Part Two
Abit Hoxha: That you started the second grade. There with those four cousins, or relatives, your family members. How did school continue? From the second grade? How did school continue?
Halil Kajtazi: Yes. We were enrolled in the first high school opened in Skenderaj. There was a high school opened in a healthcare building, in the suburb of Skenderaj. Maybe you’ve seen it sometime. But we didn’t have space, we were too many students from different places, from Rozalla, from Vitak, from a lot of places. We didn’t have where, how, this and that. But the new high school was being built.
When we went to the new high school, it was still being built, we went to the first floor. Like that, it was just painted. And I know that we were three classrooms full of students. So three classrooms, full of Serbian and Montenegrin students. There used to be a lot of Serbians and Montenegrins there, almost half of them. Half of them were Albanian, half of them were Serbian and Montenegrin. You don’t know these things. Rexhep Geci was our principal. He was once a teacher in Likovc, and from Likovc he came and established the high school there. He was from Peja, but he was very hardworking, and punctual and very capable. Then other professors came, we called them professors, they had only graduated from high school but we called them professors.
I remember there was a wooden ladder, so the workers could get to the second floor to continue building the school. We would get on that ladder, it was with oak wood, you understand. We would get on that ladder and we would swing, it would swing. And our principal would tell us, “Don’t get on that ladder, it can fall and you could fall, too.” But as kids, we still got on that ladder. I was on the ladder, and it fell, we fell, too. And one under the ladder yells, “O kuku[1], o kuku!” He was Shaqir Behrani, he was in our generation. Maybe you’ve heard of him?
Abit Hoxha: Yes.
Halil Kajtazi: “Oj kuku, I’m left without schooling!” The principal heard, he says, “Let’s take him to the hospital, fast.” The janitor ran, Ferizi from Llahusha, and a few students, we put him in a blanket, four-five people, we went to Skenderaj. He was yelling, “Oj kuku, I’m left without schooling! Oj kuku, I’m left without schooling!” He survived, he finished school, finished university, and he even established a high school. At some point he opened parallels of Shkolla Normale[2], until finally he came as a collaborator to the Albanological Institute, he lived in Pristina, and his life ended like this. This is how it was, how it was back then.
Abit Hoxha: Do you remember when Skenderaj changed its name, changed it to Serbica.
Halil Kajtazi: I know that it was called Skenderaj. But when they changed its name, they didn’t ask us, they didn’t ask anyone because they named it after Serbia, because of the Serbs that came here, that moved here. So the same would be Serbian. While in reality that was Polac and Klina’s land. Polac had that part, where it was that, that huge oak, they had land there, do you understand? Kids played there, Albanians up and down, when they came they named it Serbica. But after the war, not before the war. There was a prefect, Lubiani, from Kukes that named it Skenderaj. This is what they said even when we were in Kukes.
Abit Hoxha: After school in Skenderaj you went to Prizren to school, high school.
Halil Kajtazi: Well, in ‘49… After we finished the first year in high school, then the best students were chosen to be sent to Prizren for three months to finish the second year. And then continue to the third. In, a few people there, thirty-forty people, we were chosen as excellent students and we were sent to Prizren. For three months we finished the second grade of high school as it was called back then. In ‘51, ‘52 they brought us back to Skenderaj, we finished the third grade of high school. Then from the third grade, I came in the year ‘51, ‘52, I was enrolled in the Prishtina high school on the fourth grade, in the Prishtina high school. And I continued high school. But there were very few people from our region, we were only three people from Drenica, at that time.
Abit Hoxha: Do you remember the names?
Halil Kajtazi: Yes, I remember. I remember there was Hasan Hoti and he was known as Fazjeqeli, Fazeqelaj, Falzi Haxhiu, from Pokleku. Hasani Hoti from Polac, and Fazli Haxhiu, Qelaj, like that, he was from Pokleku, I remember.
