Interviewer: Could you introduce yourself first?
Olivera Spasojevic: Yes. I am Olivera Spasojevic. Before the war, I lived in Pristina. Now I live in Laplje Selo as a returnee. I’ve been here for 13 years and I’m happy to be back, I have to say that. At the beginning, I was afraid because it was coming back to me, that’s the first question, what I went through was coming back to me. That conscious situation. As I will, we will get out of this situation healthy and alive, normal, or whatever it will be. But I must say that I am very happy to be back. It’s hard. There are some things that might change for a better life, but it’s good. I’m happy to be here. I have an apartment and I am satisfied with some things, but now for the rest, as long as we are healthy.
Interviewer: How do you remember the period before the war?
Olivera Spasojevic: The period before the war left a very difficult and bad influence on me and my family. I was and lived in the community with my mother. I was a minor at the time and it was very difficult for me to get over those things that happened. Apparently, they were left behind. As for that, it is not forgotten. We were in Pristina, living there. We had to leave the house, that is, house and home. We left everything behind. It was very difficult, stressful, painful to see a bus crowded with people. Twenty… I don’t know, there were over twenty people, forty, fifty. How everyone would move away that day. Because they… because we were the last day, which means the last day of departure. The last bus that went to Novi Sad, unrelated to where I was supposed to travel. I mean… we even missed a section of the road because we were supposed to go to Kraljevo. We ended up in Novi Sad, that is… unfortunately, that was the last transport. It was very stressful, sad, we put everything behind us. We only had one bag. My mother’s colleague said that we have to move out of Pristina because it is the last day. Then those people who occupied those Serbian houses, and who did that cleansing of Serbs with… unrelated to politics, I’m not a politician, but I can say that we had to leave because my mother’s colleague, where they were… where she worked, in the company, said that we have to because they started entering the houses and giving a deadline for moving out. So, that day we had a very hard time and we went through hell. There was a line of vehicles on the road, it was difficult to get out. People moved massively. That is not forgotten. The bus was the last one that was full. People had nowhere to enter, stand or sit. So, it was one over the other. It was stressful. At that time, I finished my first year of high school, so I was a minor. And I find it very difficult, that emigration and that situation that happened in that period of 1999. We left Kosovo, that is Pristina, in March.
Interviewer: And can you go back to the period before all that, before the demonstrations. How did you live before the war?
Olivera Spasojevic: Before the demonstrations and before the war in general, everyone got along well. Everyone cooperated with each other. No one touched anyone. They worked collegially and this… there was nothing there as if there was going to be a war, as if there was going to be… as if there was going to be a conflict. Because, from the very beginning of my birth, we all lived as a community, in harmony. We had a joint conversation, an agreement, a job. Everyone led their own life. What happened, happened, but I believe that before the war… before the war, everyone lived in a civilized, peaceful, calm manner, helped each other, got along, regardless of any type of nation. There was… there was some respect. There was no hatred, there was no contempt, there was no conflict, there was no… Now it was happening everywhere in the world, something happened, some conflict, some little thing. Is it, unrelated to the accident, irrelevant, anything. But, people as people respected each other, they didn’t look at the nation, at that, at religion, at… I don’t know. So they all lived as a unit, as a community. It was never… At school, I lived with… went to school and lived in such an environment that we all got along. I had an Albanian who was my schoolmate. We went to school together and respected each other. I was welcomed in that house with bread and tea. It was pure friendship. Well, now that friend of mine is the main gynecologist in Pristina. I graduated in gynecology. I mean, we found each other and it just happened. I found out after so many years, after 15-16 years, 20 years, he is a gynecologist like me by profession. But he’s a doctor and I’m a nurse. And so we all got along, we were all one with each other. So there was no separation, it’s not whether it is Albanian, Roma, Turkish, it’s irrelevant. All nations respected each other. There was no hatred, no contempt. No one expected that boom to happen in that life, in that period. That people will have to move out. I can’t say now, maybe some of them have also moved away. I don’t know that, because that’s politics. But, as for the Serbs who were expelled, no one expected that. They didn’t know. Because the situation was settled. There was inflation then for milk and for bread, and scarcity like what is happening now, my God, but… expensiveness and all that, low incomes. People work, take loans, struggle, take what belongs to them through the company, but there was no contempt, no separation. They all lived harmoniously as one.
Interviewer: Do you think we can put the war behind us and build a better society in Kosovo together?
Olivera Spasojevic: Well, as far as I’m concerned, I would mostly like people to be as one. Everyone should be like that… to agree with each other and to help each other, because this world is one, in which people are not guilty of anything at all. They simply have to see that… there are as many of us as there are, and that they must cooperate and agree with each other, and work and function as a unit. So, I would like the situation to be much simpler because neither… Now, as for the other side, between Serbs and Albanians, since we are in Kosovo. Neither they can do without the Serbs, nor the Serbs can do without the Albanians. I mean, that’s the situation. As much as some people run away from some real things, from some real facts, here we are still people who work and function together as a unit and we have to get used to the position in which we find ourselves. To function as one. No… Religions are different. You are a Serbian girl, I’m Serbian, he’s Albanian, Turkish, Gorani, it doesn’t matter, Roma. But people must unite regardless of… and remove that hatred, that contempt, to think positively. There is no separation. Like Ukraine with Russia, like now Albania that separated here with us in Kosovo. It would be nice if we could go back to a time during “oh-oh-oh” when everyone was one, a whole. There was no separation. Slovenia and so on, Macedonia, Montenegro. I have to list the other countries as well. Montenegro, Macedonia etc. It means that we should all be one because neither one side can do without the other, nor the other side can do without the first in order to function normally. That’s… that’s normal for a normal life. To cooperate with each other, to get things done. So there, mutually, to work and to function. That’s a healthy relationship in my opinion. I would like all people to unite and be… they don’t have to be singular, let them be plural. But to have that certain attitude, the same or different, but to be respected.