Part One
Sylejman Çollaku: I was born in Zym on May 30, 1924, it is written so in documents. I had a mother and a father, a brother and three sisters, two have passed away and one is alive. I used to be a shepherd, I was young when I tended cattle. I was ten-twelve when I tended cattle. After I turned twelve, when I was 13 they took me to Pristina, my father had a bakery. And in Pristina I got caught in the war of Yugoslavia, I was around 17 years old when the war started. Three dërzhava[1] convened – Germany, Italy and Japan. Those three started the war. The war started in Europe in ‘27… in ‘37, or ‘38, I don’t know, I can only lie. In ‘39 Italy took over Albania, [King] Zog left, [Italians] came in without a shot, nothing.
Let’s get back to Pristina. Standing there at the door of the bakery we heard some voices, they screamed when they saw German airplanes approach. There were four-five airplanes going to the tyrbe[2] of Sultan Murat, since the airport was near. They had six airplanes in there, the Serbs, and they burnt them down and then headed towards Kodra e Trimave,[3] where the depot was, they hit all of it, they burned it down.
When the Germans entered… when the Germans entered, first of all it was only ten Germans in total, as there was no war. They [Yugoslavs] did not fight the Germans, there was no war, they did not fight against the Germans. There was no war, but the army stretched all the way, the army queued from Podujevo to Pristina. First, three Germans came with a motorbike and they had something to climb onto one side, when one sat, and other two on the other side, so at some point it was ten of them. Killings all over Pristina, killings and nothing else.
So what to do then? They went from Pristina to Janjevo, the Germans, because Catholics lived there. News broke to us in Pristina that Kostë Vojvoda and someone called Peçanac are coming here, to commit massacres in Pristina. What to do? Hence we the bakers got together, it was around thirty of us and so we went to Sadikaga.[4] And there was an oda[5] four by four [meters], or four by five, something like that. We were thirty of us who stayed awake all night in case something happens, but nothing at all happened. In the morning we got up and went to our bakeries, to our place and started with our work.
The Germans came in with their army, which rounded up [people] from everywhere, and took them with wagons to Fushë Kosova[6] to send them as prisoners of war in Germany. And then the Germans turned here into Albania, from Vučitrn[7] up to here. And Mitrovica was left under Serbia, because they were working with Serbian money. There was a guy called Nedić,[8] a democrat who had never won, but when the Germans came in, he did win.
On the other hand, the road to Albania opened up, people went in and out without papers, without anything. And that was how it went as far as I know and as I did experience it. Here in Kosovo the army was Italian, we were under Italy. There was a brigade, not one but many so called Balli Kombëtar[9] brigades, there were plenty of them. Anyway, so we formed an army in Skenderaj in 1943, it was sent to Pristina, set up in Skenderaj. People went by, recruited soldiers, I wasn’t part of it. They recruited many soldiers from Albania but Italians were the main ones. At some point airplanes started coming in and after being betrayed [sic], Italy started to allow American and English airplanes to pass by here and get fuel.
They came, one hundred, or five hundred, or two hundred or… I cannot say, they went to Germany to bomb or to Russia because the Germans had taken over many states. And then there was nothing until the partisans came, before the partisans came the Germans chased the Communists, killed them or sent them to prison. In Prizren where the old post office is now, they hanged ten Albanians and two shkije,[10] the Albanians were Communists. But there was no killing, there was no war here.
Back then, when he rose, yes… they called him Shaban Palluzha.[11] He had two hundred people with him and they were with the partisans, they were with the partisans. However, he thought that Kosovo would remain part of Albania, because they’ve gone over it. And so they came here, Shaban Polluzha went to Podujevo and they told him, “Go to Sremn to fight Četniks[12] there.” He didn’t go. He said, “I have nothing to do there. I will stay with my brothers.” He went to the mountains in Drenica and two or three hundred got together there in the mountains and they started the war with them, the partisans, until they killed and destroyed them, they killed a great number. And some of them who were Ballists[13] ran away, often they managed to escape, they went to Italy. They couldn’t go to Albania because… they wanted to go to Greece or somewhere else. Eh, this was it…
We had the bakery in Pristina, we had to leave it behind, the Germans came and we had a falling out with the landlord. We went to Ferizaj with our dad for work. The Germans were there, they were there as well, although the Italians were [the occupiers]. They visited our bakery, I was with my dad, he was selling bread and I was helping around. An officer walked in with seven bags of flour, each bag had German letters imprinted on them. He approached me, I made a mistake, I know, I was asking for it, he said, “How many kilos of bread do I get for one kilo of flour, baked by tomorrow?” I told him, “Eighty kilos of bread for one hundred kilos of flour.” He knew how much flour he was putting in, you get one hundred and forty kilos of bread [for that much flour], and he placed his hand on his gun, {places his hand on the belt} I remember it clearly, as if it happened today. He felt sorry for me, because I was young then, so he said, “Grab the bags!” The bags weighted one hundred kilos.
