You don’t trust anyone anymore, not even… it’s a stupid term: “our people”, but that’s true, you can’t trust nor your people neither the others. You start thinking in a different manner, you realize there’s no one by your side, you realize you’re all alone and you have to get by the best way you can, and that hurts, because we’re the kind of creatures who need friends and neighbors and people who would help us, be there for us, make it easier for us…
DIVNA JANKOVA: Hello.
ELIZABETA ZAFIROVSKA: Hello.
DJ: My name is Divna Jankova and we’re about to conduct an interview about 2001. Let’s begin.
EZ: Nice to meet you. My name is Elizabeta Zafirovska, born in ’76, which means I’m 34, unmarried, and before the war, up until 2001, I lived in the village Lopate. That was considered to be one of the crisis-struck regions at the time, and for me it’s something that must have happened for a reason. Actually, maybe we were part of that by coincidence, but what we went through will stay with each one of us…
DJ: Is there something you would like to single out, something specific that left a mark on you?
EZ: Well, that whole period can be divided in a few segments, in different phases of my life. I can say I get to think of each of those phases from time to time. Of course, that whole thing is something I would wish for anyone, but it’s also something that happens everywhere in the world, and some of us have the misfortune to experience it on their skin. What would I single out? It’s definitely a mark I will carry till the end of my life. It’s something that cannot be forgotten, although I’m being considered as someone who is intellectually and mentally strong enough and who does her best to suppress the memories of war, leaving my home and all that. But it’s not possible, we all try in vain to suppress it. I’ll give you an interesting example which shows how hard it is to escape those memories. I remember, after the war, 2002-2003, I don’t remember the exact year, I was working at a restaurant, I was forced to do it in a way, you know, you have to make a living. I was lucky enough to find a job at a restaurant in Skopje and I was working on New Year’s Eve, and like always, there were fireworks on midnight. And the moment they went off, forgetting for a moment that it was New Year’s Eve, I panicked: That’s it, war broke! War again. Now that’s something… You know, everybody else were cheering up, while I needed 5-10 minutes to come to myself and realize that it was just fireworks. That’s what our subconscious does to us, that’s how important it is for our health and our lives, but it is what it is. We try to cope with it.
DJ: How are you coping with it now, fireworks and stuff that remind you of the war?
EZ: To tell you the truth, it’s getting easier with time. I’ll say that again, it will keep on reminding me, any noise of that type, any crowd gathered or… Every time I see a bunch of people gathered, whether it’s a demonstration or a strike or anything, my mind goes back to that and I say to myself: “There, war is about to break, something is going to happen, the worst will strike us again!”, or something like that. So, I can’t say that… In time it fades away, but it will never go away completely.
DJ: Tell me, how was it before 2001, how is it today in the place where you used to live?
EZ: In the place…
DJ: Where did you used to live?
EZ: In the village Lopate.
DJ: The village Lopate?
EZ: Yes. Look, shortly before 2001, which means during 2000 and 2001, we could all feel it in the air, in the relations between people, because where I used to live we were separated, as always: Albanians on one side, Macedonians on the other, and there were some Serbs as well, there are different ethnic groups. So during those two years we could feel something was about to happen, that… it was not as it used to be. The communication between people changed and all that. But life still seemed normal and it didn’t even cross our minds that it would come to that, that we were going to leave our homes, our life that we had till then, which was more or less a good life. However it was, it was our life and it was peaceful.
DJ: Did you go to the same school with the Albanians?
EZ: Yes.
DJ: Tell me about it, about the celebrations, about the relations between the two different communities.
EZ: It’s interesting, I was born in ’76, so I belong to a generation which experienced the rule of Tito, you know, the ‘80s, when life was good. I remember my parents – but about the school, I went to the “Marshal Tito” primary school. Even back then it was divided in Albanian and Macedonian student groups. To tell you the truth, it would be a big lie if we say that we used to live in unity… Even as kids, we always identified ourselves as Albanians or Macedonians, that division was… Not that we didn’t spend time together, there were the celebrations, May 25th for example etc, and it was all organized by the teachers, that’s what their job is after all, to organize the kids in a union, not that it was some union, but still, we lived normally for the time. So, school was ok and the only thing I could underline is that we did feel the difference between us. Kids are kids, but we were being divided from aside. It was well known even then, we didn’t get along, and that’s something…
DJ: So, there were just these formal reunions?
