Part One
Anita Susuri: Mrs. Teuta, if you can introduce yourself, tell us your date of birth, place, something about your family, your background?
Teuta Bekteshi: I am Teuta Bekteshi, that is my maiden name, Ajeti is my husband’s surname. I was born on November 16, 1957, in a village close to the city here [Kumanovo] [Kumanovo], about four kilometers away, the village of Llopat. I finished elementary school there, high school in the Goce Dellçev gymnasium, and it is still called that today, in Kumanovo, where all the lessons were completely in Macedonian, except history and Albanian language. Later also biology, some subjects were added, there were Albanian professors. So, we completed it mostly in the Macedonian language.
I completed university at the University of Prishtina and continued… It was a bit of a difficult time because of the broader situation and my personal engagement in the movement, which caused delays. I was a graduate candidate, but my graduation was postponed and in the end I returned here. I have been working since ’97, I run my own practice in a clinic in a clinic with a laboratorycalled called Doctor Teuta. The opportunity to work in public health was impossible for me, because I had my personal history, where I was always labeled as an irredentist, dangerous to the state. So, I never had access to working in working in public healthcare. After a very long time, I was forced to start on my own, independently.
When it became possible in Macedonia for the private sector to open, meaning private practices in primary healthcare, which would have allowed me to have a contract with the Health Fund of Macedonia, I had a serious problem because I didn’t have citizenship until 2001. Born here, educated here. My family had it, but it was denied to me. So, from ’94 until 2001 I couldn’t travel anywhere. That was problematic also for my work. So, this is… then I continued meanwhile also with non-governmental activities and so on. But I wanted to say, this is part of my story.
I come from a family that valued education; my father was a teacher. We came here from the region of Bujanovac, but originally we are from Shkodra, from Malësia e Madhe, meaning the Kastrati tribe is also there, in Malësia e Madhe. We are from that tribe and have come many generations ago, I may be the eleventh or twelfth generation that settled in the Bujanovac region from there in the Bujanovac region. Then, since ’52, ’53 they settled here. But my father was a teacher and that was the best possible thing thing, he taught me a lot. Because at that time girls were not allowed to be educated, schooling for girls was very problematic.
Anita Susuri: What generation was your father?
Teuta Bekteshi: My father was from the generation of ’28.
Anita Susuri: How did he get educated at that time?
Teuta Bekteshi: He completed, my father completed his schooling… he was a soldier and then continued with the Shkolla Normale, back then, they completed it through exams to qualify as teachers to work with Albanian students. My father completed it like that. The Shkolla Normale in Gjilan, under those circumstances, was completed that way. After that, when he came here, he worked for a time, he started working in those villages over in Bujanovac and when he came here, he started right away. He worked 30 years at the school, today it’s called Faik Konica, back then it was Jeta e Re. We lived in that village for a few years as well, because moving around was more difficult at the time.
My father worked until retirement… After working in the village of Llopat for about two years, he retired. I say that in our family we have nearly all profiles in art, professional writing, poetry, we have a composer, an actor, and a director. We have Kushtrim Bekteshi, my brother’s son, who is a very successful director. My brother’s daughter is an actress. So, in our family there is almost everything. It’s a good thing that all generations are successful and capable. Not just successful but also useful, for themselves and for others.
Anita Susuri: What memories do you have about your childhood? How was the family organized, for example, or what kind of environment did you live in?
Teuta Bekteshi: I was the youngest of the daughters and maybe a bit more connected to my father… so, my father was a teacher and from the age of five I started going to school. They tell me this, because I don’t remember, but I apparently slept in school and then they brought me back, they carried me in their arms because the school was near the house. I had this habit of overfilling my bag with books, I filled it so much I couldn’t even carry it, but I thought I needed lots of books to go to school. That’s where my childhood began.
My family, only our vllazën, only one family had come from over there to Llopat to Llopat, meaning there was no other family in that village. But I was born into a family where I had my grandmother. My grandmother also had come from elsewhere but was a very brave woman. She had nine children — five girls and four boys — three of them died, about twelve births total. She was very patriotic and the first songs I learned were from my grandmother.
