Kaltrina Zhushi
The interviewer: Welcome to this interview Kaltrina. Can you please introduce yourself?
Kaltrina Zhushi: I am Kaltrina Zhushi and I am 28 years old. I was born in Berlin but I lived in Kosovo for most part of my life. I am a sociologist and I work as a projects coordinator at Women’s Network. I live in Prishtina with my mother and sister…
The interviewer: Can you please tell us about the memories you have during wartime in 1997?
Kaltrina Zhushi: As I mentioned, I was born in Berlin and I lived there for the first 3 years of my life. My parents thought the situation in Kosovo was stable and they decided to return here in 1997. I started going to the daycare center. I went to daycare for 4 months. My parents discussed the options of living in Kosovo or returning back to Germany, but they decided to stay in Kosovo so then I got enrolled in daycare. They believed the situation will get better and it will calm down – they thought the financial crisis will pass. Plus, they had some savings but after 3 or 4 months they came to see it is not quite safe to stay there. I went to my daycare center every day in Ulpiana. We didn’t whether we should leave or not because the rumors about a possible war were out there. The situation got worse and my parents knew that the savings from Germany are not sufficient because they also helped the relatives since most of them weren’t working. They also bought food. But, they decided to return to Germany although the plan was to stay here if possible. They made that decision really fast. I stopped going to daycare and after a week the illegal travelling arrangement to Hungary – to move then to Germany – was made. They had the intention to either move to Germany and pick up where we left off or find a way to go to America.
The interviewer: Tell us about the travelling.
Kaltrina Zhushi: The travelling… I actually only remember a few sequences that I can connect with the whole stories that my mother and father tell – they complement my pieces. I remember I had short curly hair and some Mickey Mouse Clothes. I always wore those clothes because I loved them. We set off with some of my personal stuff, my father had a big bag full of stuff, and my mother did the same. While setting off my father told me “Tina, we are going to pass by some policemen and I want you to only speak in German if they ask you about anything – don’t speak in Albanian”. The thing was that my parents found a connection through some thieves, If I can call them as such, they were Albanians from Germany, and they organized ways to pass the border from Serbia to Hungary, and then from Hungary to other countries. They insisted we didn’t look like Albanians. My mom and dad were quite young and they were so cool. They tried to look like Germans with their style. My dad… I think it was September or October when we left. My dad had some socks with some types of sandals that were German-style. My mom had some leggings, and I was dressed in more like a hippie style. I remember then we had to pass the border in Hungary after we passed Serbia… they first stopped me and my mother. My dad and some other men were stopped separately. I remember we were in the car boot when we passed the border. It was me, my mom, and another woman with a child. My mom says that the situation wasn’t as calm as I remember it, but I was calm. The other two kids were crying. I don’t know how long it lasted, perhaps for a little while till we passed the border. We didn’t want to be seen. I remember a scene, I remember myself when they just took us to the woods. Our mothers were crying and looking for their husbands. Those men told my mother that they’d meet my dad on the train. I don’t remember much from this part – I don’t know if we got on a train. But, I know I first saw my dad in a kind of small cantonment – like container. There were like that used for 20-30 families in the middle of the woods. The windows were blocked with some wood planks so they didn’t notice there were people staying in. We were isolated and locked until they decided we left. I remember we stayed there for 2 or 3 days. You could see the rats running over the beds. I was scared of those mice. My dad tried to calm me down and told me they were some type of Mickey Mouse. I had the clothes that I loved Mickey Mouse so my dad told me they were just like Mickey Mouse but they are not in a cartoon. Among other scenes, this is the one I hardly remember… I only know some parts of what I talked to my parents about. I remember they once brought some cartons of milk because the children were crying, and women also. I know my dad once mentioned that people there lacked humanity. Men started fighting, they ripped off the cartons and drank it alone; they wouldn’t give it to their children or women. It was a terrible moment. From there, I remember myself in prison. It was like a check-in point where we had to hand in all our personal stuff. For example, they got my toys and my bag – in another box, you had to put your jacket, in another one your jeans, till you reached to your underwear. When I was in Kosovo I got my ears pierced and my grandparents gifted me a pair of earrings. The police took my golden earrings. I cried a lot and shouted that those were the earring my grandparents bought for me and that I wanted them back. While crying and walking out I saw some toasted bread, most probably I was hungry, and I ate the toasted bread – I told my mother I loved the bread, and she asked me whether there was any spread. That was the staff’s leftovers. I don’t know how we got out but I know they set us free. Another group was left there. That was a 24 – 48 hours stay. I don’t know who intervened but…
The interviewer: Do you remember the prison bars?
