Pristina renews the project of renovating the Nazi collaborator Xhafer Deva's house

Kosovo's Ministry of Culture planned 300,000 euros in the 2023 budget for the renovation of Xhafer Deva's house in South Mitrovica, Koha reports.

Thus, the project, which at the beginning of this year caused great controversy among the public, both in Kosovo and more widely in the region and part of the international public, is again in the plan of Kosovo's Ministry of Culture.

The Minister of Culture Hajrulla Ceku has previously promised that the project would continue and responded strongly to those who criticized the renovation of Deva's house, who was a collaborator of the Nazis during World War II.

One of those who criticized was the German Ambassador to Kosovo, Jorn Rohde.

He pointed out then that he was very concerned about the renovation of Deva's house and explained that Germany did not have a problem with the idea of historic houses restorations but with the problematic character of Deva.

Rohde also said that Deva, apart from being a Nazi collaborator, was also a member of the infamous SS "Skanderbeg" division and reminded that that division exterminated Jews in Kosovo, in which Xhafer Deva also participated.

The German ambassador then added that he had read several books about the German occupation in Albania talking about Deva, and that Swiss, Albanian and American historians also stated that without him, the SS "Skanderbeg" division would not have been formed.

"Deva was also an associate of the German intelligence service. No change of history! Do not distort the truth about the Holocaust or the war crimes committed by the Nazis and local collaborators. The culture of memory and the preservation of cultural heritage must be understood as opportunities to face the past in an open, truthful way. The German Embassy is ready to support any reasonable approach to the culture of remembrance in Kosovo. This is a culture of remembrance in the wrong way," Rohde said.

After that, Ceku told Rohde that the renovation of that house was not a historical revisionism.