POZITA E SHQIPTARËVE NË FRONTIN E ADRIATIKUT DHE MASAKRA E TIVARIT
THE POSITION OF THE ALBANIANS ON THE ADRIATIC FRONT AND THE TIVAR MASSACRE

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the position of the Albanians on the Adriatic Front and in particular the Massacre of Tivar. During the withdrawal of the German army from the territory of the former Yugoslavia, two fronts were created: the Srem front in Vojvodina and the Adriatic front in the northwest of Yugoslavia. Albanians were recruited to be sent to fight on these fronts while the Serbian brigades strengthened their positions in the territory of Kosovo. A total of 37,424 Albanians were recruited and sent to fight far from Kosovo to fill the Yugoslav units from Kosovo and other ethnic areas. But, in addition to the departure from Kosovo of the Kosovar Brigades, 40 thousand soldiers and elite officers were deployed in Kosovo, whose duty it was to help establish "people's power". During March and April 1945, about 13,000 Albanian conscripts were forcibly expelled from Kosovo and about 5,000 from Macedonia. These recruits were sent unarmed to the Adriatic Front. Prizren was set as the gathering point for these recruits, but it is important to mention the fact that all the Albanian recruits were disarmed on the grounds that they would be tired from the road and that when they arrived the soldiers would be equipped with modern English weapons. This was the first deception that was done to the Albanians, who, mobilized, crossed the road Prizren-Kukës-Shkodër-Tivar-Dubrovnik-Rijeka. Along this road, thousands of Albanians died, according to the survivors, the number of dead or killed during the journey from Prizren to Tivar and in the Tivar Massacre was in the thousands. The Albanians were killed by their fellow Yugoslav partisans, but the local Montenegrin population as well as the Serbo-Montenegrin civilian population who settled as settlers in Kosovo in the 20s and 30s, while they had left, participated in their killing. from Kosovo after the war in April 1941. Finally, we can say that the massacre of thousands of innocent Albanians in the Albanian and Yugoslav territories in 1945, could be one of the biggest crimes against fellow soldiers to fight the common German enemy.

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