antologjia raport

ARCT
Anthology of Wounds
A terrific and artistic testimony of the hell
of the living
Tirana 2006
ANTHOLOGY OF WOUNDS
Materials translated from albanian by
ANDI BALLA
Freelance writer and editor
Publishing board
Adrian Kati (Executive director of ARCT)
Gentian Vyshka
Ariel Çomo
Valmira Skëndi
This book was published with the support of the European Commission, Tirana; and with the support of the
Ambassador of Finland, Mr. Alpo Rusi.
Cover and design: Visi design
© ARCT
ARCT
Albanian Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma and
Torture Survivors
Rruga Kont Urani Nr. 11
TIRANË
Tel. 00 355 4 256522
Contents
Anthology of Wounds ................................................................................. 1
Introduction ................................................................................................. 5
Anthology of Wounds ................................................................................. 9
MARIA MEDICINA (DVORANI) ............................................................ 22
TUK JAKOVA AND MITA JAKOVA ........................................................ 26
LIRI LUBONJA ....................................................................................... 39
VASIL KATI ............................................................................................. 61
DRITA ÇOMO ......................................................................................... 65
ROZETA PEPELLASHI ........................................................................ 78
LUAN MYFTIU ....................................................................................... 80
SAMI REPISHTI .................................................................................. 101
A FRIEND AND A TEACHER .............................................................. 101
JAMARBER MARKO ........................................................................... 107
AGIM MUSTA ....................................................................................... 111
DOM SIMON JUBANI ....................................................................... 125
Father KONRAD GJOLAJ O.F.M. ........................................................ 139
SELFIXHE BROJA (CIU) ..................................................................... 144
FATHER GIACOMO GARDINI S.J. .................................................... 159
FATBARDHA SARACI (MULLETI) ...................................................... 171
NAFIE STËRMASI (1920-1983) ............................................................ 172
MARIE GJOKA .................................................................................... 174
MAKENSEN BUNGO ......................................................................... 178
AHMET BUSHATI ................................................................................ 194
URAN BUTKA ...................................................................................... 214
FAR FROM PEOPLE ........................................................................... 215
MARIJE GJOKA (MAZREKU) and DOM NIKOLL MAZREKU ...... 234
MARTIN CAMAJ ................................................................................. 250
MOTHER THERESA IN ALBANIA ...................................................... 259
The Communist Persecution in Albania: Brief Historical Overview .......... 261
Anthology of Wounds
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Introduction
The ‘Anthology of wounds’ was published from
ARCT (Albanian Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma and
Torture survivors) on the year 2004, collecting dozens
of narrations in its original form, from ex-prisoners of
the communist dictatorship. Now the foreign public has
the possibility to have a selection of those narrations in
English.
During the last years there have been several publications on the theme of persecution, communism and
its human consequences. But yet no collection of entire
histories and of a variety of authors such as the present
has been published. This was not the only reason for
conceiving this book. The other one, and probably the
most important, has to do with the oblivion. There is a
touchable, clear and important risk that everything
might be forgotten some day and some where. It should
be a sociological reason to this risk of oblivion, however, and such a reason must be clarified. The presence
of two generations might be this precise reason: the Albanian society actually is composed from two groups
of generations: the first one, old and middle aged people
that have been in direct contact with the communist dictatorship. The second group is formed from the actual
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youth, i.e. new generations that never had the ominous
chance of knowing what the communism really was.
As a matter of fact, the school curricula – especially the
national history – lacks substantial data related with the
years of the communist dictatorship, and above all, no
explanation at all is given about what this bloody regime meant for the everyday life of a simple Albanian.
The process of empowering and consolidation of the
communists’ regime in Albania was really a bloody one,
such as could be a process called ‘war’. The so-called
‘class struggle’ was in reality a civil war, without rules
and honor, merciless and out of every human law. This
war has been coined through massive falsifications and
a notorious propaganda that disorientated the population. The dictatorship carefully selected the ‘class enemies’ to be annihilated in a constant and continuous
way – first of all, the intellectuals.
