The history of the Jews in Kosovo largely mirrors that of the history of the Jews in Serbia, except during the Second World War, when Kosovo, as part of Kingdom of Albania, was under Italian control and later under German control. The other exception is following the Kosovo War of 1999, when the province began its political separation from Serbia. Ottoman rule Prior to the Ottoman Turkish conquest of the region, documentation on the Jews of the Balkans was sketchy. The Jewish communities of the Balkans were boosted in the 15th and 16th centuries by the arrival of Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire welcomed the Jewish refugees into his empire. Jews became involved in trade between the various provinces in the Ottoman Empire, becoming especially important in the salt trade. The 1455 Turkish cadastral tax census of the Branković lands (covering 80% of present-day Kosovo) recorded 1 Jewish dwelling in Vučitrn. An Austrian statistic published in 1899 estimated: Albanians: (48%) Serbs: (44%) Remaining 8%: Tsintsars, Turks, Circassians, Romani, and Jews Yugoslavian rule In the aftermath of World War I, Serbia merged with Montenegro, and then united with the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was soon renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The largely Albanian-populated Kosovo was included within Serbia. At the time, some 500 Jews resided in Kosovo. The 1921 population census for the territories comprising modern-day Kosovo listed 439,010 inhabitants: By religion: Muslims: 329,502 (75%) Serbian Orthodox: 93,203 Roman Catholics: 15,785 Jews: 427 Greek Catholics: 26 World War II and The Holocaust In 1941, Kosovo was incorporated into the Italian-ruled Greater Albania. In July 1943, when Italy left the war, the Germans took control of Kosovo. In 1944, communist partisans recaptured Kosovo from Albania and made it part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Deportations and death / survival figures Critical evaluation of all reference materials listed below should be skillfully employed to filter possible internal bias within the source. Current literature indicates five sets of numerically recorded deportations from Kosovo: 1) August 1941, Mitrovica, under German occupation, 88 Jews are reported to have been sent to Sajmiste Concentration Camp near axis occupied Belgrade where they were killed. Prior to deportation all Jewish men in Mitrovica / Mitrovice are alleged to have been arrested, while women were sent to daily forced