First they killed my father.

It's funny: I remember that as a child, the war made me suffer. I thought that everything, then without knowing how to say it or think about it, was a game that would end once in the evening and imitate it with the kids in the neighborhood.

I was eight. First they killed my father...

September 26, 1998. I was walking with my mom after a big offensive in Drenica. Everything around us was on fire, everything was burning. Troops of people killed around me, animal bodies. Father had long been united KLA. By a busy road after the rain poured over and over, it was a distance of more than 300 feet [500 m] to reach home. For others in the family, we didn't know where they were. When I saw the chimney of the house, I told my mother it was my father. He didn't answer. About two hours later, we were told that Father had been killed during the fighting just a few yards from home. I've heard my sister's cry, my sister's frustration, the tears of my aunt, I remember the smoke of my brother's cigarette. By evening we would bury Father. His body was in a trailer. I went and saw him. It was like a smile... Little had I been told about death. I didn't think he was dead.

Then they killed Antigon, Diturie, Valmir...

After burying my father, we heard that my friend, Antigona Deliu, had been killed. Two-year-old Valmir in his mother's womb and Diturie Delin six months old. I was eight years old, but I remembered Uncle Umer, their parent. How? With Antigon I'm not going to school anymore? I didn't think he was dead.

After the biggest offensive in Drenica, where a part of my life was killed, we would continue for Pristina. First, we enter a family that rents us as refugees and then picks up a family to rent us.

That's where he started school, but he always started thinking about Dad. That I'd come back and see him one day. In Luqar, we found good families. I was sent to school. They sat me down with the best students - Yllka, Elvira, Edona, Albana, Granit, Veton, Arbnor.

After a few days of school, even the Great War begins in Pristina. We went to Marec to stay a few days. There's a war. We return to Grazica. All this way, understood: a few days, on foot.

First, they killed the youngest boys...

I was eight and a few months old. I was filming everything with the few brains I had left. They ordered the boys to stay on one side and the women on the other.

I saw a young man's body, with an automatic hail hail thrown right at my feet, not two meters away. They killed more than 10 young people like this. I saw them all. All these scenes were conveyed by a heavy rain. The valley next to the main Grazica '% Makoc, was filled with bodies of young people.

After that, we take the packed train to Macedonia. A few days after NATO bombards Serbian targets, we return to Pristina.

It's sad: as a child, no matter how much they talk to you, you don't understand death. I thought my dad was buried, but one day I'd see him again.

P.S. The title of the story, from the movie First they killed my father.