The criminal nature of the communist regime of
Enver Hoxha was absolutely not a consequence of the
circumstances – as its apologists use to say. As a matter
of fact, this nature was made from a secret code whose
rules were précised from the dictator and his tight collaborators. An attentive eye will easily pick up an evolutionary trend to the communist regime of Enver
Hoxha, i.e. some kind of change: let’s say, from the year
1950 to the year 1980 some changes were really made.
Those changes were in fact related to the intrinsic dynamics of the system, rather than being an adaptation
to the international situation.
Unfortunately the fear of a ‘potential persecution’ is
even now – more than fifteen years after the reversal of
the dictatorship – present at the memory of all people
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living under the direct influence of the communism.
Such a fear is being transmitted to new generations that
never lived under dictatorship, and this transmission
probably is not verbally done, nor it is intentional, even
a not in a conscious way.
The fear was born and penetrated inside the cells of
the Albanian life: the psychological trauma that followed
was a really harsh one. Nowadays we may run a meticulous scanning of the dictatorship, but we still are far
from understanding the internal mechanisms of its functioning. Probably this is because the persons that should
judge the entire process are on the other hand even them
shaped from the infamous period of communist dictatorship. This criminal suppressive machine has to be
studied entirely: what was the role of the labor party
(PLA) inside the hierarchy of violence; what was the
role of sigurimi – the secret police of the period; what
was the role of other organisms such as the youth league,
the simple communist cellules etc. etc.
A special characteristic of the communist regime was
the concentration of the power in a very small group of
party leaders that by definition are not subject to any law
of any kind: the party is above all, even above the laws.
The party is controlling the state so thoroughly, that the
borders between the state and the party are extremely nebulous during the communist dictatorship. The party of labor is controlling the everyday life second by second, and
such a thing had never happened before in Albania. The
spies were controlling everything said and done; denouncing was widely encouraged, censorship was applied routinely. The communist way of directing and organizing
the state has in its foundation an incontestable and cruel
verity: the human rights are violated systematically.
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Of course from a juridical point of view, the redress
of all injustices is very important as well: the condemnation of all communist crimes in Albania is imperative, including the crimes perpetrated on behalf of the
ideology. Such a juridical rectification would render the
new generations the conscience toward a period which
they have not experienced directly. Such a thing has to
be done simultaneously with the condemnation of the
communist ideology, and the crimes that it produced.
Of course, the stories depicted herein are a human
testimony of all human rights violations and a reflection over the transfiguration of the perpetrators. It could
be much simpler to condemn an ideology and a period
of the history; rather than to bring before justice those
perpetrators. The Albanian transition resulted to be a
long one, and the confusion this phenomenon produced
is unbearable. In fact it seems more important than ever,
to distinguish once and for ever, the collaborator from
the sufferer; the man that didn’t say a word before the
injustices and the other one that produced them.
Of course, there is a great deal of pain and sufferance in all narrations included in the present anthology. With the hope that the emotional response of the
reader will not hamper the process of reading the book
entirely, we also wish very much that no one will get
habituated to the scenes of ill-treatment and abhorrent
torture that the authors have described herein. On the
other hand, this is just an original and lively collection
of life experiences, whose aim is to prevent that some
day everything might well be forgotten, as it never happened at all.
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Anthology of Wounds
A terrific and artistic testimony of the hell
of the living
PRAYER FOR THE PRISONERS
Christ, you that yourself
have tried chains
and I see you again on every prisoner
give strength and honor
to your brother
to defeat time behind bars
to fix evil!
Give light to all of them
until they can see
what was the mistake was our life,
That only love can
fix and do good deeds
toward all the miserable people
the sins of whom we have all made
Amen
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These words came from Mother Teresa, and can best
open any anthology on life, but this one especially because she, a Saint, spoke them with such a proud desperation and true illumination, similar to the light that
goes through prison iron bars. She prayed in peace for
those in chains. She loved them and she felt for them
because she knew the depth of the abyss of human suffering, the nails on the cross, the torture, and worldly
and human wounds. She didn’t believe that prisons and
interment camps could fix evil in the world, to the contrary, they were and remain a great evil in themselves.
