Xhem Hasa

Early life

Xhem Hasa was born in the village of Simnica near Gostivar, and grew up in a poor family with many children. During his childhood, up until his early stages of adulthood, Xhem worked as a farmer on his family's farm. The Hasa family experienced first-hand cruelty by the Yugoslav authorities, in particular the gendarmerie, who abused the local population.

Exile in Albania

Hasa murdered the head of the gendarmerie in Gostivar, who had abused the local Albanians, and fled through Mount Korab to Albania where he sought asylum in 1936. He lived on the outskirts of Elbasan, where he was soon joined by two of his brothers, Musli and Abdullah, and their families.

Despite escaping, the Yugoslav authority put pressure on Hasa's family to convince him to return to Yugoslavia, where he would be tried for the murder of the head of police. The authorities jailed two of his brothers along with Hasa's wife and mother. After imprisonment, the family was expelled to Turkey. On the stop to Thessaloniki, they moved to Elbasan and settle with Xhem in Albania.

World War II

After the Italian invasion of Albania, and the commencing of the Greco-Italian War, many Albanians voluntarily joined the war. Among the first were Musliu, Xhem and Abdullah. The three brothers fought in the Battle of Greece in 1941. [After the fall of Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941, Hasa returned to Gostivar, where he gathered local Albanians to form a group of fighters who occupied Gostivar. In the autumn of 1943, Germany occupied all of Albania after Italy was capitulated. The Balli Kombëtar made a deal with the Germans and formed a collaborationist government in Tirana which continued its war with the LNC and Yugoslav Partisans. Xhem Hasa and his battalion was incorporated into the Balli Kombëtar. Hasa's victories in battles led to his elevation as the commander of the Balli Kombëtar in Macedonia.

However, both Yugoslav and Albanian partisans confronted the Ballist forces. When Maqellarë, midway between Debar and Peshkopi, was recaptured by the Fifth Partisan Brigade, the Germans with the assistance of the Hasa's Ballists launched an attack from Debar, defeating the partisans. Fiqri Dine, Xhem Hasa and Hysni Dema as well as three German Majors directed military campaigns against the Albanian and Yugoslav partisans. Hasa was a close acquaintance of Mefail Shehu and would often send troops from Gostivar and Tetovo to aid him.

Death

Yugoslav partisans faced difficulty when fighting Hasa. This resulted in the Yugoslav partisans bribing a close associate of Xhem to assassinate him. On May 6, 1945, Hasa was killed by a close associate. It has been rumored that the associate was his brother in-law. According to another version from Balli co-fighters, he was poisoned (always from his close collaborators on behalf of OZNA) on April 2, 1945. When dead, his head was cut off and sent as proof in Gostivar where it stayed for two days. Balli members managed to retrieve it in order to stop the post-mortem humiliation.

Legacy

Hasa was one of the most famous Ballist Axis Powers collaborators in World War II. Enver Hoxha, Communist leader of Albania, had a great dislike of Hasa and the Ballist movement.

He was referred as a traitor by Albanian Communists; in Mehmet Shehu's words:"People of Kicevo should know that their only way for salvation is to immediately join forces with the Macedonian partisans and to cut off and condemn the traitors as Xhem, Mefail, etc...".

In 2010, the Macedonian Albanians political party New Democracy proposed for a monument of Hasa to be built in Gostivar. One has been erected in his birthplace, the village of Simnica, in 2006.