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damage to her body seemed “extended”, including the damage suffered by
her children’s bodies. The father, however, made a clear distinction
between what happened to his children and his own experience.
Level or intensity of damage: In this family, the level of damage is high,
especially in the case of the children. Their daughter’s face and hands are
horribly devastated by fire. Even though she has already undergone reconstructive
surgery, more work on her scars is needed in order to make the
markings fade. The stigma she endures socially is unbearable: this adolescent
girl and her little brothers cover their hands with gloves and hide
their faces with a skin-coloured mask whenever they go outdoors. I was
allowed into what Irving Goffman would have called the “backstage” of
the family from the very beginning, a “privilege” which I explain by the
way we met: I had been introduced to the group as a trustworthy person,
and they never wore masks in my presence.
Quality: In the refugees’ discourse, there is a distinction made between
physical and psychological damage. The husband suffered little physical
damage, his “fire” was internal, as the humiliation, the fear, his powerlessness
burned him from the inside. The damage he suffered is irreversible:
there is no cosmetic surgery that would restore his wounded male
identity.
War, death and fear
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
In his accounts, a middle-aged graduate of philosophy [Eduard B.] reminded
us that the history of a place (Kosovo) is also the history of its deaths,
from the Turkish occupation to the Muslim persecution before the First
World War, through the partition and Bulgarian occupation during the
Second World War, until the rule of Marshall Tito, whose death brought an
end to a peaceful, though difficult, ethnic coexistence.
It is significant that, in the refugees’ representations, the conflict in
Kosovo became a “war” only when an entire family (the Jashari) was
killed:
We all knew the war broke out when in the region of Drenica, central
Kosovo, in a small village two families had been completely killed…
They killed them all, and from there the war started. [Dritan]
In my opinion [the war] started in March 1997, when an entire family in
the centre of Kosovo was killed: 52 people, all with the same family
name: they were brothers, from then on the war was started. [Ilir]
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