I sang my first songs with my father and my uncle. So, those early sequences of childhood leave an extraordinary impression, especially on children, during their growth, during the formation of their identity, simply as a person, which makes family extremely important, and then schooling and experience and all those things follow. But that was the foundation for me to form a kind of opinion about what my path in life might be. Regarding education, that was a foundation for us, but also the situation of our people…
My uncle at that time was in Balli Kombëtar, but it was never spoken about because it was very dangerous to talk about it back then. But from time to time, I would hear that he had been to Albania, and he would tell different stories, but it was never really talked about. Then my father was also part of that organization NDSH with Gjon Sereqi, but always very little [was said]. You understand, like, how can I say it? You know when something is hinted at but not really acted upon, but it sparked our interest because they didn’t dare [to talk about it] because we were children.
They listened to Radio Tirana at that time, with some small radio. I was the youngest, my father kept me close to him, and I absorbed everything. I was curious about what they were listening to, I didn’t know what it was, but had the feeling it must be something secret since they didn’t allow children to be present. All of these things formed me. In ’68, when the demonstrations started, a cousin of mine, my paternal uncle’s son, was involved and moved around different places and was also in Kosovo. When he came back to Kosovo, he told us about the demonstrations, that he had been there.
He told us about the demonstrations and the protest song of ’68, and that was an extra piece of information for us. At that time, we raised the [Albanian national] [Albanian national] flag, which was very problematic. It was a small flag. I was a ten-year-old child. We raised the flag at our place, I mean we had two houses. But the one next to the road was more like a stable, not exactly a stable, but a place where they kept food, you know. They placed the flag facing the road. But it was very dangerous because the situation was very tense, especially in Macedonia.
We children went out to watch and guard the flag in case the police were coming so we could warn them in time to take it down, since we had it up for a short time only. You couldn’t keep it up longer because it was very dangerous at the time. My father was a teacher, my uncle was younger, my other uncle too. So that event is something I still remember. It seems like I’m still there, stepping out the door onto the main road and looking at that flag. Meaning, in my life journey, I’ve had many situations that influenced me. The song about Oso Kuka, for example, at that time my uncle and my father used to sing when we gathered.
I hadn’t heard of Oso Kuka before, didn’t know who he was, but the way they sang the song was extraordinary. I still remember things from that song. Then, the song of Halil Garia, my grandmother taught us. Then the song about Sali Syla, “She says, oh mother!” another song. All of these were sung in our family, always sung. Meaning, there was always singing and dancing. Maybe that was the feeling of art and culture in our family, and even today we do the same thing.
Then the cousins would come, one played the violin, the other… my paternal aunts’ children, and we would go out to the yard and sing back then. We as children were curious because they were all adults. I remember how we always tried to act like the grown-ups; we had them as role models. Actually, role models are very important for the formation of a person’s character. Not what is said, but what is seen and taken in. It’s how you shape yourself as a person later. I think the family is very important.
Anita Susuri: Yes, I also wanted to ask you about your mother, what kind of family did she come from? What was she like?
Teuta Bekteshi: My mother was a very wise woman, very loving and very positive. My mother completed only four years of school. My father… so, she knew how to write her name just enough to know… she came from a village above the village of my parents. But they were an extraordinarily patriotic family too. So, there was a unity of families at that time, because even then people would look at families that were involved… but she married very young. My mother was 14 when she married, my father was 15. So, they got engaged young but…They were sent to the army at 18, and at 18 they got married. But they engaged my mother at age 12, while she was out in the mountains… She said, “I was in the mountains when they told me, ‘We have engaged you.’ I had no idea what engagement was.”
So, I want to say she was a very intelligent woman whom I always had in front of me. My father was more energetic, more temperamental as a person, very fair, he read a lot at that time. Now that I think about it, he read a lot, I didn’t realize it back then. My mother was a woman who supported us a lot and understood things with her intuition. She used to divide our books perfectly by author, she knew whose book was whose. She would analyze the news just from listening. What was important also from my father’s side, he always called my mother Shqipe. My mother’s name was Selime, but my father always called her Shqipe, and I always liked the way he said Shqipe. That form of addressing her, I really liked it.
My mother lived 95 years. She always had an extraordinary positive energy and was quiet, didn’t speak much but supported you in everything. So, I remember her with great joy, not only my father in one way, but also my mother. My father was very fair, he loved children and students a lot, because I used to go with him to school, and he would bring students and give them all pencils. When it was winter, he always dressed them warmly, gave them clothes, back then we didn’t have many clothes… the situation was that people were poorer.
