Yugoslav socialist authorities, as the 1964 victim census, do not include any individuals identified as Kosovan Roma. The same applies to the estimates of the Museum of Genocide in Belgrade.3Muzej žrtava genocida. “Stradali Jugoslavije.” The approximate total number can be roughly estimated, with certain reservations, with the help of alternative methods. Based on demographic comparisons of pre- and post-war censuses, the statistician Bogoljub Kočović (1920–2013) and the demographer Vladimir Žerjavić (1912–2001) have estimated that around 1,000 Roma were killed in Kosovo during World War II.4Kočović, Žrtve, 67–71; Žerjavić, Population Losses, 150–158.
So far, historical knowledge about the situation of the Roma population in occupied Kosovo comes exclusively from personal reports of Roma survivors and their descendants. In their pioneering studies, Donald Kenrick (1929–2015) and Grattan Puxon (born 1939) quoted from personal correspondence with the Kosovan Roma Raif Maljoku (biographical data unknown) and Kuna Cevcet (biographical data unknown).5Kenrick and Puxon, The Destiny, 120–123; ibid., Gypsies under the Swastika, 74–76. In the 1990s and 2000s, two interview projects followed.6Fings et al., “… einziges Land,” 78–82; Polansky, One Blood, vol. III, 149–289. The results are only of limited value in constructing a historical narrative, however, because many of the descriptions of events are vague or even erroneous with regard to perpetrators, location and time. This applies in particular to the extensive volume of interviews by Paul Polansky (1942–2021).
Nevertheless, the material offers an insight into the suffering of individual Roma, including hunger, forced labour, looting and burning of property, rape, torture and murder. Kosovan Roma were also among the deportees to various camps in occupied Yugoslavia (Berane camp in Montenegro, Merdare camp, Pristina prison, Jasenovac camp in the Independent State of Croatia) and Nazi Germany (Buchenwald, Mauthausen and various forced labour camps).
In total, the interview testimonies mention three large-scale massacres in Preševo [Albanian: Preshevë], Bivoljak [Bivolak] and Prizren, but the information has yet to be verified by archival documentation. In all three cases, Roma were not targeted exclusively, but together with their non-Roma neighbours, which suggests that they fell victim to indiscriminate German anti-partisan or retaliation measures.7Fings et al., “… einziges Land,” 80; Polansky, One Blood, vol. III, 238–239 and 244–245. Further research is needed in this field.
Resistance and Roma Partisans
During the occupation of Kosovo, Roma resisted the occupying authorities and their helpers in various ways, be it by hiding, fleeing to forests and mountains, changing personal identity, rescuing others or joining armed partisan units. For the historiography on this topic, however, the same methodological problems (insufficient state of research, knowledge based exclusively on unofficial memories and oral history) apply as in the case of the persecution of Roma in Kosovo.
Among officially recognised examples of resistance are the deeds of the Kosovan Romni Hajrija Imeri Mihaljić (biographical data unknown) who saved a Jewish child and was honoured by Yad Vashem as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in 1991. The Rom Ljatif Sucuri (1915–1945) is said to have rescued the Roma of German-occupied Kosovska Mitrovica twice thanks to his personal acquaintance with the Albanian police chief of the town. The same contact, however, cost him his life after the liberation, when partisans shot him on the basis of a denunciation.
Kosovan Roma also took part in the anti-fascist partisan movement. After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the partisans briefly liberated the area before the German military occupation began, after which an increasing number of Roma joined partisan units like the People’s Liberation Unit ‘Emin Duraku’. Among the armed Roma partisan fighters, Durmish Aslano (unknown–1944) stood out and became an integral part of the collective memory of Kosovan Roma.
According to the interview testimony of the Romni Djemilja Alija (born 1927) from Donja Dubnica [Albanian: Dumnica e Poshtme] in the Municipality of Podujevo [Albanian: Besianë], there was at least one woman among the Kosovan Roma partisan fighters. Alija’s father-in-law’s sister Nada (around 1923–unknown) joined the partisans at the age of eighteen and fought for almost four years. She was finally captured and tortured by the German occupants. She managed to survive the war, but her health remained permanently damaged.8Polansky, One Blood, vol. III, 261.
Apart from armed fighting, Kosovan Roma also operated as civilian informants and secret collaborators of the partisans. The Rom Hasan Ibrahim (also called Hasani Brahim in older literature) (around 1907–unknown), who apparently had not been registered as a ‘Gypsy’ by the occupying forces, worked as a mechanic in a Wehrmacht garage for repairing military vehicles and storing petrol in German-occupied Kosovska Mitrovica. According to a survivor’s recollection, Ibrahim began in 1943 to secretly support the partisans by providing them with petrol and preparing petrol bombs. Furthermore, he twice set fire in the garage, which led to considerable damage. In 1944, Hasan Ibrahim fled to the mountains and joined a partisan unit, in which he fought until the end of the war. Afterwards, he returned to his former workplace.9Kenrick and Puxon, The Destiny, 121–122; ibid., Gypsies under the Swastika, 75–76.
In January 1945, a general mobilisation was carried out in the liberated parts of Kosovo and three brigades were set up to take part in the liberation of the remaining occupied parts of Yugoslavia. At least one Roma soldier was among the hundreds of Kosovan conscripts who died in action during the last months of the war.10Antonijević, “Ratni zločini,” 602–606.
After 1945
In the first post-war census of 1948, 11,230 Roma were listed in the autonomous oblast of Kosovo and Metohija (part of the People’s Republic of Serbia).11Konačni rezultati popisa, XIV, 343–347. In socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovan Roma were not part of the official remembrance discourse, either as victims of fascism or as members of the partisan movement.
Beginning in the 1960s, however, a strong Roma cultural and educational movement developed in Kosovo. On 18 April 1969, Kosovan Roma activists founded the ‘Cultural and Artistic Society “Durmiš Aslano”’ [Kulturno-umetničko društvo ‘Durmiš Aslano’] in Prizren, which apart from organising cultural events and educational programs elaborated an alphabet of Romanes and published the magazine Romano alav [Roma Word].12Lichnofsky, Ethnienbildung, 104–105; Abercrombie, Mixing, 33–34. The organisation was named in honour of the above-mentioned Roma partisan Durmish Aslano. In today’s Prizren, a street and a school are named after him, too.
On the other hand, Kosovan Roma became collateral victims of political conflicts between Albanians and Serbs, notably in the 1980s, 1990s and in 2004. This led to mass crimes against them as well as flight and expulsion from the area, especially in connection with the Kosovo War of 1998 to 1999. In its aftermath, Romani cultural matters, including the commemoration of the suffering during World War II, were completely suppressed from official discourse.
After the declaration of independence in 2008, the situation changed slightly, and Roma activism revived step by step. The Roma intellectual Kujtim Paçaku (1959–2018) initiated a campaign for the recognition and commemoration of the genocide of the Roma by the Kosovan authorities and often spoke publicly on the subject. In recent years, Roma organisations like ‘Opre Roma Kosovo’ [English: Stand up, Roma of Kosovo] launched further campaigns for an official recognition of 2 August as European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma by the Republic of Kosovo. They are supported by national (Embassy of Kosovo in Hungary) as well as international institutions (European Roma Institute of Arts and Culture).13“Opre Roma Kosovo” and “Joint Statement.”