From high school, I finished the fourth year, and enrolled in the fifth. Our pension was closed, I couldn’t afford to continue and I had to go back to the village. When I came back at that time, my father was in prison in Niš, he was in prison. If we talk about my father’s business, it is really deep. I was….
Abit Hoxha: Tell us more about your father’s business, if you could.
Halil Kajtazi: I was stuck there as a worker, I would work in the land we had. Honestly, I cried alone many times, when no one would see me, that I quit high school. I took my books, there isn’t a shadow in Vitak that I didn’t pass with a book in my hand, reading, and crying for quitting school. How things turn out, a day comes and I talk to my big brother, Rushiti, in Skenderaj. We were tired, our father was in prison, we wanted to send him some packages… My brother was taking a salary there, he was a warehouse keeper. But that wasn’t enough. Talking, and talking, he says, “Halil, can I talk to Shaqir Beqiri so he could hire you as a teacher?” “Yes, bother you can, of course.”
We went out, I know we met, because I didn’t know him, my brother did. And he hugged me like this, just as i am hugging Proza {hugs Proza}. He said, “Do you want to be a teacher?” I said, “Yes, even my brother told me to be a teacher.” “Do you want to work in Lllausha?” I said, “Yes, wherever you want me to.” He said, ”You will go work in Llausha.” He said, “Go home, wear something nice, fix up a little…” Because they would also look at our appearance a little, if we were handsome, et cetera. Because if you were short and stuff, you would be rejected, it was their duty.
I wore the clothes that I had, and I came. When he gave the paperwork {pretends to write}, “Go there.” The road from Skenderaj that goes straight to the mosque, not the other way, I cried the whole way to the mosque. For how it happened for me to quit school, and be a teacher. I submitted the paperwork, I gave it to the principal, and they told me, “Yes. You will work with the second and fourth grade.” And I continued working there.
I didn’t… It was luck, even in the second semester, I worked there for two months and a half. From there they sent to Rakenica. But I didn’t like it in Rekenica, but I couldn’t object, but we took, we took two salaries. My big brother was very happy, he was happy that we were financially a little better. And they sent me to Rakenica. In Rakenica we were friends with the family of Dajak, and Durmish. My fiance was from the Dajak family. Things got bad because of the primitivism, they had those slogans. There comes a guy from the neighborhood of Dajaks with a hatchet. We had a classroom and a small office. When I see him with a hatchet in his hands, Bali Dajaku. I say “Hey, do you know where you have come? Do you know that this is a school, you can’t come here with a hatchet. Here are my students. How can you come here with a hatchet? Leave that hatchet there, what do you want?”
He leaves the hatchet, he got to the office which was like from here, {points with his hand} to here. I say, “What are you? Are you crazy?” He says, “Who told you to come here ?” I said, “Why?” He said, Who told you to come here?” His daughter was engaged to someone in my neighborhood, she was in school, in that classroom. And when I went to the classroom she had gone under the tables so I wouldn’t see her, I didn’t even recognize her, or see that she got under the tables, but they told me later. I say, “Look man, I didn’t come here by myself. My father didn’t tell me to come here, neither did my brother. But the circle sent me here. Take this hatchet, and don’t come here with a hatchet anymore. The hatchet is to be used in the mountain, it isn’t for school, you scare the students, you scare the students and…” He got out of the school.
It was a really hard time, but it turned out well, you know, shortly. From there I went to speak with person who was entrusted with the education, it was Besim Hajzeri from Tica. He said, “Yes Halil, why did you come?” I said, “O Beqir, can I ask you something, to send me somewhere else, from Rakenica.” “Why Halil?” “Well, this and that….” I told him this story, I say, “An old man came, we friends, my fiance is from there, and a guy from my neighborhood is engaged to someone there and I don’t want them to talk.” He said, “Aii, but it was near you house.” “Well, what can I do Beqir?” He says, “Do you wanna go to Likovc?” I say, “Yes, immediately.” He gave me the decree, {pretends he is writing something} and I went to Likovc.
