Tornado of Dust - 1944 The history of Leskovac can be divided
into the period before and after one fateful morning in 1944.
Winston Churchill's envoy to the Yugoslav partisans, Fitzroy
Maclean, has given us his memories of that day: "As the
appointed hour approached, we gathered in a small group on the
hillside and stood waiting. […] A mile or two away we could see
the white houses of Leskovac spread out in the warm autumn
sunshine. In the trees the birds twittered. From a pond came the
occasional croak of a bull-frog. The cornfield buzzed with the
hum of innumerable insects. It would have been hard to conceive
of a more tranquil scene. Standing there waiting, I tried to
think of the German garrison and tank-crews, and not of the
population of small farmers, shopkeepers and railway workers, of
the old people, the women and children who at this moment would
be going about their everyday business in the streets."1 Then
there was "a noise of engines, at first barely audible, then
rapidly growing to a roar and lo