Surprisingly, in our hell, according to an unexplainable and mysterious mechanism a lot of important news
reached us down there before the rest the rest of the
country, and the banned name of Mother Teresa was
called. There was a need to find Christ among the prisoners, starting from the common suffering, but it must
be said that between political prisoners and the Son of
the God there was another special connection that went
beyond the similar torture through barbed wires. They
didn’t place it on us as a crown, but all over the body,
forming a blood stream that joined under the same the
ideal – to oppose violence, to love and to dream of a
better life. The prisoners were not the real wrongdoers.
The real criminals were the people that them us in prisons.
Those who gave the orders, as they went above this
hell, where the life should have been normal, because
over there generally people did not know anything
about important things, for it was not possible, that while
they suffered to understand the suffering, especially that
of the others. While held in the big prison the country
had become, they must have not cared the small pris10
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ons, for that map of the crime, full of black wells of horror, where the suffering and the struggle were endless,
with a dizzying experience that needed supernatural
human strength to overcome, sublime silence of lonely
thinking and a the fate of a martyr.
Even without knowing it, that hidden celestial voice
was joined by Albanian voices of thousands of others as
an inner chorus of silence. Since even God was banned,
it came from the mud of interment camps, from the cold
dormitory halls in the middle of the dictatorial winter,
the dark halls in narrow apartments, the dark roads,
the ditches, the poor schools, from the grave-yard shifts
of Socialist factories, the hospitals and military departments, the artist studios. It was in the middle absurdity
every dictatorial regime, as dusk came under the shiver
of some forgotten candle and the women stood on the
knees over the old floor and the marriage bed, empty
and frozen, praying in the middle of fear for the lives of
men in prisons. They prayed so that their lives could be
spared, for if they died, they would not even get their
bodies, which would be buried somewhere unknown.
They were praying to for the return of their prisoners
from hell, as halved home awaited to be whole again,
to feel the love never completed. Life waited…
And so like a halted storm, a part of which has been
contained in this anthology as the wind in the mythology of Eol, that somehow changed the climate of the
time, giving insecurity to the walls, sphinxes, slogans,
the Central Committee, the class war, adulterers, new
arrests, bunkers, the first kiss in high school, funerals,
socialist realism, the barbed-wire border, advice, and
every thing that seemed as sure as the regime itself.
Meanwhile, from the Hadi of prisons as an underground
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river, the incredible sufferings of those violently detained would want to gush out as the collective moans,
the political swearing, the imaginary revenge, the
dreams and the delirium that flooded that reality. The
downward spiral and the waves it created are felt in a
terrible way through this anthology. They serve to create another reality of the future, more bearable, and why
not a better one — surely human.
“I won’t allow you to use word ‘human’” – the investigator yelled in the catacombs of the state “Socialism has other words, more revolutionary, stronger, “ he
said near the chained man, innocence itself.
“We will punish you severely” — the screams continued flying around like black fowls – “because we
want it that way. You have been determined to be an
enemy, and you will work as a slave in our mines, because you can’t be subversive to our People’s System,
because the laborer class leads our country.” Meanwhile
the investigator had become red from his screaming like
the flag of his ideal, his nose turning into a yellow harvester and his forehead heavy like a hammer. “We will
put you in prison again, we will sentence again,” the
screams filled the air coming from the mouth of the harvester-hammer man. “In prison …”
So what happened in our prisons and interment
camps? How were the prisoners’ conditions? Did they
have enough to eat, could they laugh, and did they go
crazy at once? How could they bear the fact that since
the end of WWII until now they were locked up, hungry, without love, without freedom, because the antihumans had stolen all of these. What was that scream
that came out there? How did they take them forced
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labor? Chained? Oh God, behind those barbed wires,
how did they go on with their lives as a jailed people
pushing the mine carts? Why all those floodlights over
the barriers, like Cyclops bloody eyes? What really happened there?
* * *
What really happened there?