He dressed them all and sent them off two by two on the road so they wouldn’t be in danger, even though there wasn’t much traffic back then, but because they were little… [The school] was up to grade four. And I liked this very much about my father, his dedication, and not only with us, but with all children. He often used to say, “How is a child’s mind?” He would say, “Like a white sheet,” he would say, “tabula rasa, and everything is recorded there, and it is very important how it is recorded. And children,” he said, “must never be scared. You must never scare them in any way.”
He would also observe how people walked, if they held their posture straight. He was concerned about everything, not just with us but with all the children he worked with. He was my idol, truly my idol. I wanted to become a teacher; I had a great desire to be a teacher. But later, even though I had the intention to become a teacher…I just want to say one thing about this, I had physical education, I loved sports very much. But in the third year, I changed my mind immediately to take up medicine, for a reason that I experienced very painfully.
My mother was sick and had a gynecological issue, bleeding. I took her to the hospital in Kumanovo, to a gynecologist, but there were no Albanians, they were all Macedonians. The doctor behaved very badly, so badly that I was extremely shaken. That was the moment I changed [my mind]. I said, “I will study medicine, no matter what, I will take medicine and return to work and help women, and I will return and tell that same doctor, ‘This is how you treated Albanian women.’”
That was the reason in my third year I changed and took medicine. I have no regrets about choosing medicine, because I love my profession very much, and I love people, I always want to help as much as I can give of myself, and help. This is what… It was decisive for many things. Both the fact that I went to Prishtina, I continued in medicine, and I still work today, and for me, people are extremely important.
Anita Susuri: You mentioned that you raised the flag in ‘68 on the street…
Teuta Bekteshi: Yes. Not on the street but at home.
Anita Susuri: Yes, yes. Where the road was…
Teuta Bekteshi: It was beside the main road.
Anita Susuri: The road where you lived, what was the neighborhood like? Were there others, Albanians, who had the same opinion as you or how?
Teuta Bekteshi: I say that we were newcomers, I mean, we had come [from elsewhere]. No, there was a mentality, an extraordinary ignorance. At that time, we didn’t have support from the rreth, but over time things changed, but at that time, no, no there wasn’t. We were far ahead in that sense compared to rreth where we were. Our village has both Macedonians and Albanians. Meaning, the majority are Albanians but there are also Macedonians.
But in the neighborhood where we are, almost all are newcomers, [they came] from our village, from the village of my parents, from the village of my mother. Meaning, they migrated and came, settled in this village. It’s near the city, a good village. It is a fertile village, there is water on all sides, it is extremely good, and they call it the village of the beys, because apparently, at that time it had baths, it had… yes, yes. It was and still is an extraordinary village, and it is my village.
Anita Susuri: And you as a child, but also as you grew up, what kind of ideas did you have about other Albanian places? About Kosovo for example? About Albania? How did you imagine these places?
Teuta Bekteshi: In my family we spoke about Albania and also about Albania and Kosovo. We adored Albania. Now, we all adore it, even today we adore it. At that time, we adored it even though we were, how to say, fragmented in all these regions, meaning the Albanian territory and its borders. We spoke a lot [about Albania], because also my paternal uncle who had been in Albania used to talk a lot, because I hadn’t been to Albania at that time. My father at that time, I remember, initiated for some teachers to go to Albania and they went. I was young, a student in high school maybe, I don’t remember, maybe it was elementary or high school…
Anita Susuri: You were in Kumanovo, right?
Teuta Bekteshi: Yes, in the village of Llopat, yes, yes.
Anita Susuri: And you studied… Where was the high school?
Teuta Bekteshi: The school was in Kumanovo, I traveled. I traveled to high school all the time, I traveled by bicycle. We were about four girls who traveled by bicycle, and I traveled by bicycle. They [teachers] went to Albania when they were allowed to go. At that time, as teachers, they were allowed to go in a group. When my father returned from there, we waited eagerly for what he would say about Albania. I remember these two things he told me then. He said, “In Albania murders are not allowed,” he said, “murder is not allowed because murderers are punished in the harshest forms. Murders are strictly forbidden.” At that time, he said, “And there was no theft.” He said, “We left it, we forgot it,” they had left something, “and when we returned, we found it in that same place.” Meaning, there was no theft, and for us, that was something extraordinary. “And they spoke Albanian,” you know how it is.
