Nazi-collaborator monuments

Nazi collaborator monuments in North Macedonia

In 2019, the United Macedonia Diaspora petitioned the U.S. State Department for aid in pressuring North Macedonia to remove their memorials

Aqif Krosi Recani statue, Recani. Photo by Sasha Uzunov

nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-macedonia

By Lev Golinkin January 27, 2021

This list is part of an ongoing investigative project the Forward first published in January 2021 documenting hundreds of monuments around the world to people involved in the Holocaust. We are continuing to update each country’s list; if you know of any not included here, or of statues that have been removed or streets renamed, please email [email protected], subject line: Nazi monument project.

Simnica — Below, a statue of Xhem Hasa (1908–1945), aka Xhem Gostivari, commander of the Nazi-allied Balli Kombëtar, the Albanian nationalist paramilitary that occupied western Macedonia during WWII. The statue was unveiled in 2006.

Left: Xhem Hasa. Right: Hasa statue, Simnica. Photo by Sasha Uzunov

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Aqif Krosi Recani statue, Recani. Photo by Sasha Uzunov

Recani (Gostivar region) — A statue of Aqif Krosi Recani (1904–1946), another Balli Kombëtar commander, was unveiled in his hometown in 2015. In 2019, the United Macedonia Diaspora petitioned the U.S. State Department for aid in pressing North Macedonia to remove the statues of Hasa and Recani. (Thanks to Sasha Uzunov for images and information on both statues.)

Lev Golinkin is the author of “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,” Amazon’s Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. A graduate of Boston College, Golinkin came to the U.S. as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time.com, among others; he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.