“The Anthology of Wounds” is the most shocking
book about anti-life and its wild tortures against those
who went against it, locked up there inside the barbed
wires. It tells us about those who went against evil with
their courageous words and otherwise with the revolutionary deeds, but even with the active dream, and with
the philosophical silence, that were hard punished. Said
otherwise, “The Anthology of Wounds” shows the cruel
punishment that was done to people, the physical and
psychological mutilation, the unimaginative Asian
Middle Ages-like torture the one-party-state exerted on
its people and especially on those who dared to opposite it during the second half of 20th century. When
WWII finished and humanity expected to work in peace,
the big the apocalypse came, as the world was separated into two big groups on opposite sides of a terribly
Cold War.
While our little Albania was set to enter the big communist empire, differently from the other big states, we
were under the greatest pressure, we massacred without mercy our self, we improved only the machine of
violence, we built more prisons than factories, more
bunkers than houses, and we created literacy to invent
or slander the new man, the monster against all the others and ourselves. And while we locked ourselves up
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and were isolated from the world, we became poorer
and poorer, economically.
To add all the years in prison of the all those jailed
and interned, it comes to the result that Albania was
condemned with centuries of imprisonment.
The wounds anthology is the common book of many
authors that have had chains on their hands and were
chosen to go into the mines of hell and they are the same
people that would be killed or that would die in the
endless sufferings. Through this book, their spirits got
up to bring their testimony of hell.
Parts of this book have been written in prison with
invented alphabets, on cement sacks, cigarette letters
and on the sides of newspapers. They were hidden under the straws of the mattress, in shoes, under stones
and ultimately they were memorized, helping spiritually the authors. What’s even stranger, they got their
readers in prison, which if revealed would cause the
author and the reader to be sentenced to more years in
prison. Other parts of the book were written during time
spent in interment or after being freed from prison.
However, the authors had no right to be published, the
same way these people had no right to vote or to work
in their profession.
As a result, this anthology was seen reasonable to
include even some writings from those forced to go into
political emigration, from those authors that had been
prohibited to return to their country. They were also
persecuted even where they were, in the form of assassination attempts toward them and their works were
considered dangerous and the regime punished every
possible reader of them here.
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Nothing here is fictional, existing in the hard hyperrealism of arrests, relationships between the prisoners
and the people who tortured them, the midnight tortures, the rapes, the big revolts in the camps of Spac
and Qafe Bari — the only one in the prisons of the communist empire — the shootings, the disappearances, and
many others. But we don’t have here only a cold book
of facts and numbers. We are dealing with real literature – made of harsh rocky scenery in the dark were
through a miracle of tears and emotions that, like grass,
come above the gravestones of death.
So this anthology is a close as possible to the writings of torture and suffering from those that suffered
and were tortured in cells by criminals vested with
power in the criminal abandonment of the anti-country.
Not all of them are writers, but they tried to do their
best, and surely not all are well known in literature, but
many of the authors are mentioned later as famous personalities in the country’s culture that once freed from the
prison years later, were valued in different countries and
different languages in the Europe and all over the world.
This tells that the crime against them has been double, they
were maltreated first as people, then as talents.
They wanted to kill them before death, killing their
works before they were born.
In the meantime, I think about the pain the authors
of the anthology have endured, while trying to choose
the works of their fellow sufferers. The term “anthology” is an old Greek phrase, meaning “to choose flowers,” the authors had to choose among wounds with
blood on the petals.
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So this hard book is “chosen wounds” collection like
a coal still burning, a mortal wealth of a collection leafs
and charring meats, signs in the air, as long as the endless length of the barbed wires, dark marks in the collective conscience.
Especially today that the communist empire and dictatorship has fallen and its dictatorships, the people that
created tortures or did them, are continuing them in
more evil ways, ignoring the suffering of others or not
recognizing it, because they don’t endure the persecutors that are a resistant evidence and remember them
the big sins, the colossal crime and then demand other
roads to save and hide, and not that of apologizing but
according to their ritual even that of revenge, but very
often that of the theft, they are trying to steal the persecutions of them that were persecute.