In fact, when someone came, when it happened that someone came [from Albania] to bring goods, and it rarely happened from Albania, we went out to meet that person at all costs. We went out to meet that person, the driver, that chauffeur because he seemed to us like an extraordinary person, you know, because he was from Albania. For Kosovo it was a different situation because it is on the border. The village where my parents are from is on the border with Kosovo and all my aunts were married in Gjilan, in Gjilan, in Pristina. The uncle and the brother of my grandmother, meaning my father’s uncles… Kosovo was not… Kosovo was very familiar. My brother was also a student in Pristina before me, about three years before me and the others. So, we had much more information about Kosovo. The information about Albania was very, very limited. But we had idealized it because we loved it, because we had support that motivated us.
In fact, at that time in high school, I speak for the high school in Kumanovo, we were only two classes in that generation, meaning it started with two classes and ended with two classes in my generation. But the earlier generations had only one class, meaning there were very few Albanians who… in fact, most of the time a couple of times they were even beaten, and it was a very difficult situation for us in Kumanovo. Because here there is… it is a city with many nationalities, but the oppression was very pronounced and the hatred for Albanians was very pronounced, because there are Serbs, there are Macedonians, there are Vlachs, [the hatred was] from many Vlachs and others, but especially from Serbs. And there was always something that was not allowed.
We had a problem with names, giving names. We had problems with almost everything. I say that I finished high school almost entirely in the Macedonian language. At that time, we organized, I mean, that spirit had started, and we organized, as students we sang. We had the history teacher I mentioned, this teacher of mine, Dr. Ramiz Abdyli, and he motivated us a lot. I mean, the history of our people was forbidden in high school, talking about the history of the Albanian people [was forbidden]. But Professor Ramiz taught us history so well that there was not a single poor student who didn’t know our national history. It was necessary. He did it beyond… in fact, in the second year when we were in high school, he organized…it was the 500th anniversary of Skanderbeg’s birth, meaning it was ’74, ’75 or ’76…
The professor organized a recital, the same professor, that is, the history professor. We also had Noli’s poems, “O flamur gjak, o flamur shkamb” (Oh flag of blood, oh flag of rock.) I had to begin, and I shouted so much into the microphone, because we didn’t know how to work well with a microphone. I shouted so much that I went over that… “Oh flag,” when I shouted… and everyone told me, “You recited very well but shouted too much.” I thought that in that form, the emotion did its part. So, it was one, one professor who motivated us a lot. We read so much at that time that, Kalorësi i Skanderbeut (The Knight of Skanderbeg), I don’t know if you’ve read it, is an exceptionally good novel. We and the professor read it, because he gave us to read history and novels.
We read a lot. He said, “You will come out,” he told me, “You go and draw how the herald came to inform the Mountains of Dibra,” meaning from Dibra, “and how you saw it, how you think to draw it on the blackboard.” I didn’t, I didn’t know how to draw well. Oh my God, never in life had I struggled more… I was in the second year of high school, I’m talking about the second year. I went and made some mountains, I didn’t know how to draw well, the horse, the herald and everything. So much was that, that spirit of the people’s history, the oppression, the confrontation and knowing that oppression and what we had to do. What we might need to change as youth. We organized… we organized well at that time in the second year of high school.
We sang. In the fourth year, we organized, imagine, schools that forbade singing in school and skipping classes. We ranked second after the Macedonians. We had many, over 20 exemplary students in the class. We had 40 people in the class because the classes were very crowded. We interrupted the class, our class tutor was Macedonian, we interrupted it. We went out into the hallaway and went downstairs, there was a bakery, we bought bread because we had nothing. We divided that bread into pieces and sat on the stairs. We were on the second floor and on the stairs. The school was alarmed.
We started singing and we sang, “Trim i madh o Skënderbe” (Great hero oh Skanderbeg), we liked that song a lot. We sang it a lot. “The stormy north wind blows, brave Skanderbeg,” it’s an exceptionally good song. The school was alarmed. We left the school and walked out into the city, lined up four by four, our class. And we went to a war monument, and we walked there. The police accompanied us on the sides. Imagine, we made that step which was an unimaginable step. But no violence was used at that time, no specific violence was used. These songs were there, but no specific violence was used at that time.
