Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
Such has been the experience of many women, changing their lives, forcing
them to make certain choices at school and at work, and often causing
suffering, due to their solitude and their distance from their parents:
And it was hard for us; anyhow, food was not lacking, but it was hard for
us young ones without father, mother and my brother, always she [pointing
at Lindita] cried at night, she was two, I mean, only two years old,
she woke up at night and cried, called her mother, and after she fell
asleep I felt like crying, because I felt so lonesome, without parents…
[Merita]
Question: Now, you want to stay here, in Italy, but before the war what
were you thinking of doing in Kosovo? Continue studying?
Find a job, and what kind? Or did you not think about it?
Ornela: Before getting married I lived with my uncle; and he did not
give me permission to go to school, and certainly not to
work… I worked in our fields.
Question: And is there anything in Kosovo that gave you pleasure and
that you miss, and would want to see again?
Ornela: In the event of returning, I would like my family to return
too, from Germany, because I suffered a lot during their
absence.
Another element of the Kosovo conflict made its way into schools and universities,
sparking resistance and protest. The battle waged at school hides
many themes, as the events placed adolescents in a position of resistance,
and therefore was a political experience. Yet the protests were also a “generational”
experience, as they led to events and later to memories which
were to prove decisive to the identities of many Kosovar adolescents of
several generations. One evident effect of this part of the conflict is that
many adolescents, both boys and girls, found therein their initiation to the
discord of Kosovo, from their demonstrations ending in clashes with the
police and arrests, to their exclusion from places of study and exercise.
Question: And when did the arrest take place, in 1989?
Altin: On 27 March 1989, there was a demonstration, a protest, in
the morning… then they took us to the police station, the
group I was in was about ten strong, then they put us in a
cellar with no light, there was nothing and you could see
nothing, we lost the sense of time, we were down there for
thirty-eight hours; we were in there and we were lucky to
have been arrested at the beginning, because afterwards all
kinds of things happened and we did not even know it; when
they released us, I went outside, and I noticed that nowhere
in town could you see a civilian, there were only police, then
I went to see a friend who lived nearby and he told me that
there had been a semi-war, this in Suhareke (Suva Reka).
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