They want to be those that are not, the victims, while
they were even such, not only because they shirts were
sprinkled with blood during the tortures but even because their blood was of the others, but at the end when
you take the freedom of somebody you have not two
freedoms, but you have lost even yours and according
to them now, is enough a bought testimony in these institutions with weak former prisoners that creates the
nowadays state, which is more similar to the technical
prisons, and …the oblivion is needed, the river Lete,
collective amnesia, more and more from it.
But I had to add that this anthology is only the top of
the iceberg that navigates in the darkness. That as if
melts more, will overflow, not only on the dark waters
but even with blood.
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Really what were all those tortures? What was that
crazy will to destroy the other person?
The torture in its origin is invented to disappear with
every condition the truth. The inquisition used this way,
torture to make people speak.
Communism in the basis of its doctrine has its violence, as a device of social development, the war of
classes, that according to me, is civil war in the peace
time community that was proved in the prisons with
killer obligation, so has the crime and the ideology, until raising up in philosophy of it, making Marks and
Lenin as the protector of the bad
The state of Albanian communists after took everything; good and soul had nothing to take even the truth
and didn’t accept any other truth except its truth. That’s
why they didn’t accept the truth of the other, they pull
out the tongue from the mouth and lied on the table of
the gory office and put the knife on it. The word was
blooded like this. While the executors, were drunk of
joy to be executors and they didn’t know and didn’t have
any other profession, except the one of the sadist, investigators, spies, guardians, prosecutors, denouncers,
art critic of the socialist realism, member of the Political
Bureau, leaders, prostitutes, lawyers, commissars, the
shooting team. They feel stronger in the group. And in
the instinct to wash theirs sins they wanted victims. And
they sacrifice the others so their society could remedy
its sins, which they declaimed as feasts and victory.
And so the society looked worse, wild, and uncivil,
that the prehistorically caves substitute with the cells of
the Interior Affairs Branch, while the book must be one,
and similar with the Penal Code. So making afraid some,
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or all the people really the society couldn’t choose anything important, only incriminated more and more,
while the state believed that worst he was worst he
would become. And it needed this appearance. A human state would feel weak.
So it is better not to reason than to reason, the in
humanity, and the big crazy fury to enter the others
skulls, even breaking them. In the prisons of our prisons was written in red, “We condemn all the people that
have a bad behavior, that speak in a bad way, that think
in a bad way” and for the last one it was enough as a
prove that they itself to think that the other was thinking in a bad way.
The witnesses were found very easy. The tortures
were ready and its zoology of the iron and electricity
were ready with light and terrible eyes.
Often and often the crime has passed over the man,
and to the tombs, and to the rivers, and to the animals,
birds, trees, air, the sky and nothingness.
The people chosen to torture the others were normal, at least seemed like this, not sadist, they spoke of
love they told erotic stories, but they were like beasts
when they had in front of them the arrested persons,
because they first were indoctrinated and fight with the
enemy and then they were themselves the victims of
their macabre ideology. And to justify the violence and
its ideology needed the victim to merit the torture, and
on the other side to be as not valuable, so in one side it
must be done the depersonalization of the opposite, the
violation of him and his family the devaluation of him
as a creation so must be put the chains, as dangerous, to
be fired in a cell, to cut all the hair, must be leaves on
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old clothes, to become ugly, to be hungry, and to take
the food on the floor as a dog, to look as soon as possible a very disgusting thing, not to merit anything.
In meantime happened that during the fevers of the
tortures to shine in the eyes something esthetic and at
once they broke the arrested persons’ fingers and took
for example the rings and gave as a memory to their
ignorant wives, that even today keep as memories not
only of their youth full of revolutionary orgasm and to
a pathetic triumph not dead for them. That’s why they
continue to eat with the teeth full of gold, took off from
the teeth of the opposition.
The writer Primo Levi, that evoked the camp of
Auschwitz, that later on with his books looked so deep
on the world of the torturers that was suggested and
frightened that he could be one of them, we don’t know
the fatal conditions, but he would hurry up to kill himself.