That’s why they dropped our behavior grade from Five to One. Our class was the second in school and was graded One in behavior. So, at the end, we finished fourth class with that grade because of those activities. But we didn’t worry much about that. We did what we wanted in the city with songs and dances, like that. Then that issue continued, the other issue of my life. I say, I say, but it was not by chance… I say that the family, the family, is very important for forming a person’s identity, whether personal identity or even national identity. Because you have, how to say, you have to plant, breathe, you breathe that and how the family is and then the rreth outside the house, school and… that is the identity formation phase. Even a female identity indeed.
For me the family had an extraordinary impact in forming my female identity, being a female. Because they always said that a woman should be very important, a woman should make her own decision, a woman’s word should be heard. In my family, the word of a woman, of a wife and of a woman was heard, that is, was valued. My father always told us, “You will finish some schooling so that you won’t have anyone over you, but you yourself will decide about your personal development. Not to be oppressed by someone, but for you to have, yourself to have that freedom of yours, freedom of work and of movement and everything.” So, that was extraordinary for me. Even today I thank them a lot, somehow, I have respect because those were very hard times seriously for [women], even more so for women.
Anita Susuri: But when this event happened that you mentioned with your classmates, were the parents notified too? How was your parents’ reaction for example about this?
Teuta Bekteshi: We did that regardless of the parents. We youth didn’t always ask our parents. But let me connect this with an event. My son, I have two sons, let me connect it with the fact that you don’t ask the parents. And I have two sons, one studied informatics, the other studied economics, but they have children, they have families. I have three grandsons and one granddaughter, and it is a joy to have children, because it’s very important how your children will be tomorrow. I insisted that my children first and foremost have humanity. I always insisted that they be humane, with such virtues that they help as much as they can, but that people say good words about them, that they are well-mannered, they are…
But I wanted to say, to link it with the matter that the family isn’t asked. My… My son wanted to go to Afghanistan to work because work was very difficult to find here. Even though he was a very good student, they didn’t accepted him at work, or they took students who… now, it’s also known how everything is politicized. He sought to go to Afghanistan to work, but I was very much against it because the idea of going to Afghanistan was unthinkable to me and I was against it. Now, I couldn’t… I had done so much, so much. I tried to do…not to say “so much,” because it’s never a lot, but it’s always little. But I tried that generations…
I never thought that I would form a family, because we thought that our life would be completely different, we thought that we would be killed, we… that is, we didn’t even think about children, [about] family, but we thought about the generations after us. We didn’t even know that we would live to see this time, but for the generations after us, that they would have a more dignified life, to be free, to decide for their life, to decide for their work, to decide for their activities, but to be free as individuals. That was very important. And this was the foundation of many things, that the issue of freedom, the cause of freedom, whether personal freedom, whether the freedom of your people, whether the freedom of humanity, is a cause of every person, because it is born with freedom, every cause is born with freedom and is born free, but then the circumstances are different.
And I was against it. My son said to me… at one point I said, “I am against it and I wouldn’t want you to go there.” And he said, “Can I ask you a question?” he said. “Yes son,” I said. He said, “When were you in the movement,” he said, “did you ever ask your parents, did you ask your parents about themovement?” I said, “No, that was a very important matter, a national matter.” We didn’t take the family into account at all, nothing existed. It was just that in front of us. What was happening to the family? All those persecutions in our families – who, who went through all those difficulties -, we didn’t think of them, because a young person doesn’t think.
A young person thinks of that life as priority and he has no more, to him nothing means more.
I said, “That was a very important issue, a national matter,” I said. “A matter,” he said, “even of prisons,” he said, “Well, you mom, it’s that you were in prison,” he said, “I’m with you because you’re my mom and everything, but what came of prison mom? Your position,” he said, “you with all these troubles, with all these worries, with all these rejections, I mean, no place here, nor there,” meaning in that sense, not that it wasn’t worth it, but what? “I will go,” he said, “I will work for two years there, secure my life, and will come back again. This,” he said, “is my decision.” And then I gave in. But only two years, and I insisted he return, he return because I had a very hard period in that time. Because the children couldn’t in any way accept… but that’s how it is. I wanted to say that a young person makes decisions, he doesn’t confront risks. I mean, he doesn’t take risks into account.