I didn’t know where Likovci is. I came to Tushila, at my brother’s uncle’s, “Yes Halil, why did you come?” I say, “I came so you could take me to Likovc, because they sent me to work as a teacher there.” “Do you know where Likovc is?” I said, “No, I don’t know.” And I really didn’t know, I was 18 years old, I didn’t get out much. I know Ilaz came with me and took to Tica street where you have to go uphill, and said, “Pass through here, and you will get to Tica.”
But I forgot, and I went through another way and got to Rozalla. When I saw the school in Rozalla, I was happy. The school was nice. I was wondering if the school I was going to was this nice or not. And I ask them, “Where is Likovc?” He says, “Go straight through here, and it is there on that street.” I went and I saw the school in Likovc, and I liked it. I put out my decree and continued working there as a teacher, I was there until ‘53. Then in ‘53 They sent me to Rudnik, near my house. I spent four years in Rudnik. Shortly. Yes?
Abit Hoxha: Tell us more how these three-four years in Likovc were. Where, where, how many times a week did you travel? Did you sleep in Likovc? More of these. How was it?
Halil Kajtazi: In Likovc we had a room where six teachers slept {sips tea]. I had my bed in Llausha, where I slept, when I was a teacher there. After a months I tell Ilaz, “O Ilaz, go and bring me my bed, my bed with my sheets, because I don’t have a place to sleep.” Because I was sleeping in a bed with them, two people, so bad. He brings me my bed. When he brings my bed, it was out of hay, it was out of hay. Put the sheets over it, a pillow, sleep there and that’s it. He brought my bed without the sheet because someone had taken it, but since I had my blanket I didn’t care (smiles). Somebody slept there are they too it.
And I slept there in that room. We didn’t have anyone to cook for us, where to eat. What do we do? My big brother tells me, “Go to Mursel’s.” A guy from our neighborhood, “He is a millworker in Syla’s mountain.” Maybe you know that mill, down at the lake. He says, “Tell Mursel, pay for the wheat and he will grind the flour, take the flour and send it to….” We had some friends there, it was Isuf Hajdari. Maybe you remember. He says, “They will cook it for you.”
When I go to Murseli I tell him, “Uncle Mursel, did you know I’m a teacher?” “When did you become a teacher?” {puts his hand in the forehead} I said, “I’m working as a teacher in Likovc, but I came to you for something.” “Why did you come?” I said, “So like this… I will give you the money, for you to grind flour and sent it to Isuf Hajdari because his daughter in law will bake it for me and Ibrahim Çitaku, for two people. Because I don’t have anything to eat.” He said, “Yes. But get out of here, I don’t wanna see you here anymore because there are spies. You give the money to Isuf, he will give it to Qerim, Qerim Hajdari, and Qerimi will bring it to me, Qerim will bring you the bread, bake the bread. Don’t come here anymore.
He knew I would be careful, because Murseli was with Balli Kombëtar [National Front], he was in the national liberation of Vershac, he was scared they would kill him. I never went to that mill again, only when I went there after 30 years I saw that mill (laughs). This is how life was. He would bring me the baked bread in the morning, fresh.
And there was Ibrahimi, he liked eating, he would put the bread {touches his stomach} he would say, “This isn’t enough for me only.” We would laugh at him. But this was life in education, a lot of suffering, but also a lot of joy and love for work. Love for work, enthusiasm, we worked with a lot of love. We would read all night, we would read and asked each other how to teach that, how to teach this, we would consult so we wouldn’t make mistakes with the students. Because we were also young. And so on.
Abit Hoxha: You told us earlier for the first bread that… Before you ate corn bread.
Halil Kajtazi: We didn’t go out in the field there. We were forbidden to sleep in villages. I know they sent me to Obria, in a conference. And when the conference was over, I got ready to go to school. But it was winter, it was hard, it was freezing cold. I tell the man of the house, I don’t remember who he was, I say, “I’m going.” “Where?” I say, “To school.” He say, “No, I swear, it’s freezing cold, I won’t let you go…” “It’s forbidden.” “No! You’re going to sleep here, tomorrow is a new day, new luck they say”.