No killer up to now has committed suicide, but they
continue to murder the persons they have already killed.
That’s why nothing must have a memory. The greatest enemy of the totalitarian system was that it must not
have memory. The dictatorships, of Nazism or communist especially the last one, destroy the endless documents, the testimonies, and the written and not written
memory.
But every action had an equal reaction with the action.
The titanic difficulties restart in even in hell when
dignity must be saved with the opportunity of men to
live normal lives. When you put yourself on the side of
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good, that must give you strength to dare and believe
that it is possible to resist in the middle of the cruel vulgarity of evil bad. The dictatorship, even dead, has this
satanic thirst to continue the persecution generated as
part of the past – through the sons of the persecutors.
They consider as their legitimate right to continue
the persecution as something inherited from their fathers, that in the conditions following the dictatorial
system is presented on the most sophisticated shapes,
such as maltreatment, the dispersing of the responsibility to all, which means nobody, aggressively appropriating the right of the history, and of the future, and concretely taking away the last wealth and creating conditions to profit in capitalism for their own clan.
Didn’t Enver Hoxha write his books in his villa as he
stepped on the thick carpets that had been appropriated from the subverted classes, while his cooperators
put people alive into holes in the ground and covered
them with dirt, leaving only the head outside, just so
they could find out where the gold was hidden.
And we are telling our suffering, in the dark depth
of which the stones tortured by the pressure, and the
painful corrosion of the hard plaques, sudden fill with
golden tendons, while our gold burns subverted under
the land on the shining diamonds.
But the historic memory of the tragedy must be
strengthened.
First we have to remember that evil must not be repeated, that’s why telling it especially from the artists,
is not only liberation, but even a creation of conscience
and duty — an act that serves the truth, history and the
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future. Because in this way is transmitted the soul of
the times and spreading the suffering now, will pass
less of it to the future generations, in order not to have
big collective sufferings.
Is it worthwhile this anthology for us? Maybe we
need to do as soon as possible peace with our history?
Forgetting…
But it is known that the crime not punished is a crime
that goes on…
Even though this publication is at least an artistic
punishment, it also serves as an encyclopedia of the
suffering and a guide of overdoing it. It is even a harsh,
majestic, challenge, a collective testament written in lion
leather that honors all the Albanian literature, as a modern Iliad persistence, a cathedral of a mourning miracle.
By Visar Zhiti
Tirana, October 2003
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MARIA MEDICINA (DVORANI)
Born in Korça, in 1925, she
finished the elementary school in
her hometown and the high school
in a medical college, in Venice,
Italy. She came back to Albania
in 1944 and participated in the
War for National Liberation by
joining the ranks of partisans.
She was arrested in 1952 and
sentenced to death under political charges. Following an appeal, her life was saved and
she was sentenced to a prison term of 25 years.
She served her time for about 14 years and later on
was moved to a forced hard labor camp. She has been
the head of the Former Prisoner and Persecuted
Women’s Association since 1992
Her published books include “The silent love” (1999),
“Why do I suffer?” (2001), The time in fogginess” (2003).
May we forgive?
We have often talked with our friends – the formerly
persecuted women. We have often read on newspapers
that we have to forgive. Yes, sure! We have to forgive
for our nation, to tolerate, to live in peace and harmony.
But we would also have to forget our wounds, the nightmares that keep our youth and life still locked up inside …
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How can we forgive?
I am one of the victims of the communist regime. I
was sentenced to death and then after appeal I was condemned to 25 years in prison. I have a lot to tell about
my prison years, but … the years of freedom have also
been hard.
It was April when I regained freedom. I wandered
the streets of Tirana to find a shelter until became dark.
It was my first night as a free woman. I had to be glad
but I couldn’t. People walked out, quietly, in that cool
spring evening. I took of my shoes and kept them in my
hand because of my feet ached. I didn’t know where to
go! I went to a lot of hotels to find a place for that night,
but for me that night all the doors were shut.