Anita Susuri: So, did your family give you support also in that regard?
Teuta Bekteshi: Yes, yes. My family was an extraordinarily big support of mine. Why? My father took me himself, he took me to concerts when they came to Gjilan. He inspired me in that. My father… but my father didn’t know, no one in my family knew. We had the goal that the family would not be included in our close circle in any way, because the risks were big. We operated separately. That is, my brother acted but acted with others. That means, we were not directly in the same cells in any way. We did not enter cells with family members. They had their own cells, but we didn’t have knowledge about his cell, or he didn’t have… in case of arrest, the information stayed there. Depends how you endure prison, torture, but to have it stay there.
I went in this direction. My father, when I was arrested even the first time, when I was in isolation [did not tell my mother]. My mother didn’t know at all that I was in isolation. She asked about me, why I wasn’t coming, why I wasn’t coming. “She has exams.” They didn’t tell my mother at all that I was in isolation. I was released from isolation after a month because they didn’t have other evidence and they released me under surveillance. Now they followed me. But I… that was June, and in October I fell again. I was arrested for the second time in Suhareka and then it was decided that even my mother should be informed, because that was something completely different. That is, we needed to inform. But I had extraordinary support from my family, from all of them, from my father, my mother, my brothers.
Meanwhile, while I was in prison, my other brother was also in prison. So, meanwhile we were two people, two people in prison. Even my older brother, who worked at the Television of Prishtina and when I was in isolation came to ask [after me], was not allowed to see me. But even inside the prison there were guards who were good, who were [politically] aware, even though they didn’t show it. So, there were moments and moments when they even showed that, that sympathy toward us. And he said to one of the guards, gave him, my brother gave him a handkerchief and something else small, “Just send this to my sister so she knows that I came up to the prison, that she’s not alone.” I mean, there was another kind of support, “Just so she knows that…”
So, I had full… so, the second time, because the last time I was arrested in Kumanovo, you know, I was released, it was two, two weeks after I was released from prison, I mean, I had a two year sentence after the second arrest. It had been two weeks, we had set the wedding date, the celebration. I had been engaged since, like, the fourth year of university, it was a relationship from high school, with my husband we started as kids, as students in the same class. We got engaged much later. It was a very long relationship. We did it… because I was released after two years, let’s get married because it has been a long time. My husband’s family had only one son also… and we did it. We made the dresses with… they sewed them especially for me.
Near here is a basement, and you go downstairs, it was summer, no, it was November, yes, they were working here. They made me completely ready and after two weeks I was arrested again. That is, the wedding failed. I wanted to say the issue of the wedding, but I want to say that in that case they arrested me in the village and surrounded our school, our house. The school is nearby and my brother’s wife and my father were teachers there and they were questioned, and they even went to the school and said, “We’ve come for your daughter.” But the problem was that the night before I had been in Pristina because I wanted to meet some people, since I had just gotten out of prison. I went to Prishtina.
In Prishtina I met a sister of one of my friends, I went there and met her. And I went to a family that had been… they had been extraordinary supporters of mine and the movement. And I went to meet them. There I was informed that a group of youth had fallen, Naime [Maçastena] and her group. But it had been 15 days that they said they had fallen, and I was sure they couldn’t have made any mistake, for 15 days had passed. I returned home. Meanwhile, they came, they raided our home that night, that is, the night I returned they raided our house, searched for materials. They raided the whole house, but I had no information.
My father said, [they asked], they said, “Where is she?” He said, “She went to Prishtina.” I had indeed gone to Prishtina. “Where in Prishtina did she go?” But we had, as I said, a maternal uncle of my father, a teacher. He said, “She went,” because my father didn’t know where I had gone, he said, “She probably went to that uncle.” Imagine what happened, they raided our house here, then they went to that uncle in Prishtina. He was in Dragodan, that part, I don’t know what it’s called now. Is it called…
Anita Susuri: Dragodan.