EZ: Yes, yes. You could call it formal, that’s how it was, simply formal, as it later turned out to be and as it always will be, I think.
DJ: Where were you when the war broke?
EZ: Well, I remember the day, the… the… day, the moment. We were alone at home with my mom, my parents are divorced, and I lived alone with my mother. We lived in a part where mostly Albanians lived and…
DJ: In Lopate?
EZ: Yes, yes. It’s sort of divided, Macedonians on one side of the village, Albanians on the other, and our house was right next to the school, at the “entrance” of the Albanian part. And as it happened, first they started shooting in Tetovo, and we… We could hear that on the television and everybody was speculating that it would come to our village, that everywhere where the population is mixed there will be trouble, but you don’t expect that it would happen right away until it does. It was one night – I remember we were watching news on “Sitel”, some reports about some soldiers in Tetovo being attacked, massacred, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember it was exactly 9 o’clock and Latas was speaking on the news and suddenly we heard guns firing. Horrible sound, which… I don’t know, it came from somewhere around, which meant they started fire in the village. The army came, the police too, and they were shooting back from the Albanian side. The electricity went down and I remember we were left caged in our own home for the next 24 hours. We called the police, the phone lines were still working, then they went down as well. My mother asked the police: “How are we supposed to leave the house? They’re firing outside”, still unaware that it was war we were facing. The police said: “Nothing you can do… Where are you? There’s no going outside, it’s dangerous, it would be best if you stay at home.” And we stayed in for 24 hours, the neighbors too, there was no one on the streets. So we spent that night… and… Two days later we left our home and that’s when everybody started fleeing from Lopate.
DJ: How did you feel during those two days?
EZ: Oh…!
DJ: How old were you at the time?
EZ: Erm… 2001, that’s 10 years ago, which means I was 24. I was at the university than, yes. I was a student, in my second year or my third, doesn’t matter. My studies went down the hill that year. I simply thought there was no room to think on my studies in that situation. You know, things were going well at home till then, we were functioning well. And… A horrible thing, a horrible thing, you even… go as far as – you simply accept your fate and at a certain moment I thought: It is what it is, I started thinking of the worst, that someone might break in and rape me and all that. […]
DJ: You’re talking about those 24 hours you were locked in?
EZ: Yes, yes.
DJ: Were you alone with your mother?
EZ: Yes, completely alone.
DJ: Tell me a little bit about those [moments].
EZ: Well, we could hear gun shots, we could hear the bullets firing, now I’m not familiar with the types of weapons and I don’t want to be, but the bullets were… piercing the windows, the roof etc. I mean, luckily no one got hurt, and we were surrounded by Albanians. Now I couldn’t say that someone tried to break in or anything, none of that happened. Our neighbors were still ok with us to some extent. Now, there were some provocations, such as: I would go to the store and they would chant slogans, you know, all that created some tension. But that night – let me get back to that night, when the electricity went down, the phone lines were dead, we were left like that and I remember this neighbor who is now passed away, Albanian, he came to our window, knocked and said: “Don’t go anywhere this night, stay where you are and if you need something come to us.” You know, he offered us shelter or whatever, because we were two women alone. We didn’t stay at home, but that stress is unbelievable, all kinds of thoughts were crossing our minds. We didn’t know what could have happened, we were thinking how they… how they might break into our house and start torturing us. Horrible, terrifying images. Now, those who are weaker could face permanent consequences from all that and those who are fighters will manage to live with it. But that means health problems as well… That stress, it has its consequences. That night, our hearts were beating so fast that… We still have consequences from that night. And so, we spent that whole night lying on the ground because it was dangerous to stand firm, there were windows on all sides, a bullet could have hit us. So we were just lying around, talking. Than we decided to have a coffee, you know, regardless of the situation. And I remember the diarrhea, it’s incredible how much diarrhea can be caused by stress. That’s simply unbelievable, horrifying and the next morning when we went out on the porch, it was so dark, although it was 6 or 7 in the morning, and there were clouds of smoke from the gunpowder or whatever it is they put in the guns, there was this strong odor. As if… as if… there was no one left alive in the village, as if they had all died. We felt hatred, confusion, hopelessness and at that moment we were ready to leave empty-handed, to just leave it all behind, because we could see our lives were at stake.
DJ: So, that’s what you did?
EZ: Yes, yes.
DJ: Where did you go to?
