Sjenički kraj 1941. godine
The Sjenica Area 1941

Summary/Abstract: The Sjenica region met the Second World War with great economic, cultural and educational backwardness, political and ideological disorientation. The local party leadership was gripped by hypocrisy. The Germans occupied the Sjenica region on April 16, 1941. In some other sources, that date is April 17. Italy tried to make this region part of their occupation zone, which they succeeded by concluding an agreement with Germany in Vienna at the beginning of September 1941. In the meantime, some Muslim leaders called on the Ustasha NDH to occupy the Sjenica region and the entire former Novopazar sandjak with their armed formations. The short-term occupation of the Sjenica region by the NDH caused enormous damage to the relations between Serbs and Muslims by introducing mistrust by implementing discrimination and cruelty towards Serbs, and by favoring Muslims by drawing them into their gendarmerie and arming the Muslim militia. In particular, tragic armed confrontations took place in the area of the municipality of Bare, in the extreme south of the Sienica section. Ustaše and Muslim militia clashed with insurgents against the occupiers and Quislings in Serbian villages, as well as with partisans from the Bjelopolje region, where great human casualties and great material damage were caused. At the end of 1941, the partisans tried to liberate Sjenica and thus expand the free territory with the center in Nova Varoš. The management board of Sjenica, as a civil authority, which had under its command 5000 armed fighters, did not allow the partisans to enter the city with the explanation that after the partisans the occupying Germans and Italians would come and retaliate against the citizens if they let the city go without a fight. Despite this, at the insistence of Milovan Đilas and Petar Stambolic, the partisans attacked Sjenica and suffered a heavy defeat in which they suffered losses of 173 dead, wounded and captured. It was a politically and militarily unprepared attack, even though the partisans included trained officers, but they were not allowed to show their expertise and ability. The President of the Administrative Board of Sjenica, Hasan Zvizdić, made an agreement with the leaders of the Chetniks in the Sjenica region on non-aggression between the Chetniks and the Muslim militia, which was generally respected until the end of the war.

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