Kaltrina Zhushi: I do. I remember it was a small room with some steel beds – it was all steel; the beds, the washbasin, and everything. I remember the whole procedure when they took off my earring, and…
The interviewer: They let you go after a day?
Kaltrina Zhushi: A day and a half, maybe two. I remember that when we got out a man with an Italian style came to pick us up. He was wearing a satin shirt and some glasses. He greeted my parents. He was an Albanian married to a Romanian woman. One of those “thieves” who helped with illegal transportation. He told my dad “Beke, we need to go straight to a clothing store to buy some clothes because you can’t look like this – untidy. You’re coming to my place.” Beke is my father’s name. He said, “You’re coming to my house to take a shower, change your clothes, and do your hair, and then you can leave in order not to look suspicious”. That was my first time on a cabriolet. It was so fancy. They bought me some toys and some clothes. I always loved some “Milche” chocolates, something I didn’t have in Kosovo but I always mentioned them and wanted them so badly. That man filled my whole bag with those chocolates. Then we set off from Romania by that cabriolet. In fact, it was from Hungary… or I don’t know, maybe we returned to Romania to take his wife back there. Then, we continued to Germany. They agreed to pretend we were having a field trip and that we were friends. Nobody stopped us. We arrived in Berlin. My aunt lived there. She was a refugee but she was going through a documentation procedure since she went there in 1993. My parents had already learned the language because we lived there for 3-4 years. I spoke German as well. I could understand only a bit because I was 3 or 3 and a half. When we arrived that day my mom told my aunt they had to put me in a shower and remove the lice. My hair got full of lice while staying in that cantonment. They took me to the camp’s bathroom. Back then the bathrooms in the camps were shared bathrooms. They cut my hair short. I got sad about it and I cried. I didn’t know what lice were. I didn’t understand…
The interviewer: Why they were cutting…
Kaltrina Zhushi: … why they were cutting my hair. I remember my mom was all worried about putting everything in order before we went to the police and declare asylum. I told her, okay you cut my hair but where are my earrings. I never got them back. All I remember from that period was that I got my ears pierced two or three weeks ago and then I was left without my earrings. I have a picture with those earrings and the twin tails hairstyle. Then, I only remember we were taken to an apartment where other people from Balkan were staying. I started making friends with Roma from Serbia and Bosnians. I could also speak Bosnian back then. Also, that was the first time I had a bunk bed. It felt luxurious – I could sleep in both beds. They then took us to another camp from there. After that in the year 2000…
The interviewer: Can you tell us what was the camp like, how did it function? Do you remember it?
Kaltrina Zhushi: It was a building, a social housing, where refugees stayed. There were places where this kind of “camp” only had some rooms, like a studio – a room with a living room and a bedroom for a family. You had a small kitchen. The living room and the kitchen were all at once. You had shared bathrooms. People had to use the bathrooms at specific hours – the schedule when the first floor could take showers or when the second floor could take showers. Social housing also included daycare. The daycare aimed to integrate children. There were children of different nationalities, including German. The building was located in the city. It wasn’t separate. It was in the center of Berlin. There was a separate building where you could do sports, games, and other stuff. You had activities related to German culture monthly. Of course, we also were engaged in other activities like the Day of Nationalities where every family had to prepare traditional food. Children had to recite poetry and sing songs. The teachers were trained to approach us because there were parents who didn’t speak German but the children did. So, the plan was to integrate parents as well through those activities so they could try to speak the language.
