Jerusalem's Simon Wiesenthal Center Director Zuroff protests over renovation of Xhafer Deva's house in Kosovo

The plan is to turn the residence into a regional cultural center. This will pay tribute to an individual who played a prominent role in the Nazi occupation of parts of Serbia and in recruiting Albanians for service in the Waffen SS Division - Dr. Efraim Zuroff said, commenting on the EU and UN plan to reconstruct the home of Albanian Nazi collaborator Xhafer Deva in South Mitrovica

The director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, has sent a letter of protest to the head of the European Union delegation to Israel, Dimitar Tsanchev, because of a plan to renovate Xhafer Deva's house in South Mitrovica, stating that Deva is a symbol of cooperation of Albanians with the Nazis and that such a figure should not be honored.

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In the letter that Kosovo Online has had access to, Zuroff states that he is afraid that the possible transformation of Deva's residence into a regional cultural center will have the opposite effect, given the identity of its former owner.

"We have just learned that the European Union and the United Nations Development Program have undertaken to reconstruct and renovate the home of the notorious Albanian Nazi collaborator Xhafer Deva in South Mitrovica, in Kosovo. The plan is to turn the residence into a regional cultural center. Given the identity of its prominent former tenant, it is likely to have the opposite effect, as honor will be shown to an individual who played a prominent role in the Nazi occupation of parts of Serbia and in recruiting Albanians for service in the Waffen SS Division," Zuroff wrote.

He recalled that Deva had an active role in fighting against anti-Nazi Serbian and Albanian partisans, as well as in the persecution and deportation of hundreds of Jews to the Sajmiste concentration camp.

In addition, Zuroff reminds that as the minister of the interior in the collaborationist government of Rexhep Mitrovica, Deva was responsible for the persecution and murder of many Serbs.

"Deva is a symbol of the cooperation of Albanians with the Nazis and of the role they played in the crimes against Serbs and Jews. Such a person should not be honored, nor should his residence be turned into a regional cultural center, because his deeds symbolize an extremist genocidal ideology," Zuroff stated in his letter sent to the EU delegation, Tanjug reported.

The director of the Israel-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, said yesterday that the initiative to renovate the house of Xhafer Deva, a loyal Nazi collaborator, is mocking the victims of the Nazis and of their local collaborators.

(Telegraf.rs)