Anonymous: I cannot remember the dates much…
The interviewer: It’s okay. So, it means before the NATO bombings was your first attempt to leave the country.
Anonymous: It was the first attempt to leave the country but we couldn’t make it. We believed that there would be a second time of the bombing, but then we thought, damn it, maybe they will not bomb once more. The shootings were terrifying. My son was little. I’m not sure, but I believe he was one-year-old, a year, and two or three months old. I was extremely scared. The bombings started and we got locked inside our houses. Then, we were trying to decide what to do whether the gather with the other people but then we had doubts about whether to try to escape because of the traffic jam. Some of my family members were with me; my youngest brother was with me while the oldest one was living abroad. I worried about my parents. I didn’t have the chance to contact my parents because there was no phone signal, so I went to their apartment. My parents refused to come with me. My father was sick so he said that instead of dying on the run he’d rather stay there. He asked me to take my little brother with me. I took my little brother only since the oldest brother was abroad.
The interviewer: With how many cars did you leave? How many people were there approximately?
Anonymous: Well, each car carried around 4-5 people. Our family and other relatives and neighbors had 4-5 people in their cars. We set off. I don’t know how we went out as we were too stressed and frightened. We didn’t take our clothes with us only some basic stuff because we were in a rush. Serbian neighbors were all around our neighborhood and we were frightened. We were scared that they would inform their authorities during the night and that’s why we left as such. As much as I can remember, we set off, and when we arrived at the roundabout at the Medical High School, the paramilitaries stopped us.
The interviewer: Okay. So this was the first time you tried to escape, right?
Anonymous: Yes, this was the first attempt. The paramilitaries were 2 meters tall. My brother-in-law was ahead of us and he got stopped first. We were right after him and the others were after us in line. My father-in-law was in a different direction (you know when you pass the roundabout to enter the highway – close to the Medical High School) and was also stopped by the paramilitaries right at the Medical High School. A big bunker was there; a tank or a bunker I don’t know what that was. They took him in that direction and we were in the other direction. My brother-in-law got stopped so we stopped after him, too. We were all stopped in that traffic and were waiting to see what was about to happen. When… he got out of his car, most probably they asked him to, and they asked him for money. We knew nothing about what was going on, but it’s something he told us afterward. We were staring from inside the car and couldn’t hear a thing but we could only assume. We saw him get out of the car. My mother-in-law was sitting in the back of our car. I think they asked him to open the trunk of the car. He opened it and (*speaks in Serbian) – it means they asked him to put everything he had in the trunk so that they could take it. And I don’t know what he did, most probably he put there all he had. After doing so, I don’t know if he spoke to them or anything but they started hitting on him. They started hitting them with the police rod and also boxing on him. We were simply waiting for our turn and observing what was happening. My husband wanted to go out but I told him not to. I told him not to do so because his turn was next and he could worsen the situation; he would try to protect him and they could shoot at him, so that wouldn’t be the right choice. I told him to stay in because his turn was next. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and my children and my brother were sitting in the back. My children were crying and screaming because they were scared.
