For the 500 Jews who lived in Albanian-dominated Kosovo, the experience was starkly different and many did not survive the war. With the surrender of Italy in September 1943, German forces occupied Albania, Kosovo and other territories that had been annexed to the country. In 1944, an Albanian Waffen-SS division was formed, which arrested and handed over to the Germans a further 281 Jews from Kosovo who were subsequently deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. In late 1944, German forces were driven out of Albania and Communists led by Enver Hoxha came to power in the country. At the same time, Axis forces in the Albanian-annexed regions of Kosovo and western Macedonia were defeated by the Yugoslav Partisans, who subsequently reincorporated these areas int