{"id":362,"date":"2020-05-12T17:28:34","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/site\/?p=362"},"modified":"2021-08-19T08:26:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T08:26:31","slug":"zoran-maksimovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/zoran-maksimovic\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Zoran Maksimovi\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row wrap_container=”yes” section_text_color=”light” text_align=”justify”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Bjeshka Guri (interviewer)<\/p>\n

Zoran Maksimovic (interviewee)<\/p>\n

Acronyms: BG=Bjeshka Guri, ZM= Zoran Maksimovic<\/p>\n

ZM: My name is Zoran Maksimovic; I was born on December 31, 1971 in Urosevac.<\/p>\n

We lived quite good with our neighbors Albanians before the war. There were no problems at all.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, there was a war and we had to leave our homes because the situation required that and the neighbors told us that we will not be able to survive further; and that’s how we, left in June of ’99; we were with brothers and sisters, meaning we left Kosovo and we were in Bujanovac in Serbia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my mother stayed in Urosevac with her mother, ie. with my grandmother, so we were temporarily in Bujanovac; meaning two months.<\/p>\n

In October I came to Strpce because the situation was a bit better, so we returned to Strpce in 1999.<\/p>\n

In November, we returned to Urosevac because there was a American KFOR, temporary deployed there and they secured the houses so that we -me and my wife and my grandmother, we lived in Uro\u0161evac and we live there even today and my brothers are displaced persons in Bujanovac.<\/p>\n

We did not have any problems during the war but the fear existed, it was not easy.<\/p>\n

I listened to my neighbors; I heard from them that it is better to leave for some time than to stay because nobody is safe during the war; nobody is safe enough to survive; so we listened to the neighbors and we left; but the fear existed.<\/p>\n

Thus we left; we traveled to Gnjilane, i.e. Urosevac – Gnjilane – Bujanovac. We traveled and let me tell you that we were scared because our small children were with us; but luckily we did not have any conflicts with, for example, UCK or military formations.<\/p>\n

So we were lucky we did not meet them during the trip.<\/p>\n

This is the only that ………..<\/p>\n

But we traveled, and we were scared because we had a small child, so there was fear, but to say, how to explain that , we were lucky we did not have anything, meaning we did not have a conflict between the UCK or the military formation. So we were lucky we did not meet them.<\/p>\n

And this is the only thing that is …<\/p>\n

And nowadays, it is a tragedy because my whole family does not live here in Kosovo; I mean, I am here with my wife; my mother died half a year ago; I’m here with my daughter; but let me tell you that it is not life; but this is how the situation is.<\/p>\n

And we feel that we are not in the best position to live here in future because there are no people; no Serbs ; we are the only family here and that’s it ….<\/p>\n

So it is still the same as I told you; during the war it (Urosevac) remained abandoned, meaning there are no Serbs and we feel that, to say, as a crisis ….. … no improvement of life, that is it.<\/p>\n

As for example, there are many people who took refuge in Strpce because Strpce is a purely ethnic village, a tourist place with a ski center and 12 villages in the vicinity, so they lived as in a ghetto, because they were blocked from all sides.<\/p>\n

So they could not get food, normal things, thus the international organizations, the Red Cross, Swiss- they supplied Strpce on humanitarian basis, they supplied Strpce with food, drugs, until 2000.<\/p>\n

Sometime in 2000, people started trading between Serbia and Strpce and therefore several families remained to live there.<\/p>\n

There is a large number people living there, about 15,000, but in the meantime they felt the crisis as well, and they left that place.<\/p>\n

In the meantime…; at this present time, they all returned to their homes, but nobody was able to return to Urosevac.<\/p>\n

Who left the place , just left it. Who stayed, just stayed. And that number ….; some old people died and so Urosevac remained clean; a town without Serbs.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say that the war broke our lives; meaning we are no longer a complete family.<\/p>\n

So while we’ve lived as a family, that is, uncles, aunts … we all lived in one city and now we’re all scattered.<\/p>\n

Some are in Serbia, some others are in Strpce, so we all are scattered.<\/p>\n

It could be even from the time before the war; it has more than 20 years that some of us have not seen with the family. So this war has disrupted our life a lot.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row wrap_container=”yes” section_text_color=”light” text_align=”justify”][vc_column][vc_column_text] [\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Bjeshka Guri (interviewer) Zoran Maksimovic (interviewee) Acronyms: BG=Bjeshka Guri, ZM= Zoran Maksimovic ZM: My name is Zoran Maksimovic; I was born on December 31, 1971 in Urosevac. We lived quite good with our neighbors Albanians before the war. There were no problems at all. In the meantime, there was a war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}