At that time, the information office was in the premises of the mosque in Kruma, within the headquarters of the KLA. All those individuals who had either experienced rape by Serbian soldiers and police, or those family members who wanted to reunite with their families, came and presented themselves there, and we, as members of the KLA, helped the population to reunite. One case of particular interest in this regard was when Sadije Morina from Raushiq of Peja, whose child had died, didn’t want to leave it, even dead, to the police. On the other hand, she didn’t want her own family to find out that the child had died, and she kept the dead child for 24 hours, before reaching Durrës, giving him the bottle, and the bottle froze in his mouth, because when a person dies, they stiffen, and the bottle froze…When she crossed the border, the bottle, with the milk inside, was in the closed mouth of the dead child, and another woman approached [Sadije] at Qafa e Prushit, where the Albanian military forces, who were helping those crossing through the mountains, were located, and she said, “Is it possible for you to give me that milk so I can give it to my baby?” She replied, “No, it’s not possible because my child has died and I cannot take out the bottle.” I wrote the novella The Milk of Death based on this interviewed.
Agron Limani
Electrical engineerI thought that the civilian population should withdraw from the village, more precisely, I thought that the young people, who could be the target of Serbian forces, should be the first to leave. ..I went to the population in the valley where about 700 people were gathered…I appealed for young people to come with me, leave; some of those who were present but unfortunately are no longer among the living, said, ‘But we are civilians, unarmed, we are with women, with children, with pregnant women, with young brides, with babies, why would we be a target of Serbian forces, when we do not pose any risk to anyone?’ I answered, ‘Because you need to understand the fact that Serbs have traditionally attacked the civilian population, Serbs have traditionally attacked unarmed and defenseless people, so I think it is better if we leave.’ …After a couple of weeks, we heard the first news …through a small transistor radio… that over 100 Albanians had been killed in Krusha e Vogël.
Fatmir Krypa
Printmaker…when I went to elementary school, when I explained this to others, they wondered, ‘What is that?’ We called it tafte [board]. Tafte. It was an A4 plaque with a wooden frame, thin like a blackboard. On one side, it had no lines, on the other, it had lines to guide your handwriting. It had wide and narrow lines, wide and narrow. One side was empty, it was black entirely, and, on that side, we would do our in-class work and continue at home, written with white chalk that would scratch the surface, it would leave white or gray marks. And that was our school notebook, that was all we had, what was in our possession. […] The worst that could happen to you, while you were going to school, a friend, well, a malicious friend, would come from behind and erase your homework and you would have to go to school without homework.
Lirije Buliqi
Ceramic artistThe first day was… the exhibition space was really big. At the time, on the right side of the entrance, I remember this great hall. I wondered, ‘What takes place here?’ For example, when we received the artworks for the exhibition, we would prepare the documents to ship them. Of course, they went through the customs, but we used to have the customs service that would bring the artworks to the Gallery. So the customs procedures were simpler. Then, of course, we installed the works. We were a very small team of six and all of us would get involved in the exhibition production. […] There was the director Shyqri Nimani, Engjëll Berisha was the curator, we had an accountant, it was I, we had Rrahman the technician, and a cleaner. So, this was the core team with which we started. The Gallery was positioned so that, you know, we always had many visitors because the environment was such that it imposed it on you, people that went to the mall would drop by. Behind Boro Ramiz Youth Palace was the marketplace, and people that went to the market would come with their grocery bags directly to the Gallery. You know, we had a lot of visitors from all walks of life, not only artists. It was quite pleasurable, a great experience, something different for me. I liked meeting artists, I was young at the time and they were older and I didn’t even know most of them. They had to introduce them to me who is who, and for a long period of time I worked hard to know everyone.
Xhevdet Xhafa
Painter…I had a preoccupation, how to understand living nature, the human figure, limbs, the physiognomy of the human head… I would walk around in Peja’s markets with a purse on my shoulders, some typewriting machine paper and some other helpful tools. I mostly went to the Green Market. From the villages on market days they would bring the agricultural products in some big baskets and small full of agricultural items.