The interviewer: They saw the whole scene…
Anonymous: Yes, yes, yes. They were young, my son doesn’t remember a thing because he was only 1 year and two-three months old, but my daughter, who was four, remembers it all. I remember that my mother-in-law didn’t see the whole scene going on behind us since she didn’t turn around to see what was happening. Suddenly, when she turned around and saw what was going on she went out trying to protect her son. I can vividly recall the moment when they pushed her head against the car. The poor woman took out all the money she had from her breast. She gave them all she had as a sign to let her son go. When they saw the money she had they asked my brother-in-law to get there and grabbed my mother-in-law by her head and forced her to get inside the car. They released them afterwards. My brother-in-law got inside the car. Then, it was our turn. They came to our car and asked my husband (*speaks in Serbian) – which means what are you waiting for, get out. He went out of the car. I was shaking. My husband had given me a sum of money telling me I could need them if anything happens and we get separated and won’t see each other. I told him not to because I would be with him wherever he’d go. He insisted I take the money because what if I’d end up with the children in a different place from him. I didn’t want to accept the money but he insisted. He had put the money inside a box and told me to keep it. As soon as he went outside the car he started hitting him with the machine gun right on the head (boom-boom) and put him down. Perhaps he was feeling numb at that moment since you wouldn’t be able to feel the pain because of the fear. When they hit on him he stood up immediately. They hit him again on the head and his head was cut and started bleeding. He stood up again. I don’t know if he started speaking with them but one of them got inside our car. I was sitting in the front passenger seat… the policeman, I remember his face vividly to this day, he had blue eyes, a had, and with a machine gun sat on my husband’s seat. He sat down and pointed the machine gun right here. He said (*speaks in Serbian) what are you waiting for you bitch, (*speaks in Serbian) give me all you have. It might sound funny but I was too stressed as my right hand and leg were jumping like this and I wasn’t able to put my hand in the pocket and give it to him. My brother told me to give the money to him and I couldn’t even turn my head around. I told my brother I couldn’t get the money because my hand was shaking. My hand and leg were shaking like this. I will never forget that moment. Somehow I managed to get the money, I gave it to him without looking at him (*speaks in Serbian) – which means I am telling you to give me the money. I told him I didn’t have any more money. When I told him as such that’s when he understood that the money is inside that box, because I gave him the box which was a medicine box. When I told him I didn’t have any more money that’s when he understood the money is inside the box and most probably he thought I was joking around with him or God knows what that idiot could’ve thought. When I told him (*speaks in Serbian) my brother sitting in the back said that he was waiting for the moment he would do something to me, touch me, or anything, and he would react. If he would react he would kill us all there. I told him not to say anything or react. He took the money and went out. He took everything we had. They then told my husband (*speaks in Serbian) to get in the car while swearing at him telling him the children were crying. He got in the car and the same thing happened with the cars behind us except they didn’t hit on them they just took the money. My father-in-law on the other side was also beaten up but then released. He got in the car and we were waiting. All of a sudden they started breaking the windows of the car with the police metal rod. As we were waiting inside the car they hit and broke all the windows boom-boom. I was creaming out and telling my brother to protect the children. I told him to cover their eyes because if a piece of glass would get in their eyes it would get them blinded for life. I was telling him to protect their eyes… cover their eyes. He told me he was doing so. My daughter was crying. My son, too, but since my daughter was older she was more aware of it and got traumatized. She was traumatized to the point she didn’t want to pass the border back to Kosovo because she thought the same thing would happen again. After all the cars’ windows were broken, it was cold, they told us to move and leave. The windows were all broken and it was windy. When we arrived in Llapnasella there were the militaries, not the paramilitaries, the militaries. When they saw us in that condition they asked us where we were heading to like that, and they spoke in Serbian. We didn’t know what to tell them but we said that we were trying to get somewhere. They asked us to go back because we weren’t in a good condition to travel. We turned back. We then separated from the others because we were afraid to spend the night at home. I went to some of my relatives, my brother-in-law went someplace else, and my parents-in-law to another place, and just like that we separated to spend the night somewhere in order to decide what to do on the following day. We spent the night there but we couldn’t really rest. At the family I was staying with some other relatives fot there and told them to leave the house immediately since the Serbians are getting in tonight. So, I had to move along with them. I didn’t know anything about the other family members. I didn’t know anything about my parents because the last time I saw them was before the paramilitaries maltreated us; when I got there to take my little brother. But, I don’t know how my mother found out about how they had maltreated us…. Oh, or it was because when we returned after that scene we took my brother back home. When the