The interviewer: Do you remember if your parents watched the news about Kosovo after you got to Germany? Was there a TV?
Kaltrina Zhushi: There were some TVs in some places, and not in others. You could’ve bought one, it wasn’t prohibited. I don’t remember the news but I remember the singer, Ganimete Jashanica. She had short had and she reminded me of my aunt. Most probably they played the cassettes of her songs often. Anytime I saw Ganimete Jashanica singing I pointed at her “look at my aunt”. I don’t remember the news. I remember a bit before we returned, so the war was close to ending, we had a telephone cabin on each floor of the building and the inhabitants could use them – people could ring the phone until someone answered. My mom was out to buy groceries, she was pregnant. Everyone in the building knew my grandmother died. They didn’t tell my mother she died. The news spread throughout the whole building. When my mom answered the phone someone had called her to express their condolences via telephone. She found out grandmother died. She dropped a bottle of ketchup, Heinz, and it broke. But, maybe they didn’t watch the news when I was around. My parents were caring so probably that’s why I don’t remember. I remember the cassettes with “qiftelia” (a traditional instrument) that my aunt’s husband listened to. He had packets of cigarettes that he sold illegally. I remember such scenes, not the news or TV. I watched German programs. I had two or three Albanian books with fairytales. And, my parents insisted I spoke in Albanian. My Albanian was so good. Also, I attended daycare so I immediately got good at it…
The interviewer: Did you notice the discrepancy between the childhood in Kosovo and Berlin?
Kaltrina Zhushi: Yes, I suffered a lot when we returned. We returned in August of 2000, right after the situation got stable and after my mother gave birth to my sister. Until 2005 or 2006 I couldn’t put up with the fact that there wasn’t a swimming pool in Prishtina, or that there weren’t any “Milche” chocolates, because those were the things I connected to…
The interviewer: Those were important to you…
Kaltrina Zhushi: Yes, those were important to me. Also, I wasn’t used to seeing poor children. When I was in school in “Faik Konica”, a school in the center of the city and where most of the people live around there – there were also children from other places. We had a girl in our class who lived in a tent and I didn’t understand why. I thought it was something like camping; just like the activities, I had done in the daycare. I didn’t understand why she was so happy when KFOR brought us some ugly big grey bags… she was happy she got a bag. I had come to Kosovo with stuff that I bought in Germany. I had nice stuff. I had rollerblades. I had everything. When I returned here I saw that there wasn’t a playground. I was used to always staying at the playground after daycare for half an hour with my parents. I played at the playground with other children and then I got home, did my homework, played, and ate dinner. I didn’t have these things in Kosovo. It’s not that I was the kind of a child who wanted to be treated differently because I was in Germany. It was so hard for me to understand all that. I remember we went to my mom’s aunt in Peja. She was living in a tent because her house was burnt down. That’s when I found out how Burbuqe of my class was living. I thought living in a tent was fun, I didn’t know…
The interviewer: You found out when you saw your aunt…
Kaltrina Zhushi: Yes, I truly understood when I visited my mom’s aunt. They would heat the place with a gas heater, and the food…they lived in a tent until they gathered the money to build a house. They lived as such for a year and a half. We went there often because my dad, who is a workman, and others gathered on the weekends to help them to build the house like with the house foundation. My uncle helped with the electrical installation. So, everyone helped a bit. So then I had a clue what was going on. I knew that aunt Xhemile had some problems and you could see she was happy when the workmen got there. She welcomed them and prepared the meals for them. But, I didn’t know that that was no fun at the beginning, I thought tents had to do with camping.
The interviewer: Thank you very much!
Kaltrina Zhushi: I spoke a little too much.