EZ: This is how it was: we left the village, passing through the checkpoints, the police and all that. The same day – or about 24 hours later, yes, that’s when people started leaving one by one, both our people and the Albanians, everyone. In fact, they didn’t… they didn’t all leave, that’s not how it was. Our homes were emptying one by one, but they stayed in their homes. Their women left, but the men all stayed. And so we left the village, with the passports in our pockets and with… I remember, I took my photographs, because I had a bunch of photos at home, I’ve been taking photos all my life, and I took the books too. A box full of books, because I was studying at the time and I needed them. We left and I remember my mom went to stay to a friend’s house and we thought it was going to take just a few days. But we didn’t get back home for three months at all, and later I went back to see what was going on, but I’ll go back to that later. So I went to the Red Cross office – where else could I go.
DJ: When did you went…?
EZ: To the Red Cross?
DJ: No, back home.
EZ: I went back after two months, all alone, without telling anyone. It was still the same, the situation was still bad, and it was worse for us because we were two women alone in…
DJ: …the Albanian part of the village.
EZ: Right, right. The others… it was different for them, I don’t know, maybe they were going back home during the day and then leaving to spend the night with some relatives out of fear. And so I went to the Red Cross to check in as an internally displaced person and they said: “Wait a while, we’ll see, perhaps there will be no need to send you to a collective housing”. You know, our village is right next to… to the city and I guess they… considered it to be less endangered, but that wasn’t so. They were shooting, people were running scared, so it was just as bad as anywhere.
DJ: How did you feel when you got back home two month later?
EZ: To tell you the truth – we stayed with my mom’s friend for 3-4 days, which is natural, you can’t simply stay there forever, and our orthodox mentality is somehow different in that aspect, I mean, we’re not used to help each other, we’re simply not like that and so we soon realized we needed to find another solution. Whether we’d have to rent a place, whether we’d go to a collective housing or some place else, we didn’t know yet, and I should say that the collective centers were reserved for those most struck by the crisis, for folks from Matejche and other places, and the capacities were limited as well. They couldn’t take us all in, so some had to find themselves their own accommodation. For us it turned out we had to rent a place. Rent went crazy up in that period, from 50 euros to 100-150, the landlords got a good chance to get rich on people’s despair. So we were left completely on our own, the Red Cross would just give us some packages, some things completely useless, some shampoos, napkins, detergents you can’t even use, so you go there wait in lines for nothing, but we’re thankful they gave us at least something. So we rented a place, it cost us 100 euros, then another place, and another, and another – we changed four or five different apartments, because each time we’d move in, a month or two later the landlord would suddenly rise the rent. He tells you openly: “If I don’t make money in this crisis, when will I? Now’s my chance.” You just stare at him, you don’t know what to say, it’s miserable. So it was a bad time, I had to get a job and go to classes, and for a while my studies were going ok, but then… I couldn’t do it anymore, so I stopped going for a year or so. My whole life was disrupted, all my plans and… And about going back home, I was going to say that earlier on, we had a lot of kitties. And of course I wanted to see my kitties, bring them food. So I went there two months later and I saw the entrance door wide open, but nothing was missing, at least nothing valuable, you don’t even… care what is missing, it doesn’t matter in that situation. You don’t even notice, but I could see it seemed deserted. The house was neglected after being empty for two months, as I expected, and I remember when I got back to the apartment I said to my mom: “Mom, we’re going back home, period.” I said: “I don’t care if we die tonight.” We couldn’t take it anymore, renting a place and all that comes with it, you know, “your shoes weren’t placed as they should in front of your door”, then “the picture on the wall doesn’t stand proper”, in the meanest possible manner…
DJ: You’re talking about the landlords?
EZ: Yes, that was a big lesson for me about how people are, I have no words to describe it, I don’t mean anything bad, that’s not how I think, but…
DJ: So you moved in back to your old home 3 months later, right?
EZ: No, I don’t know if it was exactly three months or two and a half… doesn’t matter. I wished to return because I realized that there’s no place like home.
DJ: Right.
