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| Svetlana
Djordjevic
I was born in the town of Vranje, in southern Serbia, 8th December 1958. I finished elementary school in extremely bad conditions, in a family where terrible violence was the way of life; I did not get the permission of my father to enroll in the secondary school, but, at the insistence of my uncle-Gaya (now deceased; a character in the book), I somehow managed to get the permission to enroll – the only possibility I had – at a course for typists, in 1974. As soon as I finished it, I started searching for any possible way to leave the house, in which my every day was a bath in the cauldron from Hell. Late in 1977 I leave, with the assistance of uncle-Gaya, for the town of Valjevo, and there, very young, I get married. I try to compensate for my lack of education, by enrolling at various courses, so in 1984 I complete my study of tailoring and sowing, in 1987 I finish the second level of the chemical technology, and of metallurgy, in the school “Boris Kidrich” in the town of Šabac in western Serbia. In the meantime I work in various factories and firms, as permanently or temporarily employed, and I read whatever book I can grab; I always sleep with a book under my pillow. Comes the time of inflation, factories shutting down,
smuggling for the “white” and for the “black” markets. This contributes
to the termination of my emotional relationship. I was in a terrible emotional
crisis, I needed a change of all – even life itself – to step out of that
crisis. I leave for Kosovo, to survive that dreadful time, and I work
as a cab-driver there. June 1999, I leave Kosovo and I am back in Vranje.
I write a book about my life – for myself, but also for all the women
and little girls who have behind them, or in front of them, the lives
similar to mine. It gets published and I walk through Hell one more time
– condemnations, curses in foul language, insults, threats. I live in
fear, family proclaims me a traitor because, I think, they want to justify
the actions of my father. Hideous threats come from my brother, from his
war pals, and from their sympathizers. An unknown man assails me (and
will never be known to the public, although it is not his only crime),
but he is accompanied by another man, whose face I do not see and whose
voice I do not hear. I struggle, they do not succeed to inject me with
the full amount of liquid which they had prepared in a syringe. I awake
in a hospital. Yet another hell, larger than the one I’ve been passing
through in these last few years… At the insistence of NGOs, policemen
guard me, (most of them had been in Kosovo and know me very well). Retaliation
goes on and on: instead of feeling safer, I am under house arrest, I am
forbidden to contact anyone, my phone is listened to, my letters are examined
(so, I write only the things that can “pass”), they are provoking me,
cross-interrogating me in my own house. One more time I feel death staring
me in the eye or me staring it in the eye, doesn’t matter which. On 9th
August I start a hunger strike. Police know it, they laugh a little at
me and that is all, they are constantly around me, I cannot go anywhere
without their “accompaniment”, cannot talk to anyone. Three days later
I leave for Beograd (Belgrade), accompanied by two policemen from Vranje,
hoping to be received for talk by anyone in Belgrade police central (I
meant to ask them to annul the “protection” orders, they of course know
that I am on a hunger strike, they laugh at me a little and say “you must
return to Vranje today, willingly or by force, because our colleagues,
from Vranje, have other obligations too”). Mid-August: Belgrade intellectuals
speak up with an open letter in my support. Hunger strike continues until
27th August. Staša Zajovic and Zorica Trifunovic help me to get out of
Vranje and to shake off my Vranje escort, and from 28th August to 4th
September I live in the hotel “Balkan” in Belgrade, but “guarded” by the
policemen from the Unit for protection of persons and witnesses; things
are somewhat better than in Vranje. Often with me are Staša and Ljilja
from ZUC, Andrej Nosov from the Initiative of the Young… With their assistance
I leave for Croatia, this is my chance to stay abroad and never again
return to Serbia, but in the meantime my husband gets ghastly threats.
So back I go to help him to somehow extricate himself from Serbia also.
From 15th September to 14th January 2005 I live incognito in Vera’s place,
and then I depart, with my family, hoping that I will never, ever, have
to go back again. |