Owners themselves were wearing traditional clothes, quite usual for the ‘50s, ‘60s. And I, quickly filled with joy, started drawing quickly that beautiful view. Then I often went to the bus station, it was more difficult for me to draw there because the travellers would always move. But, a little based on my memory and a little based on nature, the drawings I did were sort of croquis figures.
Hysni Krasniqi
PrintmakerI mostly find inspiration in nature. I take fragments from nature and try to live through them, live it with my heart and soul, and draw it on paper or paint it on canvas. For me that’s what’s important. […] For example, I have the Crops Cycle. Why crops? Crops because our people suffered from malnutrition, suffered from malnutrition. Then I have the Twig Bundles. What are the twig bundles? it’s a tool which our farmers always used, they used it to even the land […]
Then I have The Fireflies. What are the fireflies? The fireflies are the messengers of spring, the first sign that the crops are ready to harvest. Then this is how we knew that it’s the time of the harvest, and that’s what fireflies are to us. Like a fenix cik cik {onomatopoetic} sending out the message that somewhere the time has come to harvest. Like that. Then I have The Memory Flowers, the place I was born in, Llukar, though I spent more time in Pristina. The place I was born in is covered in flowers, snowdrops, violets. What wonderful smell violets have, it’s incredible, as if it were a perfume.
Alije Vokshi
PainterThis is the master who was driving his horse car and when I saw him, I stopped him and said, ‘Can you come to my atelier so I can make a portrait of you?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. And I worked, and these hands, I mean he is tired, and his plis, the color of his plis is not pure white, but I did it like this because he had worked and he is tired, and the color is like that because of the dust. And when Jusuf Kelmendi saw this in my exhibition, he said, ‘You can see it in this painting, these hands, tired… a really, really good portrait.’
Shyqri Nimani
Graphic DesignerThe Academy was a very good one with professors who had studied abroad, I mean in Prague, Munich, Paris and who had collected a lot of knowledge in those cities and brought it to their own places, especially in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana. And the influence was easily noticeable also to a high number of painters from Kosovo who had studied in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana, I have to mention that they were influenced by those professors who were influenced by their studies in the European cities that I mentioned. And in the beginning of the careers of these artists from Kosovo you could see the influence of their professors. And this is very normal because it is thought that since the thirteenth century Giotto had this influence as well. Then Leonardo had someone, as well as Michelangelo and Picasso, but in the meantime they got rid of those [influences] and created their own doctrine. The ones who remain under the influence of someone else will be lost, right?
Rexhep Ferri
PainterTajar Zavalani translated that [Mother by Maxim Gorky], he understood what communism is and left, then he worked at Radio London. My mother would listen to it a lot, ‘Communism will end today, tomorrow.’ One is inclined to go from one extreme to the other. When we returned to Gjakova… our property was confiscated and my dad, dad, dad did not, he left, he never… he thought that he would be safe in Gjakova, that he would not have to leave his family. From Fadil Hoxha to Sahit Bakalli, they were his schoolmates and worked together as teachers in the Gjakova Highlands.
We met with Sahit Bakalli, before meeting him… and Sahit Bakalli said to him, ‘Look Shaban, you cannot spend the night in Gjakova. We cannot protect you from Serbs and Montenegrins, you are the heir of Jakup Ferri, Hasan Ferri, the brother of Riza Ferri, Shemsi Ferri that have led the war against the partisans, and you also were with them. You have to leave and go to Albania, in Tropoja, where you used to teach, where your in-laws are. This tempest will pass and you’ll be alright somehow.’ He followed him out of the town, my dad left and we stayed.
[…] sometimes when you are lonely, alone, if one person knows two words in Albanian, you think it’s your brother. He would call my mother sister and she would call him brother, and they weren’t even from the same village or city, but from the Gjakova Highlands. Pashkë, Uncle Peshk [Fish] I would call him. He was unlettered, but he smoked like an aristocrat – it seemed to me that way then – with a pipe. My mother sent to him the clothes that she made with the loom to sell and he sent her off with a couple of lies, ‘Ms. Hatixhe, I heard on Radio London yesterday night that a week will not pass and communism will end.’ And that lie would amuse my mother for a week. Next Monday, he would lie to her again, and the years passed, we grew up.