I decided to stay there. He says, “Listen to what I’m telling you, good man. Don’t say anything against the party and partisans because my son is in the party and will send you to jail, me and you. I stopped, and thought to myself, “Is the party bad? Are partisans bad?” But I didn’t talk, I stayed in silence. He said, “When my son and wife go to sleep, we will talk freely.” The son went to sleep, and it was just the two of us. We ate dinner and everything, this and that, we stayed up till 2 in the morning. Everything he said, I wrote it in my notebook, but I lost that notebook. But I always remember his words.
He said, “Listen to what I’m telling you, good man.” And he hit knee like this {hits his leg} three times. “For as long as there were people on Earth wrong was ahead of right, and it will always be ahead. And you will see it with your own eyes, and you will say, ‘Ja mashallah, ja mashallah, ja mashallah…’ Three times, ‘How wrong is ahead of right.’ When will the wrong fall behind the right we don’t know. When will the right overcome the wrong, we don’t know”. I materialized this and I wrote a poem how for a long time the wrong was ahead of right. Because every war was won for the right, and will continue to be won for the right, now they say, “The right is not even in the well” and they used to say, “The right in the well” (laughs). Maybe this is boring..
Abit Hoxha: No, no. It’s a pleasure to listen to this.
Halil Kajtazi: And then when I went to Rozalla, in our village, I don’t remember who I was with, they served us, we call it sillë [lunch]. They brought us krelana with cream and bread. Bread, cheese, with long, when I saw the bread, I didn’t even look at the krelana. Fluffy bread, it seemed like it came from heaven not like a woman baked it. They put the food in the table, I said, “I only wanna eat the bread, nothing else. Even if I eat just bread, thanks for the cheese and things, I would eat only the bread.” I will never forget that bread I ate in Rozalla. The other bread I ate at Rexhep Halili’s house, in Kosterc. In these two places I ate Albanian bread (laughs).
And we would play with toy cars there, we would put them downhill, our cars, our toys, but sometimes we would go up to Kerstina and go downhill. And that girl came, I know my mom would caress her hair, and she said to her, to her mother, “I want this girl for my son.” “No, Dinore, you don’t want to marry your son with my daughter.” “I am telling you Zylfie I want this girl for my son.” And I heard my mom there, when I came to high school, my mother and father was scared that I would marry a Serbian woman, they wanted me to get engaged, “Get a bride they would say, get a bride for our son so he doesn’t marry someone else, he’s our only son…” Because I was with the second mother. And my father goes to Skenderaj and tells the man of the house, Nezir Dajaku, he says, “Wait for me tomorrow night because I will come to your house and ask for Sadri’s daughter.’ He says, “Veli, I swear…” “No,” he says, “God gave her to me, you will, too, just wait for me because I’ll be there.”
He took a kilo of sugar, because then it was a tradition to take a kilo of sugar, a kilo of sugar and went there. When we went there they argued, dum e rrum e dum e rrum e {onomatopoeia}, the man of the house, Ibrahim Dajaku, said, “Will you marry her to him, will you marry her to him, you marry her to him?” Somebody said that, somebody said this. “I say marry her to Veli Vitaku’s son, and with no one else.” And it was luck, they had engaged me. When my father came here to tell me, I was in school, I didn’t know anything, I didn’t say anything, I said, “Don’t worry Dad because to please you, I would marry her even if she was a gipsy.”
I married her and we had eight children. She is our seventh kid, Veli, Proza, right? [addresses his son] I have one more, I have eight kids, five sons and three daughters. They’re married, Proza is here with us, we eat and drink together. She has her brothers, and sisters, she has all of. And so on. She is stuck here, but what can I do.
