Anonim
The interviewer: Let’s start with Jasharaj story. How do you remember all that? Who were you with? What were the main topics?
Anonim 6: I’ll start with the story of Jasharaj. It’s been a long time since that period – so 22 years have passed by and it’s impossible to remember every detail and where I was at that time. Most probably I was somewhere in Prishtina, but I cannot tell specifically where I was staying. When we heard the news back then – that was when UÇK came out for the first time… we admired the army. However, the ones from Prishtina were a little out of the whole story but we felt the same and were sensitive about the situation just like the inhabitants of Drenica. What else can one say about them… Adem Jashari’s case is one of the rarest cases in the whole world; a person who sacrifices the whole family for the country.
The interviewer: Do you believe the situation worsened when the bombings started? And, when were you when the bombings started? How do you remember all that?
Anonim 6: The bombings were a result of UÇK’s fighting. Of course, we should not forget to also give credit to Ibrahim Rugova’s party, LDK. Despite the fact that there are people who point out a loose association between these two factors, I wouldn’t view it as such. Each of them played a great role – LDK led by Ibrahim Rugova and Adem Jashari and UÇK of course. That was the reason why the bombings started. After that, the massacre in Reçak happened, and then the Conference of Rambuje. After the Conference of Rambuje, NATO and its allies decided to bombard.
The interviewer: How do you recall the bombings?
Anonim 6: Excuse me?
The interviewer: How do you remember the bombings? Did you see it happen? Did you experience the bombings?
Anonim 6: Yes, I’ve gone through that. I heard the stories of others, listened to the news, and watched TV. It was a period… I have only experienced the bombings for 10 days. So, when it started on the 23rd … was it the 23rd? … I left Prishtina on the 3rd or 4th. A family from Drenica was staying at my house. I gave them shelter for 7 months. The lady was a relative of Adem Jashari, she was from Prekaz. Her husband was a relative of Sulejman Selimi, the commander. So, our family had to kind of disguise…we couldn’t tell about…
The interviewer: You were talking about the family you gave shelter to? How many family members were they?
Anonim 6: They were 7 family members. The man and the woman, the man’s sister and their 4 children, 3 girls and a boy.
Intervistuesja: When did they come to Prishtina?
Anonim 6: Around 6 or 7 months before we all left the houses, the 4th of April. It was almost on the same day we all left. We knew we had to leave the neighborhood. I think they left 1 day before. Some of their relatives came and took them and then they left. We heard they were settled in Struga and we were in Gostivar.
The interviewer: Okay. So you decided to leave on the 4th of April? Was it a collective decision?
Anonim 6: As simple as that. We knew we had to leave and we saw that they had all started to abandon the neighborhood. We also heard from others that the police were raiding the houses and then one night we decided to leave. All of the neighbors gathered in my house – should we leave – we should – then we packed our suitcases in the evening, whatever we could take with us, and left the following morning at 7 or 8. We were on foot…
The interviewer: Could others offer you help since you had young children?
Anonim 6: No, I didn’t need help. We were a young couple and we held our children in our arms and went to the train station.
Intervistuesja: Okay. What do you remember about the train and that journey to…?
Anonim 6: The journey to the train was, fortunately, (fortunately, because I heard from the others that people were maltreated along the way) all good. We got on the train. It was crowded and we were all waiting. Surprisingly nobody attacked us and we went to Bllaca. When we got off the train they warned us to only walk on the railway tracks because the field outside the railway track was mined. We had to walk on the railway track till we got to Bllaca. Then, we arrived in Bllaca…
The interviewer: And you walked on the railway track…
Anonim 6: We walked on the railway tracks. Some recordings exist most probably because it was set by law… their law – if we can call it a law since they created it by themselves… We went to Bllaca…
The interviewer: Can you describe how Bllaca was for the ones who didn’t experience it? What was it like?
Anonim 6: Bllaca? How can one describe it? Like a hive of bees. Even worse than the hive of bees, because the hive is well-organized and you can see who works, who cleans, and who does what. There was no order. It was a mess, but the people were all polite and quiet because they all were dealing with their own troubles. They didn’t have time to cause any problems. Everyone settled in a space of the field with their family and waited until they got a notice to leave; whether they had to leave by train or some of their relatives from Macedonia came to pick them up.
The interviewer: You mentioned that you stayed there the night. How do you recall it?
Anonim 6: I stayed the night in Bllaca. We were lucky to find an empty tent and me and my family slept there. On the following day, a relative came and picked us up and we went to Skopje.
The interviewer: How long did you stay in Skopje?
Anonim 6: We didn’t stay in Skopje, we only had a coffee there because they were not my relatives – they were the relatives of someone we knew. But, they did us a favor. We thought it was too much for us to stay there, so we took a taxi and went to Gostivar. I had some friends from college there. One of them had already invited me to go and stay at his house. I went to his right away. I didn’t have a problem with that.
The interviewer: So, you stayed at his. Was there enough room?
Anonim 6: Yes, he had enough room. He had great conditions. Not only had he had enough room for my family, but also for two or three other families as well. Thanks to God he had great conditions and he gave shelter to all of us until the day the Kumanova agreement was signed.
The interviewer: So, you returned to Kosovo alone, without your family?
Anonim 6: I missed my home so I returned alone. I left my family with their uncles because they too were in Gostivar. I got back. The house was raided. They didn’t take much but it was all checked up by them. I put things in order and started living there.
The interviewer: What was the city of Prishtina like? Or, do you remember what the villages looked like on the way back home?
Anonim 6: To be honest, I didn’t leave the house in 3 days. I wasn’t scared, but I had missed the place. After the third day I started going out in the city and seeing the damages and what had happened.
The interviewer: Okay. Then, did you go to pick up your family or did they return by themselves?
Anonim 6: No, they returned by themselves because their uncle was with them. The uncle was with his family. They returned by themselves…
The interviewer: And everyone got back home… thank you very much.