There were two stairs to get into the bakery from the street. When I grabbed them, only my heart knows how I got it inside. When my dad saw me, he got up to help me, but the officer did not let him. I dragged the bags of flour inside with great difficulty, but he never ate that bread because he left for Germany, they all left that same night, the flour stayed here. The white bread and flour remained, the German went away. This was the story of the German.
In Ferizaj we bought grain for milling, together with father and my paternal uncle we took it to mill it. There was no… we took it with my father and my mother… only my father and I, we had our uncle with us, we were together so we took turns. Sale and purchase was just the same as in Albania on Saturdays. They were coming from Albania here without identification cards. This is how we lived, we bought bread, we even had land so we lived well, it was good.
I learned how to read when I was a soldier, I knew nothing. Only those who worked as laborers at SavitKović’s [or Savitković’s – not clear] in Pristina could read. And so he bought me a primer in Serbian, he bought it not in Albanian, but in Serbian. He taught me the numbers first, then the ABC, how to write and stuff like that. I started to write slowly, slowly, on my own, at first in Serbian, then it was in Albanian, also in Albanian, I used to have good [hand] writing, but I could only write little, I could write some.
I was self-taught, I didn’t go to school, not even a day. My uncle took us out of school, he invited us to a school in Zym at the time of Serbia. A cousin of mine and I were at Hasan Pristina’s, he was staying there with people,they [the state] called us to go to school. My uncle was the head of the household, he went to the municipality and I don’t know whether he talked to them or what he did (laughs). They did not allow us to go anymore and they didn’t call us, we were left like that, [and my cousins] Sahit, Rexha and Adem’s Zymber and I.
I joined military service in 1949 but I was late because I stayed in Trepça,[14] I was working, I was a worker in the Trepça furnace. They found us late, and the draft came a month later. I turned up at the municipality and they handed me a letter and some documents. We departed from here with one guy from the Gjonaj family, two of us left for Prizren, two soldiers waited for us there. They came for us and so we left, I was assigned to go to Banat.[15] He was also taken to Banat, to [the city of] Kovin.
Both of us went to Kovin, but I didn’t know and so I asked them. “No, you are somewhere else.” The conscription letter came for me, I went there, to Banat. I worked as a soldier… it was assigned work, not much… chores at the depot and things like that. Back then we baked bread, we stayed there. And so the battalion was sent home in the year 1950, and they took us to open channels as the war was approaching because… how to put it, Tito broke his relations with the great… Russia.
At the time they thought that they would come and make the land of Banat a net. They brought us bread and things, and when it came to sleeping we found a stable somewhere, with hay and stuff and we slept there, for a month and a half. They took us to a village that was in… I tend to forget those names, that village, the entire battalion. When they summoned me to work there too, the army assigned me to cook meals, then I went, nevermind, they took me. The bread was coming stale from Pancevo, a commander, a soldier who was supervising us, swore, “Stalna, ta bajat hleba [Always that stale bread].” He said, “Is there a baker in Banat?” So I raised my hand. “Baker,” I said, “It’s me.” “Oh?” “Yes!” And they took me to work, where? In a village! Because the barrack was inside the village. When I went there, an officer came with us, me, to the municipality of that place so we could find a bakery for Germany, to make bread.
Fine, they gave it to us. They took me to a place, we found the bakery it was alright, sort of. They provided me with an assistant, he wasn’t a baker, but he was from, he was hrvat [Croatian]. He brought the flour, he brought the kind that… I stayed there for a year, I cooked for them. I made nice bread and else. In fact, when I left… all those God’s goods, and when I left, that officer told me to become the head of the bakery in Pancevo. Back then, I didn’t have a diploma, I hadn’t graduated yet. I came home first. I came home, stayed for a week and then went back to Pancevo. When I arrived in Pancevo, I went to register there, and there were private bakeries even back then, but the army destroyed private ones, so we all worked. It didn’t work out with them at all, they’d listen and not listen, like they do. Then I left the job, I had stayed for five months. For five months I had the same salary as the officer did for, and I wasn’t staying in an apartment, I was sleeping with the army at the barracks.