Teuta Bekteshi: That’s where they had their house. There was… his mother was sick in bed. They even dragged his mother out and searched, they didn’t leave anything. The man had no idea about what was going on, they raided him. Yes, I came back the next day, because at that time they didn’t know my movements, where I was going. I came back, yes, I came back to Kumanovo in the evening, and I wanted to go to the house… this house, that is, to see my fiancé, but he wasn’t here. Meanwhile, we had installed a phone at that time, when landlines had just started and we had one also at home and here. I told my father that I had arrived. I said, “I’m here,” just to tell him. My father said, “No, stay there, don’t move.” I didn’t know what had happened, he just said, “Stay there, don’t move.”
He got up and walked four kilometers from here. He came on foot, and said, “They’ve raided.” I realized, I understood because it wasn’t the first time that such a thing had happened. That is, it was the third time. We went home, “They only said it was a routine check.” I knew it wasn’t just a check. I knew that something would come of this. But the next morning they went to the school. They went to the school and put pressure on my father. They had surrounded our house and told my father, “You have to hand over your daughter because we have an order from Prishtina,” that is, from the Secretary of Internal Affairs, “to arrest and take her to Prishtina.”
My father was in a very difficult position. Imagine now, your daughter has just come out of prison and again they arrest her, and he knows what happens next. They told my father, “It’s no problem,” they said, “we will take her, but we will also take you to Prishtina.” My father came home and ish nxi (turned black), you know how it is for a parent. My mother had prepared me an early breakfast, I was very weak. Because of prison and not eating, I was very weak, I had been very weak. My mother had made me something for breakfast, not that I wanted to eat, I still couldn’t return… but still, I sat down.
My father at that moment came and he felt very bad that I… he said, “Look,” he said, “my daughter, they have come and surrounded us,” he said, “and there’s pressure to arrest you.” My first thought was, I said, “I won’t surrender,” because I knew what awaited me. I said, “I won’t surrender.” And my father started pleading with me, saying, “You,” he said, “you won’t surrender, but they’ll kill you somewhere and we won’t be able to find even your body, not anything.” And then I said, “No, I won’t surrender.” So, I was thinking where to go, how to escape, where to flee. My sister lived in a part of that neighborhood, but a little farther away. “Yes,” I said, “I will go over the walls, to my uncle’s place and to my sister’s.”
My father said, “The house is surrounded, there’s no chance,” he said, “even if you escape, they’ll kill you somewhere,” he said, “at least in prison we’ll know that you’re alive somewhere and we’ll look for you, we’ll know you’re somewhere. Like this we won’t find a body or anything.” My father pleaded with me, he pleaded, “Just this time, listen to me.” I kept saying no, because I knew what was coming, “No.” My father pleaded and pleaded, and I felt so bad because of my parents, and that’s how I surrendered. My mother, when I went out the courtyard, at the yard door, said, “Hey,” she said, “my daughter,” she said, “the way you endured before,” she said, “endure again,” she said, “don’t worry.” And somehow, we left. When we arrived here at the Secretariat, where the police are…
They took me to a room… I didn’t know where, because I had never been interrogated in Kumanovo, I had all my interrogations in Kosovo, in Prishtina and in Mitrovica and in Suhareka. But I mean to say, in Kumanovo, no. The interrogator, an Albanian, said, I had never seen him, didn’t know him, he said to me, “You,” he said, “what did you do?” To me, exactly like that, harshly. And I had that kind of, you know, that, I don’t know what to call it…
Anita Susuri: Pride.
Teuta Bekteshi: Pride, and somehow, I said, “What could I possibly have done?” I told him. He saw that he had never seen me before, nor I him. When I came out, he said, “We’re sending you to Prishtina,” he said, “we have orders to send you to Prishtina,” and while walking out he said to me, “Someone,” he said, “has talked,” that’s what he told me. Nothing else, just said, “Someone has talked.” I… indirectly he told me while walking, but I… but I knew that something had happened because they can’t arrest you without… However, I was a repeat offender, three times, and even without anyone saying anything, they would have arrested me. Even the smallest suspicion, they would have arrested me.
They sent me to Prishtina with four police officers in a Zastava car. Two officers in the back seat, I in the middle. One police officer was in the front, and the other was the driver. My father, my father, when I was leaving, said goodbye to me, said, “Oh man, this is really hard.” Then he told my mother, “It was very hard when I handed her over, very.” It was difficult for him. And in Prishtina the third round of interrogations and sentencing continued, and that’s how it went.
