[Shkolla Normale, November 30, 1968]. When Xhavit Nimani took the floor… it was already very late, almost 8 in the evening…I got angry and spoke arrogantly, I said, ‘Enough, do not tire us.’ …For this day, for this speech, I had prepared myself. I had memorized some things by heart. Ali Boletini taught them to me, as did Hamëz Shala and Halil Alidema. They made me repeat the words. ‘Ask for the flag. Because the partisans fought in the anti fascist war with this flag, ask for it. Ask for the development of the country. Ask why Trepça is being exploited.’ …And Ali never spoke loudly, he said, ‘Do not be like Halil who bangs on the table, you do not bang on the table. If you are there, you must present the demands.’.. Point by point, like reciting a poem, I mentioned all of those things… After I finished with my final sentence, I said, ‘Comrade Xhavit, it is useless to keep us. Until those in prison are released we have no intention to end the strike, the boycott of lessons.’ …On December 4,  they were released. That was our victory. But the possibility to speak, to say things, to demand, was greater…an inspiration that it was indeed possible to make even political figures like Xhavit Nimani back down.

In the seventh grade, after the expulsion of Albanians to Turkey began…I had a deskmate, Nazmije, I don’t remember her last name. When the letter came that she absolutely had to go to Turkey,  it was an extremely heavy event which left such an impression that I will never forget it. Every time I remember it, somehow I get very emotional. All the people of Mitrovica would go out to the train station. It was the Belgrade–Skopje train. Because there had also been an agreement with Skopje, that they should go to Skopje where they were given some kind of papers, permits called vesika. Then Turkey accepted them and… that atmosphere was so heavy, that all the people cried. Those who were leaving cried, their relatives cried, the people cried. No one knew what kind of fate was awaiting them…That experience with that classmate was very hard… We went to the train to see them off, the crying and screaming went on. It was very sad. I don’t have any nostalgia for Turkey because our people suffered. They never opened schools, they didn’t let them speak the language…

I 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.

That shaping of ours, and especially since I might have been the kind of guy we call bold, more advanced, or however you want to put it. […] The idea came to me to establish the Association of Albanian Students in Belgrade.

 

This wasn’t simply a cultural-literary association. It was, in a legal sense, an organization through which we would then carry out our underground activities. But we needed this legal aspect of the organization as a shield, not the underground one. You might say that I thought it through well. At first, I discussed it with the most loyal and devoted friends. They agreed. They accepted the idea of establishing it. A meeting was held, it was during a literary session. I stood up and presented the concept, the idea, and the proposal to create the association. It was approved by everyone.

 

To avoid it seeming like we were just a group, we formalized it on paper and had everyone sign their agreement for the establishment of the association. Additionally, Setki Imami was there, an experienced worker in Belgrade. I’m not sure if Anton Çetta was there, I don’t quite remember. Dančetović, who was the head of the department, did not sign it.

During that period, it was more difficult to go… also due to the nature of the play. It wasn’t like we staged it in a cultural hall because it was a performance that, in a way, was unacceptable to the regime of that time. However, we performed it in, let’s say, halls, in schools that were improvised. In the physical education hall, if there was one. They were somewhat larger halls, if I can say so, or, for instance, when we were invited to villages, all over Kosovo, not just in Drenas.

 

It happened that we performed even on tractor trailers that had been set up and improvised in schoolyards for their performances, and we used them. Or in school corridors, where they were longer, desks were set up, and on top of the desks, so to speak, the play was performed by us, the actors, while the audience sat on seats, chairs, desks, or even stood. Children, teachers, and often even villagers from the surrounding houses would come to see a performance in Albanian.