There was that alarm siren, and the alarm [would go off] in Trepça whenever something happened and the alarm sounded like somebody was crying au-au-au {describes the alarm rhythm with his hand}, when it went off we knew that an accident happened in the mine, and all of us together with our mothers and fathers would go to and wait in front of the mine pit. After some time… there were some wagons, made out of four pillars and a plank like this {describes the shape of the trolley} used to carry materials, and laid out on the plank was a dead body, the next one. […] I would be happy that it wasn’t my father, a friend of mine would cry because it was his. So, it was a very difficult life back then, very difficult. So, the conditions were really harsh, with shifts, there were three shifts, extreme poverty. My father would fast and at the same time go to work in the third shift. It was a very difficult work environment, very difficult and the work was really hard which still continues to be so, because that’s how the work in the mine is. However, it was very difficult because they didn’t have the expertise either, they didn’t have engineers, they didn’t have workers from the field of mining. And the working conditions were minimal and very… they died, they were gone and it was done.
The Trepça Miners’ Strike began on February 20, 1989, and lasted for eight days. The miners demanded their constitutional rights and protested the abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy, as guaranteed by the 1974 Constitution of Socialist Yugoslavia. Miners and their labor culture were central to the ideology of Yugoslav socialism. Given mining’s crucial role in the country’s economy, the hunger strike brought economic life to a near standstill. The oral histories with miners aim to place this event within a broader historical context, while also capturing its human dimension—bringing to light lesser-known stories that unfolded in between the headlines.
The interviews were produced in partnership by ForumZFD Kosovo program and BMZ.
