{"id":2264,"date":"2023-01-30T22:54:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T22:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2023-01-30T22:54:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T22:54:44","slug":"rexhep-berisha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/rexhep-berisha\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Rexhep Berisha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2264-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Rexhep-Berisha.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Rexhep-Berisha.mp3\">https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Rexhep-Berisha.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The interviewer: Welcome to this interview. Shall we proceed with your story during the war from where you were living when the situation worsen; tell us who you were with and how old you were. You\u2019ve already told me that your wife was pregnant. How do you remember all this period of time living in the village?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Hello. I am Rexhep Berisha from the village of Godishnjak. I was 34 years old back then and my wife was pregnant. We were all 14 family members including my father, mother, grandmother and&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: What were your living conditions in the village?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: We decided&#8230; we decided to move to Prishtina because my wife was pregnant. We moved there; we rented a house.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: How big was the house?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: The house had two rooms and a bathroom. I left my family there, and I &#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: You were working?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, I was working.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: What did you work as?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: I traveled. I had a butcher\u2019s shop and I traveled. I went to the village, in Godishnjak every day because the U\u00c7K, the military, got there. They got settled in our house. They asked me whether I could deliver them food and I told them I would deliver them food every day as long as I could.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: So you delivered them food every day?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Every day, up till the NATO bombings started. The day when the NATO bombings started I wasn\u2019t able to go there anymore.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Could you tell us some of the cases of what happened during the time you had to deliver them the food? What were the places the police or the military mainly stayed at? Where were the roadblocks?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: They mainly stayed in Leban\u00eb, Lup\u00e7 and Lluzhan \u2013 at these three places. When I had to deliver the food I escaped by taking the road through other villages so they wouldn\u2019t notice me and know I was delivering food for the U\u00c7K. So, these were the places they would mainly stay at.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Did they stop you once?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: They once stopped me and returned me back.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: What was that conversation like?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Fortunately, among those men was a Serbian from Prishtina whom I\u2019ve known, and because of that fact they let me go. Otherwise, they could\u2019ve decided not to let me go.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: What did they tell you? What was the conversation about?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Well, when I saw that Serbian guy I told them that he knows me. They called that guy, Dragan, and when he saw me he said \u201cRexhep, what is going on?\u201d. I told him that I had to go home and he knew where I lived. He said that he knew where I lived, but he told me it would be better if I returned back to where I was coming from and grab my children and leave for Macedonia. He said that you never know what will happen and you could easily die here.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: So, you returned back to Prishtina?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: I had to go back to Prishtina that night and I couldn\u2019t go to the village anymore. On May 21st the police came to the apartment where I was staying at Xhambazet \u2013 the apartment I had rented. They took me, my father, my brother and one of my cousins who was there with us. They put us on a truck. They took us to the police station in the neighborhood of Muhaxher and held us there for 12 hours. They put me then in a different room. They asked me where I had left the gun. I told them I hadn\u2019t had one and that I don\u2019t have one. They tied and beat me up to the point that I wasn\u2019t conscious for three or four hours. Then, they took me to the second floor and got my finger prints. They checked me up whether I had a gun.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: How did they check you up?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha:. With an elastic tool I don\u2019t know what that was.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: So they touched your neck with it?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, in order to find out whether I have touched a thing, I don\u2019t how those things function. There\u2019s where I once again met the same Serbian guy who let me go at Lebane. He told me to get my children and leave to Skopje since it was dangerous to stay there. In the morning of the following day I got my children and got on the bus at the \u201cShtepia e Mallrave\u201d. I was with my children and my father left with the other family members by train. We then arrived in Skopje. They stopped us along the way and took 10 bucks from each of us.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Per person?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, per person \u2013 the Serbians, then we set off for Macedonia by bus&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Where did the bus take you?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: &#8230;In Bojan and we go settled in tents.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: How long did you stay in Bojan?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: We stayed there for three weeks.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: What were the conditions there? The food and sleep?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Just like in a tent, you know. We had food but we didn\u2019t have showers&#8230; but it passed and we stayed there for three weeks. Then the doctors came&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Macedonian?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: &#8230;I can\u2019t remember whether they were Macedonians or&#8230; they were foreign as they spoke in English. So they got there. My wife was pregnant so she went there for a check-up. They took notes about our family; we told them we were 14 members. And then we went to England.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Did you request to move to England or it was what they offered you?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: No, they offered us to go there. That\u2019s how it worked, I don\u2019t know. There were families who moved to Italy, France, and Germany. England was our destiny.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: But your father and a part of your family were not in Bojan?!<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: No&#8230;they weren\u2019t there.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Because you left the country separately?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, there were in Stankovec. Then&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer:: How did you get back together?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: I went and picked them up. I explained everything to them&#8230; that we were going to England and that they had to come with me. I got them in a taxi and took them to Bojan. We went to England from there, on June 3rd. My wife gave birth on the 5th.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: In England?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, in England. We stayed&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Where did you stay during that time in England? How was the place, the space?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: It was kind of a hotel, I don\u2019t know. I think that place was a retirement home in previous years. We took shelter there and we were around 130 or 140 people.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Were they all refugees from Kosovo, or&#8230;?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: All of them. They were all from Bojana, they all came there from Bojana. Everyone was with their own family and they all had their own rooms.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Did you have food and other services?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes. The food was good and we could take showers anytime we wanted to.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Did you have shared bathrooms or how was it?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: No, we had a separate bathroom for our family. Everyone did.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: So, you stayed in England for a year. How was your daily routine in England?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: It was fine, not bad. But, after a year, my mother got sick. We took her to the doctor for a check-up and they told us she didn\u2019t have much time left. They told us if we wanted to take her back to Kosovo it would\u2019ve been better to take her during that time as she was still alive. We then returned to Kosovo \u2013 it was after a year. After two months that we got to Kosovo my mother died. So from that time up till now we are living in Kosovo.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: One of your brothers had to come to Kosovo a day after you did?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes, from England. I told him not to come since we didn\u2019t have a place to stay or anything. We were thinking of a solution but&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: How was Godishnjak? How do you remember it when you got there after the war?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: When I came from England?<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Yes.<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: All ruined. Only the foundation of the houses was left. You weren\u2019t even able to see the foundation of our house since they got there with excavators and tanks and&#8230; they had ruined them all.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Where did you stay after the war since your house had been burnt down?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: We stayed in a room&#8230; we put a door there, we just hooked it up. We first fixed the doors of two rooms within 3 or four days. Then, later on, we fixed the whole house&#8230;<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Until you build another one?<br \/>\nRexhep Berisha: Yes. Life goes on.<br \/>\nThe interviewer: Thank you very much![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The interviewer: Welcome to this interview. Shall we proceed with your story during the war from where you were living when the situation worsen; tell us who you were with and how old you were. You\u2019ve already told me that your wife was pregnant. How do you remember all this period of time living [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2274,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}