Interview with: Valon
We asked Valon to tell us about his experience during the time he was forced to leave his house. He responded by telling us this story.
"We got up in the morning and we heard that the police were coming to see what Albanian families had guns and those that did would be killed. My dad and the other man and his family that lived with us had gotten a gun for protection, but when we heard the news about what they would do to us if we stayed and protected our home it was scary so we decided to leave. We got our stuff together and left for Macedonia. At the time I was 18 and they separated all the men from the women, so me my dad, and the other 3 men from the other family were separated from the rest. Then they had separated the women and the children, but before we left we had said that no matter what they do or no matter how they separate us we would all meet in Gostivar, a city in Macedonia. They beat us up and did other unimaginable things and at the end they killed my dad's friend in front of us all. It was the scariest think I had ever seen. I mean I saw dead people on the road and everything but I never had seen someone actually being killed in front of me. His sons had a really hard time and were depressed and it was acceptable after all they had seen their dad died. What would they tell the rest of the family? After a week of not having food and being tortured we finally got to Gostivar. We asked around and they told us were the rest of our family was. When we met we were all very happy and at the same time devastated by the news that they had killed Ahemt and my mom told us that my little brother Trimi got lost somewhere and they never found him. She also talked about all the ways that the Serb soldiers tortured the women by raping them, killing them, and hurting them in other unthinkable ways. We were about 15 people all sleeping in a small room. All night I would think about where could my brother be, and what happened to him. Had someone tried to help him when he was lost and took him with them, had they hurt him really bad and he's somewhere lying on the cool DEAD? I tried to act like I was ok around everyone else but it was impossible to smile or even think about anything else except for my little step brother and the rest of the family that we had left behind in Kosovo. The little kids all went to school in Gostivar and even though they were at least anywhere from 50-60 students in each room they were leading somewhat of a normal life being that they found some of their friends in the school they were going to. One day I told my mom that I had heard from someone that my aunt was in Strug and we decided to go her and see her. We got ready that day it was a Saturday in the middle of May, and as we walked around Strug to try and find someone who could tell us where my aunt was I saw a woman who was holding a little boy's hand. The little boy from behind looked very much like my brother. I told my mom and she didn't even bother to turn around because she said that they had looked everywhere and haven't found him there was no way he was here with someone that hadn't even known. Still I was determined to go and see who the little boy was. I called out his name and he turned around. As soon as he saw me he started running toward me and so was the woman. I told my mom to turn around and when she saw him she started to cry. It had just happened that the woman that had taken Trimi to take care of him was Vesa's(one of the authors of this website) aunt, she had called Vesa's father and asked him if he knew anyone with the last name Thaqi and had told him my brother's name and he had told her that he did and where they lived in Prishtine and all the other information that she asked about, and she had promised Trimi that as soon as the situation got better she would take him to home in Prishtine. She said they came to Strug because Trimi was bored and she thought she'd bring him here so he can have fun and visit other places in Macedonia. Trimi told us that he got lost and he just started walking behind this family and got on a truck and ended up in Prespe. Mrs. Ahemti saw him crying and took him home and fed him and told him that he would stay with her until they could find his family. He couldn't remember where his mom told him to go when they were separated; after all he was only 6 years old. We got through everything just fine, we all missed home and our friends and family and because the phone lines to Kosovo were cut we had no idea if our cousins and friends were alive or not. In the beginning of July we all returned to Kosovo only to find out that our house was bombed and there was not much left of it. My grandparents' house was still standing so we all decided to go and live there until we had money to either rebuild our home or buy an apartment. All is going very well now, but for at least 2-3 years after the war there was not a day that I didn't think about all the innocent people that lost their lives." |