Abit Hoxha: She’s nice, it’s a pleasure…
Halil Kajtazi: {Reading a book} “The vanity cannot be carried in their car, the clothes can.” “When you enemy falls to their knees, forgive them.” Don’t shorten the lamp’s fuel, because it requires poorness.” “Many are known about their shops, but they have nothing to sell.” “When you are spoiled at youth, it looks good, but at an older age, it only does harm.”
I will read this short story to you. “What’s the name of Lekë Dukagjini’s horse?” Forty students were singing in one place, and one of them says to the rest, “I know the story better than all of you.” When one heard him, he said, “Let me ask you something.” The one who said he knows the story wondered what he will ask. “What’s the name of Lekë Dukagjini’s horse?” He asked. He started talking and said, “I don’t know.” He turned and said, “We know that you can’t know more than all forty of us.”
The other story is “Lekë Dukagjini’s writers”, short. An Englishman and a Frenchman go, a Frenchman, excuse me, an Englishman and a Frenchman go… That’s how people call them, because I almost made a mistake, don’t cut it. Both were writers to go see Lekë Dukagjini and ask him something. When they go near Leka’s house, when they go near Leka’s house they saw that his house wasn’t nice. They thought that when Leka will come out they will start touching each other and said, “He is nobody.” When they called him, Leka got out immediately and said, “Welcome in God’s right and hoşgeldiniz [welcome].”
Leka was very welcoming, and they said, “Lekë, we are here to see you and ask you something.” “Before you ask me, I’ll tell you, ‘Don’t look at my beauty because it is how God created me, my clothes, bad or good, that’s how I can afford them.” Then, “Excuse us,” said the writers, “We are gonna go because we have nothing left to ask.” And this how the story ends. So they didn’t have what to ask because Leka gave them the answers. I can read a fragment if you want where we have Sherif, the one about Qamil Hoxha.
Abit Hoxha: I wanted to talk about your work when you came to Pristina, to finish the interview because we talked more, to continue when you came here. Can you tell us when you came to Pristina, what did you start working?
Halil Kajtazi: Of course. I came to Pristina from the primary school of Rakosh in September 1963. I was accepted as a journalist at Radio Pristina. But I couldn’t work there for more than a year and two-three months, I asked for a resignation and I was accepted in Kosova Combine in Obiliq then. When I went there, I was immediately accepted as a translator from Serbian-Croatian language to Albanian, but then there two or three newspaper issues published of the newspaper in Albanian and Serbia, and I was offered a job as a journalist there. I worked as a journalist there for thirteen and half years in Obiliq.
We published the workers newspaper once a month, sometimes twice a month. After thirteen and a half year I left there and I came to BVI[3] in Kosova’s streets. And was done with work there, and two months before turning 40 I was retired, forced retirement, but I was retired nonetheless and my mission was done. Here I built my house, I started in 1965, 1964 I started, sorry it was a mistake.
In 1965 I brought my whole family from the village and put them in this house, and we started work and education here in Pristina. All my sons were here for their education. They finished school and our life was good since we came here. That’s why, remember this, I read a book by Paul LaFrage, he says, he is French, a French critic, he says, “You even to change a tree’s place and plant it somewhere else, because it might like it better. Even people have to change places, because they will progress more than before.”
Then I heard a very interesting story, it says, marriage was in question, for example, a woman from Prekaz said this to me, she said, “What led man up to a back horse?” I said, “Ah brave woman, I do this work, I deal with sayings like this, but I don’t know, can you tell me” She said, “Yes, I’ll tell you, listen to this old lady, an old lady in Prekaz told me, that a bad woman and bad land lead a man up to a black horse.”
So a bad woman doesn’t mean that she is not pretty, but when she doesn’t have mental creativity, when she doesn’t think, because a smart woman says, “I came for you, I am yours, where you are, I will be, too but I think that here, where we are, there is no life, let’s go somewhere else.” And a dumb woman agrees and adjusts to her husband’s environment and lives a poor life forever. She said that a bad woman doesn’t think and she left me those words. I wrote this down, she said, “A bad woman will lead you to a black horse, a good woman will put you to light.” And it is true. Since I’ve come here, everything is going well, and I’m staying away from farming, from land. Maybe I told it like this, but this is reality.