military turned us back we took my brother home. We only left him there at the parking and he must’ve told them what had happened afterwards. So, I didn’t know a thing about my parents. When my mother found out about all that, she tried to find us since we lost touch. She knew what happened to us because my brother told them. She then went to our house but the house was empty, nobody was there. She was trying to find us. In the meantime, on the following days, my parents were forced to leave the apartment and I didn’t know where they were. They had spent the night at my uncle’s, then… in the meantime, while my mother was trying to find me, my brother and father were forced to leave the apartment. So, when my mother got back she didn’t know where my father and brother were. She didn’t know a thing about her husband, her son, and her daughter. It was a big mess. The second time… I don’t how we got ready to leave because we didn’t have any cars. We left our broken cars in the garages and didn’t have a vehicle to escape. Then, we got in our neighbors’ car – they were 4 of them – the husband, the wife, their daughter and son. The car was small and I don’t know what kind of car that was. Plus, it was me, my husband and our children. We were 8 in total. We set off to Macedonia. My brother-in-law also tried to escape I don’t who he was with, I believe he was with my parents-in-law since my father-in-law’s car wasn’t broken – only the windows of our car and my brother-in-law’s were broken. So, my brother-in-law and my parents-in-law were all in a car; my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, their two children, and my parents-in-law. We were in our neighbor’s car and we set off to Tetova, or Macedonia, this was the second time… or not, the second time was when we were trying to escape with the relatives of the relatives we spent the night at. At the border in Tetova we waited for a long time, almost the whole night staying inside the cars. We couldn’t cross the border so we turned back to Prishtina. So, that was the second time. The third time was this one when we tried to leave together with my in-laws. We set off with two cars – their car and the car of our neighbor. Then, we waited in Elez Han. When we arrived at Elez Han…it was the sixth day my mother-in-law didn’t take her dialysis treatment so she started feeling worse. The line was too long. When we arrived there we figured out that people had been waiting there for a week or two. They all had gotten inside the houses in Elez Han cooking food for their children. They had to because the line got stuck, it blocked, and they didn’t let them leave. We waited as much as we could there, but then my brother-in-law walked for I don’t know how many kilometers to the border. He walked till there to speak to the colonel or someone there about my mother-in-law’s condition and that she needed to be treated immediately in Skopje. He walked for many kilometers and got to the border. So, it means he walked from Elez Han or even before we got to Elez Han since the line was long, I don’t know how many kilometers that is. We were waiting there and then he returned there with the colonel, by their car. He told us to get inside our cars, but only my parents-in-law were able to pass the border. They went to the border by car and we were still stuck in that line. But, we weren’t as far behind the line as in the beginning since we were able to get closer because of my parents-in-law… they passed the border and waved us goodbye. We didn’t know what would happen next or whether we would be able to see each other again – whether we would cross the border or go back. Fortunately, as soon as they passed the border on foot, a taxi there or I don’t know what that was took them to Skopje because she was not in a good condition… we also passed the border then. After a few hours, they got an order to let some cars pass the border, not the whole line but only the first 10 cars. We were one of those first 10 cars, we crossed the border and got settled in Veleshta. My parents-in-law were in Skopje and we still didn’t know what had happened. But, my husband and my brother-in-law went then to Skopje to check on them. We got accommodated at my father-in-law’s relatives and we stayed there…
The interviewer: For how long did you stay there?
Anonymous: Well, if we got there at the beginning of April, it means that we stayed there during April, May, and June – for 2 months and a half. Two months and a half because Prishtina got liberated on the 18th or on the 12th – on the day when Prishtina got liberated, either on that day or on the following day, I am not sure, my husband immediately returned back to Kosovo. We were still all staying there because my husband went to Kosovo to see how the situation was, whether the house was in a good condition, and see how things were around the house and in the area. We had given our house’s key to our neighbors. We had left a lot of food in the house and had told them to take whatever they needed… but the house was just as we left it. There was nothing missing, but even if it did nobody cared about it, the most important part was to have a place to live. Then, it didn’t take long when we all turned back home, I don’t know when maybe after 2 or days. On the way back we had trouble with my daughter because she was scared to get back home. Until recently when the police stopped us in traffic she would start crying. We tried to convince her that now everything is over but she would only say “The police, the police, the police” – even when they stopped us because of the speed or anything else she would start crying and was out of her senses. I wasn’t aware back then that I needed to treat her and take her to a psychologist. We didn’t know she was traumatized. This didn’t happen with my son because he was only 1 year and two-three months old so he forgot all about it, but my daughter was in a bad condition.
The interviewer: Thank you very much!