I left the barracks there, I came home. I came home, I only stayed for a day, then went to Pristina. I got employed, I worked for three and half years. My maternal uncle came for me, he took me away, he has a bakery in Priepolje. “Come because they have…” He lied to them. I had a salary … I had a good [salary] in Pristina. He took me away and lied to me, they did not [want to] let me [go]. I was a skilled worker in Pristina, I don’t want to flatter myself but I was good. The director of that bakery told me, “Stay, why are you leaving? You can go to a spa for a month, two months during the summer no problem at all, just don’t leave the job.” I didn’t listen to them, I left and went to stay for a year and a half at my uncle’s. He wouldn’t give me a salary, a proper salary, instead of making me a partner, or discuss what was to be done and what wasn’t.
They were giving away bread along the road Priboj – Beograd, they were giving five-six hundred kilos of bread, I wasn’t convinced to do so and so I left. When I left I came home, and stayed here… again, but I actually remember, when I came to Pristina I also got the diploma. It was written, “Majstorska Pisma,” in other words, it was written that it was a diploma, that diploma. When we were in Gusi[16] – I stayed four years in Gusi -my salary was one thousand two hundred dinars… twelve thousand. That is how much it is, that is the calculation. So, a doctor received ten thousands, [and] the guy who monitored the accounts [accountant], how to call him, he had a diploma, he was giving me twelve thousand without any hesitation. I stayed there for a while, then I fell slightly ill. I went to the doctor, and he shows me that it was congested {touches the chest}. Yes, I was mistaken there, I quit there, instead of going home to get cured and have the salary flowing, you know, but no, I said, “I am quitting!” So I quit from there, I came home. And since then I have actually worked everywhere, have worked everywhere in Pristina, in Ferizaj and…I’ve worked everywhere.
[1] Serbian: država – the state.
[2] Tyrbe in Albanian, türbe in Turkish, is a tomb, usually a mausoleum of notable people.
[3] Kodra e Trimave, literally the Hill of the Brave, a neighborhood in Pristina.
[4] Beg, Spahia and Aga are Ottoman titles. Beg or Bey (great), Ottoman provincial ruler but also, when included in the last name, a sort of honorary title. In this case however, aga is just a title of respect, and it denotes seniority.
[5] Men’s chamber in traditional Albanian society
[6] Kosovo Polje in Serbian
[7] Vushtrri in Albanian.
[8] Milan Nedić (1878 – 1946) was a Serbian general and politician. He was the prime minister of a Nazi-installed Serbian puppet government during World War II.
[9] Balli Kombëtar (National Front) was an Albanian nationalist, anti-communist organization established in November 1942, an insurgency that fought against Nazi Germany and Yugoslav partisans. It was headed by Midhat Frashëri, and supported the unification of Albanian inhabited lands
[10] Shkije, plural of shka (m.), a derogatory term in Albanian used for Serbs.
[11] Shaban Polluzha (1871-1945) was a regional Albanian leader of volunteer forces in Drenica. Shaban Polluzha joined the partisans, but in late 1944 disobeyed orders to go north to fight Germans in Serbia, having received news that nationalist Serbs and Montenegrins were attacking civilians in Drenica. He fought against partisan forces until early 1945, when he was killed.
[12] Serbian movement born at the beginning of the Second World War, under the leadership of Draža Mihailović. Its name derives from četa, anti-Ottoman guerrilla bands. This movement adopted a Greater Serbia program and was for a limited period an anti-occupation guerrilla, but mostly engaged in collaboration with Nazi Germany, its major goal remaining the unification of all Serbs. It was responsible for a strategy of terror against non-Serbs during the Second World War and was banned after 1945. Mihailović was captured, tried and executed in 1946.
[13] Members of Balli Kombëtar.
[14] Trepčain Serbian, is a large industrial and mining complex in Mitrovica, one of the largest in former Yugoslavia. It was acquired by a British company in the 1930s and nationalized by socialist Yugoslavia after the war.
[15] Region of the Northern part of Serbia, Vojvodina.
[16] Gusinje in Montenegrin, a locality in Montenegro with a large Albanian population.