Abit Hoxha: And your work with the Albanological Institute…
Halil Kajtazi: I was a collaborator of the Institute since 1953. I have the letter in the computer when I was accepted as a collaborator of the Institute. I also have the letter that I sent them in the computer, we can read it but you will read all about it in the book. I collaborated with them. But they couldn’t publish my books. They weren’t ready to publish my books and I withdrew and published them elsewhere.
Abit Hoxha: Did they have an explanation?
Halil Kajtazi: The explanation was that it was a hard time back then for me to come out in front of people with a book. Even when I published the “Drenica’s Folk Prose” the students where shared the book, when my classmate saw it, he threw it and said, “Who is Halil Kajtazi?” Because we are like that, very subjective to our circle and we don’t let our circle widen, he was from our village. But the book was written, the notebook is written and no one can deny how science how is used, no one can deny it. Is it true? If you denied all those books, then no one needs to write books. But we are going to write books because a nation which does not write books, does not live, does not exist, there’s no perspective, no life.
So with a strong reason, my mother told me, may she rest in peace, that I could sell my house for a book. This is a principle, that’s why we should publish books. We should publish as many books as we can, as many books as we can, as many as we can so we can serve them to these people, because these people are eager for freedom and book freedom. Book freedom has arrived, but book freedom is being violated. There was no book freedom before. The book that I published was submitted to The Internal Affairs Secretariat’s procedure, “Drenica’s Folk Prose”. I heard about it later. They had to give an opinion about the book, didn’t even know what the book was, and then it would be published.
And when the book was published, excuse me, the director of the printing house told me, Burhan Gashi, I’m a little emotional, he said, “Came here for two, three hours to get book out of my printing house because if someone says something we have to throw it in the Ibar river.” And you paid, that’s it. I say, “Wait for me there!” I took a cab, I took the books, I brought them in my house and that’s it. That’s how it was. In a few words.
Then I published the other books by myself until recently. Later they started publishing, one, and one, and… I published about thirty books. I should not forget to give you “The novel in….” I gave it to you back then [addresses the interviewers] I didn’t forget. I’ll give to the lady and him [addresses the cameraman]. And try to send it to the library, or if you can send it to Jimmy Carter because that character, I told you, you read it [addresses the interviewer]. And I tried to translate it, but I couldn’t.
Books are translated at the Embassy, but we don’t have a tradition for that. Because the Albanian Embassy can find people who translate, it isn’t about money, it is about communicating because in that book I predicted that our fate, Albanians, will get into the White House. And even if it gets out of the White House our bad luck, there is no more life in these lands. That’s the objective of my book which I published after 45 years. That’s why I don’t regret l what I said and what I wrote. In the regime that book wasn’t allowed to be published, because I would have to take responsibility.
Abit Hoxha: Was it sent somewhere to be published or…
Halil Kajtazi: I sent, he’s my neighbor, “Halil, I’ll take responsibility, me and you…” And I withdrew, nothing, nothing. Then he published it after the war. I have it here published after the war, he said that he will publish it, how you wrote it, that’s how I will publish it. But actually I published it in Albania, in ‘67.
Abit Hoxha: From ‘99, ‘98, ‘99, with your family, where were you?
Halil Kajtazi: Yes. The war caught us in Pristina. We didn’t flee from here. We didn’t leave. The reason why we didn’t leave are these, my [paternal] uncle’s family was in Matiqan. More than thirty family members. Most of them females and kids. When they got them out of Matiqan, there’s a village near here, they didn’t have somewhere to go and they came to my house. When I came inside I saw them all here, like birds, like ants, “Welcome my uncles, welcome my uncles.” The old lady got up and said, “O Lilë,” because they called me Lilë, she said, “We didn’t have where to go, except here.” I said, “Don’t worry my uncle’s wife, since you came to me, God will save you and me.”
