Radolišta massacre
The Radolišta massacre ( Albanian Ladorisht ) was a war crime committed by the Wehrmacht on October 28, 1944 against Albanians in an occupied area on Lake Ohrid , which is now part of North Macedonia .
Course of events
In the early morning hours of October 28, 1944, German military units surrounded the village of Ladorisht / Radolišta near Struga at the foot of the Jablanica Mountains , which at that time had 1,840 inhabitants. In the previous days there had been attacks by partisans on the road from Struga to Qafë Thana . Although Ladorisht residents were unarmed, at least 84 of them were shot; 71 of them are known by name. The youngest victim was the three year old boy Eshref (Ferit) Lena, the eldest the 84 year old woman Miribane (Tafil) Collaku and the same age Amza (Rakip) Coma. The German occupation of Macedonia and Albania was at this point nearing its end. Macedonia was evacuated by German troops on November 16 and Albania on November 28, 1944. At the time of the massacre , the fortress brigades 1017 and 964 of Army Group E and the 297th Infantry Division were deployed in the area under the command of Lieutenant General Albrecht Baier .
Commemoration
In 1952, a memorial with a cemetery for the murdered was built in the village. In the 1950s, the action was re-enacted in a Yugoslav film. After the end of Yugoslavia, the cemetery and memorial initially fell into disrepair until they were renewed in 2009 on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the massacre.
Sources and references
- ↑ pro-ladorisht.org: Population statistics (.xls file; 65 kB) ( Memento from August 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ pro-ladorisht.org: List of those killed ( Memento from August 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Mennel, Rainer: The Balkans, spheres of influence and interests. Osnabrück 1999, ISBN 3-7648-2521-9 , maps p. 156,168
- ↑ Youtube excerpt
- ↑ ALSAT: Në Ladorishtë zbulohet lapidar për masakrën naziste (October 31, 2009) ( Memento of July 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )