Silent Crime: The Atrocities of Albanian Quislings Against Serbs and Jews in Kosovo and Metohija in WW2

The exhibition “Silent Crime: The Atrocities of Albanian Quislings Against Serbs and Jews in Kosovo and Metohija in WW2” by Nenad Antonijević, PhD, museum advisor of the Genocide Victims’ Museum in Belgrade, will be opened in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on St Vitus Day, Friday, June 28, 2024, starting at 7 p.m.

Ever since 1878 and the formation of the Albanian League (later known as the First Prizren League), then throughout the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, in Kosovo and Metohija there was a clearly expressed intolerance of the Albanian political, intellectual and economic elite towards to the Serbian people, which escalated into open terror and crimes during extraordinary circumstances (world wars and other armed conflicts) with the presence of foreign military forces. The elite of the Albanian people advocated the idea of creating a “Greater Albania” and in that way ideologically directed the majority of the Albanian population in Kosovo and Metohija, which was mostly rural and had a low level of education.

The goal of the exhibition is to objectively and comprehensively present the suffering of the civilian Serbian and Jewish population in the area of AP Kosovo and Metohija during the period of Italian and German occupation (April 1941 – November 1944) in the context of the state of war and other events in the Second World War. Respecting the historically established facts about the Second World War in occupied Yugoslavia, especially in the area of AP Kosovo and Metohija, the author tried to objectively and empathetically present the suffering of Serbs and Jews in the context of wartime events. Also, in a significant segment of the exhibition, criminals (inspirers, commanders, executors and accomplices) are presented because it is very important to know who they are, and it is especially important to distinguish the degree of responsibility for the crimes committed. It is important to emphasize that entire nations can never be held responsible for the crimes of specific collective organizations and movements, armed formations and individuals.

The realization of the exhibition was made possible by the Ministry of Culture and the Foundation of the Genocide Victims’ Museum, and supported by the Museum of Yugoslavia, the Military Museum, the Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs of AP Kosovo and Metohija “Wreath” and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Priština with its temporary headquarters in Kosovska Mitrovica.