They came, they stayed here, forty or more family members of my uncle’s, and friends. We were all in these rooms, three rooms upstairs, we went to the basement, they were here. This room was full of mattresses, sleeping sponges, blankets, this and that, we lived here.
And during the bombing, and all. When it happened, they say, “We wanna go to Matiqan and see if we can go back.” Now I was scared to tell them to go to Matiqan. No, yes, no, no, no, this and that, and someone comes to get them and they say, “Everybody went back, we are going back, too.” I say, “Okay, let’s go.”
We didn’t go through the street, we went the short way, through the village, through paramilitary, to tell you the truth. And everybody would notice us, I was in front, they were behind me, women and children behind me. I sent them to their homes. The old lady stayed here, Dinorja. Later, she got sad, “Take me there, take me to my children.” I didn’t know how to take her. There was no one who was brave enough to drive to Matiqan. Lumja was sleeping here with her, she says, “Dad, she is going crazy, she is going crazy. Let’s take her there by all means.” I say, “Lume, I don’t know how unless I put her in a cart with you and take her there, otherwise I don’t know how.” And I decided to take her there with a card.
My uncle’s wife, sleeps freely tonight, the one whose family members disappeared in the yard. I say, Hopefully, if we’re alive, I will take you to Matiqan, to your children, to you family, to all of them.” She said, “How are you going to take me?” I said, “Don’t you worry how, how…” I said, “I will take you with a cart, with a cart, I’ll push the cart.” “How?” I said, “I will put you there, and cover you with a blanket and take you there.” I take Lume, and one of my grandsons, and I went through the Mahalla e Muhxherëve to the street, will the paramilitary kill us here, or here. They would stop here and there, we would mind our business, our road, when I took her to Matiqan, believe me or not, I saw Serbians on both sides of the street looking at us, while we were talking that eighty-year-old lady there.
They looked through the window, they knocked rrak, rrak, rrak {onomatopoeia}. I saw that they were there, I say, “Come on, tell which way to enter the yard so I can bring the old lady to you.” They told me. I took the old lady there. When I took her there, I said, “Listen to what I’m telling you…” They have a daughter, she was in Switzerland, I said, “I took the old lady here, I had enough room, because when I had room for all of you, thirty or forty people, I had enough room for her, too, but she was going crazy for you, to come here.” I tell my uncles’ wives to come here, “I have 4000 marks in my pocket, that your daughter Sadija sent.” Because they parted, they were four separate houses, then they were together. I say, “But she said this, ‘If you flee, don’t leave my mother. And if you flee, I will come to get you in Skopje.’” I say, “I’ll give you the money under this condition.” I took out the money, “Who should I give this one thousand marks?” “Give it to this woman.” “Who should I give this one thousand?” “Give it to her, give it to her… I gave them the 4000. “Is my work done?” “Yes.” “Did I give you the money? Don’t say that Halil didn’t give you the money.” And that’s it.
And I came back with my daughter and grandson from Matiqan, we saw dead animals, starved. I came home and continued my life. But what’s more interesting, I forgot to tell you, when we went to Matiqan with my two [paternal] uncle’s daughters, I met a friend from work in Sunny Hill, and she said, “Where are you going?” I said, “To Matiqan.” “O Halil, where are you going, they killed a man here yesterday and you want to go to Matiqan.” I said, “They won’t kill me Igballe, I was an only child, God will save me.” “Qy qy.’ She said. And I went there, I went there and I know I took some salt and sugar, they had it there, and we were okay.
But then, when the ration happened, it meant, she understands, you do, too… Police persecution of suspicious people, that’s what it meant. I went out to buy food for my family, we were a lot here. When I got out I see that Mahalla e Muhaxherëve was surrounded by the police. I come here fast, where you came, and I say, “Look boys, in one or two minutes we will be surrounded, too, if you want to flee and go to the city okay, if you don’t want, I swear the police is taking the young man to Mahalla e Muhaxherëve.” I saw them taking them in the cars. They couldn’t flee, they couldn’t get out, and they came here.