EZ: At least you’re free at home. And the situation seemed a bit more peaceful. They stopped the fire…and my mom said: “Ok, just a little longer and we’ll go back home.” We went back home and I remember we barely spent two or three days there when another shoot-out began, even bigger this time, we could even see “Hermelins” and army soldiers passing through the little street where our house was. It was even more horrifying. But we decided to stay there, no matter what happened. So we stayed at home for a month or so, it was peaceful for a while, there were shoot-outs from time to time, then peaceful again, and suddenly my mom said she couldn’t take it anymore: “I can’t sleep, I’m keeping watch all night long”, she said, “I wake up all the time waiting for something to happen. I got sick.” She had problems with her thyroid gland… she still has some serious health problems. After all, she… she’s a mother and I guess she worried for her child too, much more than the child could think maturely at that age. I mean, we were both scared, but she, as a parent, must have had a different perspective on the situation. And so we left again and never returned. That was the end. Except from time to time, we’d go see our house, once every three or four months. So since two thousand… one, it’s been 10 years now.
DJ: Where did you go this time?
EZ: Well, since… when was it? Since 2006 we live in Babin Dol, we had a house built there, but then my parents divorced and my mom spent 15 years in court for that house. Somehow she managed to win the process and she got the house, I mean, that one floor where we still live and… But it wasn’t livable yet, so we had to move from a place to place until we fix it a little bit. A year ago we sold the house for 5.000 euro, a house worth at least 30.000.
DJ: The one in Lopate?
EZ: Yes, for 5.000 euro… and… the bargain was for 6.000, but that women only gave us 5, she even owes us… What more can I say, when there’s nothing good to say.
DJ: Tell me… Why do you think 2001 happened? Do you think that those who started the war got what they wanted?
EZ: I definitely think so. I… think, no – I’m certain that they got what they were asking for.
DJ: Which is?
EZ: Which is, those absurd demands of theirs, they were absurd back and they still are, we can’t even call them a minority because they don’t act like that, those rights they were fighting for were…absurd, as I said, and I still think they are, they won them with guns in their hands, with war. They reached their goals, although I think that main goal, their mission, is not over yet, they’ll keep on going. I’m thinking, we’re absolutely separated. What they were talking about back then, about the western region and all… Kumanovo and the rest of the region they had on their map, it’s technically theirs now. Everybody knows we simply can’t live in a community together and that’s a fact. Even the state institutions in that region don’t work the way they should, which is degrading for the others, I mean, the rest of us. We’re talking about “Svetlina” here, we’re talking about social policy, all that, at least that’s how I see it. I can’t speak in general, I can’t say that I’m right but… that’s just my opinion. It’s degrading. They’re privileged at enrolling to the university, they’re privileged at getting a job – it’s simply unbelievable.
DJ: So according to you, they got what they started the war for?
EZ: Definitely, but no, they won’t stop here, this is not enough for them, they’ll definitely go on.
DJ: What do you mean?
EZ: I mean, the tasks they had set are mainly… They won the important segments of what they were after and now they’re… they must, I don’t know, maybe… A year ago I was somewhat active in politics which means I was interested in what was going on a daily basis. Now I’m not anymore because I came to realize some things, I realized what is politics all about, I realized what a state means, I realized many things and now I don’t want to know about anymore because it’s all crystal clear, it’s the same story over and over again, and it’s all on the back of the ordinary citizen. And I think they’re ready to go as far as to separate themselves physically so that they could live independently, although there’s no need for that, they’re independent anyway.
DJ: I’d still remind you of that neighbor who came to you in your hardest moments and invited you to… go to their house that night.
EZ: Yes, that’s true… but it’s just one person, and we can’t judge the situation based on one person…
DJ: So you…
EZ: Yes…
DJ: … single him out as being just one person?
EZ: I do, yes. I couldn’t say – there’s about 500 households in that village, 250 of which must be Albanian, and we had good neighboring relations with 10 or 20 of them. Real neighbors. I must admit that they respected that term, at least before the war broke.
DJ: So you didn’t have any problems?
EZ: No, not at all. Except for some situations, for example: once during the war, or just before it began – that’s a very ugly memory. This guy, one of my neighbors, broke my window with a stone, the stone passed right by my head and hit the TV. So his idea was to kill me – what else would he be doing pointing a stone to my head? So…
DJ: He was trying to warn you?
EZ: Yes, yes, yes. To warn me, that’s true. So there you have a situation which was quite a shock and very stressful. And we gave them no reason for that, we were a model for good neighbors, they’d tell you the same if you ask them. We were always here to help, to give, to hear somebody out and all that. But there, that happened. After that…
DJ: Did you go to… Ok, finish your story.