Fazli Hajrizi
EducatorIt’s interesting, to be honest, when both teachers and students were mistreated and [the police] would actually leave, we used to think that the next day, not a single student would show up. But, strangely enough, by the grace of God, everyone was there, no absences. The teachers, the students… of course, I can speak for myself, but also for others, it was enough just to know they were there. And they were close to us, meaning they were by our side. Then we’d calm down and continue the lessons.
[…] I mean, all the students were at school. The bell rang, it was time. Strangely, at the exact minute the bell rang, within three minutes, the entire school was surrounded. Luckily, we tried to stay calm and watched from the windows how they were acting and what was awaiting us, obviously. First, they took us to the third floor, or the second, I’m not sure, but the main thing is they formed two police cordons. Fortunately, the students weren’t mistreated. And among the 30 or 40 of us teachers, it was Professor Muharrem Peci who suffered the worst, he had very serious injuries.
Drita Kadriu
Director of Education in the Municipality of MitrovicaThere was constant pressure because, from time to time, for example, they would come to the schoolyard and ask, ‘What curriculum are you using? Who is the principal here?’ It was a form of patriotism, in a way, to say, ‘The principal isn’t here. We’re in class.’ But schools with only Albanian students had it a little easier than the schools in the city, where both communities were in the same building.
[…] When the schools were closed, the teachers started organizing classes in homes. Lower-grade teachers would take the students into their own homes, while teachers of higher grades, from sixth to ninth, as well as high schools, started organizing in home-schools, which was very difficult. This situation lasted for about six or seven months.
Vehbi Xani
EducatorWe had a front-line house in Lower Klina because we couldn’t use the high school in Skenderaj, since it was the main center here. I later went around schools as an advisor, since those were established a bit later. We held competitions, we organized quizzes, and we even won first place in the region. So, normal activities, even though at the end of such events, they would take us to the station, sometimes beat us, mistreat us, but they couldn’t stop us entirely.
Hanëmshahe Ilazi
Political activistI was four years old when my mother passed away. And this is… I’ve written a book Rrënjët e familjes (The Roots of the Family), where my grandfather is the main character. I suspect that a Serbian activist killed my mother. My mother was killed. I only remember the blood {touches her stomach}, a pillow, because they would remove us from the room. My father quickly rode a horse to the city and brought a doctor. […] I suspect she was killed, they threw a bomb into the chimney, at the fireplace where they used to cook. […] And when they came to take our wheat and corn, this Serbian woman entered the granary, and they took the wheat, but also the granary and the corn. And my mother grabbed an axe and, standing at the granary door with the axe, said, ‘As long as I’m alive, you’ll never leave here alive, because you’ve already taken the flour and the wheat, and now you want the corn too, leaving my children without bread.’ She [the Serbian woman] got very scared and told my father, ‘Take your wife away from here, I give you my word that I won’t take a single grain of corn.’ And my father somehow signaled my mother, as he later told me, and said, ‘Go, go to the house because the children are crying, or the bread might be burning.’ As soon as she left, the Serbian woman came out and ran away. However, she knew the entire layout of our house. And I believe that… because in ‘50 my mother was killed. She [the Serbian woman] threw a bomb, as my mother and the stepmother were there. The stepmother was slightly injured, but my mother was severely injured and died because of it.
Ahmet Qeriqi
Political activistOn March 27, 1999, at eight in the morning, two Yugoslav military planes struck the neighborhood where we were sheltering with eight cluster bombs, resulting in the martyrdom of a 16-year-old boy and injuries to eight others. On the same day, at 12:00 PM, Serbian media reported the destruction of the Radio Kosova e Lirë broadcasting base, while we aired our program at 4:00 PM, the scheduled time for broadcasting throughout the war. At that time, the Serbian war criminal [Vojislav] Šešelj and several Yugoslav army commanders stated in the media that they would soon have their morning coffee in Berisha, where they also planned to build a football stadium.
In order to survive under conditions of continuous attack, at the beginning of April 1999, we built a well-fortified bunker on a mountain peak, and from the bunker, we broadcasted the daily program, up to 1 hour and 30 minutes per day, during the last three months of the war. The area near the bunker was hit numerous times by enemy fire but was not destroyed.