When they came here they opened the doors of the rooms, they opened the door to my library, where I have my books, I hid my computer in the attic. They took Besim and Veli, they put them like fish to a van bus, we cried a little, they didn’t do anything, they did, this and that. They took them, they beat them up in the police station, they let Besim go, not Veli, they sent him in Lipjan’s prison. From Lipjan they sent him to Srem prison. After a year and a half, we tried and with money they let him go. It was horrible.
But the most dangerous day was when we signed the agreement with Kumanova. That night, they shot so much, the Serbians shot with guns so much that we thought they would come to our house and shoot us. We didn’t even move, we were all laying down near the walls, not moving through the rooms, but laying down so the bullets wouldn’t hit us. When we woke up in the morning the shooting had stopped. The Serbs and Montenegrins were going through the streets in a good mood. After a week, heads down, heads down, we didn’t know, heads down. “Dobro jutro”. “Good morning, good morning.” Not like they used to greet us.
KFOR came, KFOR came, they surrounded every house listening if someone is moving, if they find weapons, where their weapons are, where is it, where isn’t it, this and that, and they found weapons at our neighbor’s house, they filled trucks with weapons. They found some there, and here, in a few places. After two-three weeks, they started to leave. I meet my first neighbor with his car, leaving, he stopped, and says, “Halil, here are my house’s keys.” He got them out, “Take my house, either take care of it, or burn it down, it is yours, I’m leaving.” “No man, I don’t need your house, nor your keys, I have my own house, thank you.” He said, “Take the keys.” “I don’t need them, I don’t need them, I have my own house, I don’t want someone else’s house. I can’t take care of my own house, let alone yours, please don’t burden me.” He said, “I didn’t know you were like this.” I said, “I don’t want it, I don’t want somebody else’s things.” And he turned on his car, krrap {onomatopoeia}, I never saw him again. They left, everybody left and we continued living.
There’s this case, to tell you, I had a neighbor here, when he saw an Albanian neighbor building the foundation for a house, he called him, “Mujo come over, what are you building?” He says, “My brother wants to built a house.” He says, “Let’s drink coffee.” He goes there, drinks his coffee and says, “Mujo, don’t be dumb to built a house here, I swear on the Sun, the Moon, I swear on my mother, I swear on everyone who is alive, if Serbs win, not a single Albanian has a place here, you have no life here, it will be a purge.” In Serbian, čistka [purge], three times, with his hands like this {rubs his hands}. And we parted with him, three months before the bombing, he left his house, he fled. So we parted with Serbians and Montenegrins like this. While we honored them, and we respected them until the last moment. But they weren’t true neighbors as we had thought. Will you excuse me? Thank you for listening to me, and ask me if there’s anything because I will tell you, even if you put a rope here, I will tell the stories honestly.
Abit Hoxha: Thank you.
Halil Kajtazi: Also there was his, in Milošević’s time, he was juror in the court, he went downhill with a, we call it a leather jacket, he would say, “I’m going to court to bring Albanians down.” He was a juror in court, Milan Rajcevići, he was from Llap. And that’s how we parted, be it the past, and be it a good life for all of those people who fought and helped us stay in this ancestral land.
Abit Hoxha: Mr. Halil, thank you so much, you honored us, you gave us precious time, you gave us precious material…
[1] Colloquial, expresses disbelief, distress, or wonder, depending on the context.
[2] The Shkolla Normale opened in Gjakova in 1948 to train the teachers needed for the newly opened schools. With the exception of a brief interlude during the Italian Fascist occupation of Kosovo during WWII, these were the first schools in Albanian language that Kosovo ever had. In 1953, the Shkolla Normale moved to Pristina.
[3] Bureau of Self-Governing Interests, now the Public Housing Enterprise in Pristina.