July 20th

Before leaving Nis, we were able to visit a small concentration camp from World War II.  During the war, the Crveni Krst camp held a total of 30,000 prisoners, mostly Communists, but also Jews and gypsies.  It was originally a fenced-in enclave with small guard towers, but after mass escape, the Nazis built high concrete walls with broken glass on top.  The camp served as an organizational camp, with its prisoners being shipped off to other parts of the Reich after a period.  Still, the remains testified to the horrors, with small quarters for up to 6,000 prisoners, piles of straw that served as the infirmary, and memorials to the 12,000 executed, both in the camp and in the surrounding hills of Bubanj in self-dug mass graves.  The main building now serves as a museum, with pictures of the prisoners, maps, artifacts, and artwork.  Our tour guide, the same from the previous day, had family in the camp, and gave us a detailed account of its history and the daily life of the prisoners.

We got back on the road and continued south.  Just before the Kosovo border, we stopped on the side of the road and walked to a little restaurant on a stream for an awesome lunch of traditional Serb food: bread, beans, salad, and skewers of pork and lamb, really tasty stuff.  At the border, we first got checked at the Serb checkpoint, by surly, no-nonsense police.  We then traveled about 100 meters to the Kosovar checkpoint, where the police talked with us in English and seemed pretty happy.  I even got a text from their cell service wishing me a pleasant stay in the Republic of Kosovo.  We continued on to Pristina, the capital.  We are traveling with one Albanian, Gino, who is very thrilled to be here and to use the language (I’m not sure how thrilled our Serb group members are).  Driving through, we passed a monument to Bill Clinton.  It’s nice knowing that we are in a place that actually likes Americans.  Kosovo, especially Pristina, is rapidly rebuilding, with many roads being recently paved and modern buildings springing up.  Our hotel was in a very nice residential area, and we could tell a lot of new money was being brought to the city.  However, the countryside remains relatively poor and underdeveloped.  Walking around the pedestrian area that night, there was little nightlife to speak of (though our taxi driver did offer us a connection for prostitutes).  It is a very interesting city, and I wish we could have spent more time there.