Klaudia Malaj’s Last Spring

Klaudia Malaj was 15 years old when spring came in 1999. With her innocence she could have been a doctor, an architect, a diplomat. She could have presented Kosovo at international conferences, but she was a completely unlucky child. No religious book could describe her innocence. No… Not even the title of the novel “Veronika decides to die”. Klaudia had not decided to die. Cynicism and barbarity had settled in the Balkans. She lived in the Balkans In Korenica. Korenica was 6 kilometers away from Gjakova and 2 kilometers away from Meja. This was Klaudia Malaj’s only “sin”.

Because of this cynical “sin”, Klaudia Malaj is not a doctor, nor an architect, nor a musician, nor a diplomat of Kosovo. It is located in the cemetery of the martyrs in Meje. Previously, it was located in Batajnica near Belgrade in the cemetery designed as Batajnica 2 as body 376 from the tragedy in Meje.

One night before April 27, Klaudia Malaj could have had many dreams, many dreams and so little time, the barbarians were counting time not with Swiss watches but with knives left over from the tragedies of the Balkans.

On April 27, 1999, Klaudia Malaj was woken up by gunfire and burning houses. She did not know that a terrible massacre had been planned in the villages of Gjakova. She did not know that 376 Albanians would be killed that day. She had only many dreams and the last day of her life. Groups of paramilitaries with cowboy hats, camouflage uniforms and flag ribbons entered her yard.

Klaudia could only have seen them in fantasy films and sad dreams. When they entered the yard, they killed Klaudia’s father, Kola, and grandmother, Monika. At that moment, Klaudia ran like she was chasing butterflies. She ran after her grandmother, who shot her and, according to witnesses, took the bullets from behind her back and her hair flew into the air.

In the air, killed in the direction of God. She was killed to kill the testimony but that day 38 other children were killed in Meje. Their cynical “sin” was that they were 15 years old and the orders were that they were able not to see dreams but to take hypothetical rifles.

On April 27, 1999, it was the last spring of Klaudia Malaj and it should be the first day of Kosovo’s freedom. Klaudia Malaj could represent Kosovo at international conferences but cynical and completely barbaric fate sent her to a cold grave in Meje three kilometers near Gjakova.

Excerpt from the book in manuscript “My grandmother and the plum meadow”. P.S: “Plum meadow” is a toponym in Meje filled with the corpses of Albanians on April 27, 1999. There and around that day 376 Albanians were executed. In the photo, Klaudia Malaj, a fifteen-year-old girl executed in this massacre.