EZ: After that there was another thing, each night… We had this fence made of tin. As you know, the tin makes loud noise when hit. Now, groups of youngsters, 15, 30, 40 years old, doesn’t matter, on their way back from the tea-rooms, in 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning, each of them would arm himself with stones and they’d throw the stones on the tin, on the doors and…
DJ: Was this before the war?
EZ: That’s vandalizing. Well it was… it must have been shortly before the war broke. Before it began officially… Yes, it was before it began.
DJ: There was no such thing in the past, it was just right before the war broke?
EZ: It was before the war began, if we say it officially began in 2001, then this was going on in 2000, there. That entire… year, we had to go through that all over. It meant: get out of here, you’re not wanted! What else could it mean? But we were persistent because that’s in our nature and we stayed in our home anyway.
DJ: Do you have any good memories, except the thing about this neighbor, like going to visit them for Bajram…
EZ: We do, we do. We do, yes.
DJ: …and them visiting you for Easter?
EZ: We do.
DJ: Where there such occasions?
EZ: Yes.
DJ: How was that?
EZ: Well, we still have communication with some of the neighbors, those who are being called natives, who were born in Lopate and still live there. The rest have come from Kosovo. So there’s a division between Albanians themselves, and I consider the native ones to be better people in their relations with us, and as neighbors too. Why is that? I’ll tell you about these neighbor, 5 or 6 sisters, two brothers, we got along well with them, and their father, if we called for help he would come in the middle of the night, he still would. They still come to where we live now, they’d come for Easter, we’d go to them for Bajram. We respect each other. He always calls for the holidays: “How are you? Are you well?” One of the guys came back from France a while ago and he came to see us with his wife and children. So, there’s an example of… I really respect those people.
DJ: So you used to play outside with those kids?
EZ: Yes, yes, yes.
DJ: At school it was a different thing…
EZ: Yes.
DJ: But outside on the street…
EZ: But that’s just an exception.
DJ: That’s just with those specific neighbors?
EZ: Just with them.
DJ: Right. OK, I just wanted to hear a good story about friendships with Albanians before the war.
EZ: There were no friendships, it was just these people I was telling you about, with all the rest it was maybe just getting together once a month, you can’t really consider that a friendship.
DJ: Could we say that war deeply changed your life and your mother’s life?
EZ: Well, it did, yes.
DJ: And?
EZ: It changed it completely, in the sense… in every sense, in fact. I don’t even know where to begin because it really changed it in every aspect. First, we began to think about ourselves differently, we started observing ourselves, what we went through, how much we can take, because it was a real mess those 4 years. We were living in rented apartments for 4 years, and it all cost us 300-400 euro a month. If you pay for electricity 50 euro in your own home, you’ll pay 100 in a rented place. Turns out you have to pay for your landlords’ electricity as well. Real torture. Then, I completely stopped trusting people, which I consider to be very important aspect of life and of survival. You don’t trust anyone anymore, not even… it’s a stupid term: “our people”, but that’s true, you can’t trust nor your people neither the others. You start thinking in a different manner, you realize you’re all alone and you have to get by the best way you can, and that hurts, because we’re the kind of creatures who need friends and neighbors and people who would help us, be there for us, make it easier for us. Also, I went through the worst kind of ordeal. Now, maybe there’s worse than that, I don’t know.
DJ: Could you say you got stronger?
EZ: Yes, definitely, definitely. Well, that’s what I was trying to say, you start living a life whose name is “Me and myself”, me and… The entire burden is on your back and you push as far as you can and it gets tough and you say to yourself: “I can do it, I’m strong enough, I can push some more.” And somehow, yes, I can definitely say I’m different from the rest of my colleagues, the people I know, that thing about me differs me from the others. Even without telling them about what I went through in my life, people are noticing. Trust me, they notice, they say to me: “You’re a strong person.” I’m smiling now because this is probably the first time I talk about this with someone, it’s true, it’s an unpleasant thing to talk about, I don’t want to go back to that, but there, sometimes you just need to share it with someone. Otherwise that whole thing – we don’t even talk about it at home, it’s over. We try to… leave it buried in the past. But it’s obvious, others are telling me the same, they say: “I admire how strong you are, you can…”, you know… Somehow I always think there’s a way for everything, life must go on, there has to…there has to be hope.
DJ: Thank you, let’s…let’s stop with this last thing you said, that there has to be hope…
EZ: Yes.
DJ: … and I believe you’ll get a chance to find what you hope to find in life.
EZ: Thank you, it was a pleasure.
DJ: […] Thank you.
