
Journalist Alba Alishani, invited to S'e Luan Topi, recounted the time of the war in Kosovo and the moment when her house was bombed by Serbian forces.
Alishani said she remembers every split second of the moments when her house was being bombed and said she and her family didn't know if they would survive until they got down to the first floor. She also recounted how her brother, who was a baby at the time, lost his speech due to the explosions and bombings.
She also spoke about her first contact with fellow journalists from Serbia.
Excerpt from the story:
Alba Alishani: I remember with terrifying precision everything that happened in those days, especially the day my house was bombed. I remember every section faction, every reaction, every sentence in self-defense, our running away. The fear that by the time we got down to the first floor, we would no longer have a life. My brother who was only a few months old and had not started walking, who lost his speech from the explosions and bombings and was a baby who we did not know if he would return to normal, he drank only milk, and he did not accept milk anymore. I remember every detail of that evening, which was too long to say that it was just one night. It was a cycle, I believe it influenced the course of our lives, of each of us, me, my family and all of Kosovo because there have been events even more tragic and dramatic than ours. I say it very often and I am grateful to God because I say it was written, we as humans were not harmed, however the trauma remains and reflects on the individual no matter what.
How do you feel about a Serb today?
Alba Alishani: I have a hard time managing there, I have a hard time being professionally correct. I had a confrontation, you know that I was recruited by an American group that came from the American CNN at the time. There I accidentally confronted colleagues who were from Serbia. I was forced to cooperate and have communication. I had a normal dialogue until I found out their ethnicity, then I had a problem communicating with them.
You said you were from Kosovo?
Alba Alishani: I told you in a tone of protest, that they certainly didn't like it. They were kind of shy because they were in my country, they were in our Albania. So they had a kind of reservation in this case. But I saw that naturally I couldn't dialogue with them, despite being forced to.
Is there some kind of hatred inside you?
Alba Alishani: No, I wouldn't want to burden my soul with hatred. I have a kind of anger that I can't accept. I used to say, for example, that tomorrow I would pass this feeling on to my children, that I would teach them history. Because sometimes memory is short and I believe that it should remain as a strong historical memory, it should not be forgotten.