When the hotel receptionists saw the document that
made me free had a prison stamp, they said — “No vacancy.” It was a very, very long and frightful night…
The next day I went to a family to rest a little. My
feet hurt, but more than that I had a wounded spirit.
There goes the policeman again. The owners had to kick
me out, because I was an “enemy of the people.” They
could be interned. I was in shock again, but I couldn’t
cry. I had forgotten how to cry since my prison days.
However, I was really touched when a 12-year-old
child and a few others threatened the policeman with
bricks in hands, protecting me, shouting together, “She
is kind. What do you want with her? Aren’t you sorry?”
But I left. I didn’t want to create problems to that good
family.
Oh my God! Why do we have to forgive these shameless people who did everything to alienate us from our
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friends and cousins, who became afraid to meet us …
And what about the “colleague,” the provocateur,
can he be forgiven?...
…He came from a military detachment. I worked in
chirurgical ward, and he came there to do a nurse’s
course. When I saw him for the first time I was sorry for
him. He was pale, skinny, but although he had never
attended school, he was ambitious and was ready to do
every thing needed.
One day he told me, “I have been proposed to work
for the State Sigurimi*” Very soon he was on his way to
become a Sigurimi agent. One day he asked me if I was
a Party member and if I had participated in the war. I
didn’t answer. But he insisted, “You will not be part of
the Political Party, you dream of the West and a free
Albania.” At that time I couldn’t understand his words.
He was Sami Lamani.
These common people hid their real goals after an
invisible spider web. Fabrications, slanders, provocations and traps were their invisible profession that sorrowed many people’s lives.
…As in a picture, I remember even now, four men,
a colonel and three generals with all their ranks and
red-striped trousers.
- You got us tired - said Halim Xhelo (the Inner Section Chief at that time)
- I have put my feet where you have put your heelsI answered. –I didn’t know to be such an important person to be observed from such a high degree officer.
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One of them, Mihallaq Ziçishti, shouted like a crazed
man:
- You are the enemy of the people. We have to get
you.
Two hard slaps on the face and a kick on my abdomen made me fell down. I hurt a lot, but I couldn’t be
weak before them. I put my head up and said:
-I have done nothing. My only mistake is that I love
my country!
A sudden punch knocked me down of the floor again.
My mouth was bleeding and the front two teeth were
broken. I couldn’t get up again. It was almost impossible. I looked up and prayed: “Please God, look and
take revenge for me.”
It was the first day of my arrest …
*Translator’s Note: State Security, locally as known Sigurimi, was
Albania’s feared secret service under the communist dictatorship.
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TUK JAKOVA AND MITA JAKOVA
Mita Jakova was born in 1925.
She finished the elementary and
middle schools in her hometown.
She started high school in Korça,
where in March 1943 all the students of her class decided to interrupt the lesson and to participate in the Antifascist Youth Conference. Starting in August 1943
they participated in the First Attack Brigade.
Tuk Jakova was born in Shkodra in 1914. She finished the elementary and middle schools in his hometown, but interrupted his high school studies due to economic and political reasons. He then worked as carpenter in the city’s factories. During this time he was one of
main participants of the Communist group of Shkodra.
Then he participated in the National War for Liberation
as the commissar of the First Attack Brigade.
After
the war ended, Tuk and Mita got married and had four
children, two sons and two daughters.
During this time Tuk was a member of Communist
Party Central Committee and the Political Bureau. But in
1951 he had contradictions with the system and was dismissed from the Political Bureau. Then, because of his
opposition, he was also dismissed from the Ventral Committee. In June 1955, his family was expelled from Tirana
and sent to Berat.
Tuk began to work as carpenter and Mita as a teacher.
But after some time she was forced to work as a laborer.
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In November 1956, they were told of the first measure of
internment. A year later Tuk was arrested and sentenced
to 20 years of prison.
In 1959, Tuk Jakova died in the prison hospital under
mysterious conditions. “They are going against development with their ways,” were Tuk’s last words.
After 27 years, in January 1983, Mita and her children, together with the nephews and nieces, where sent
to internment for the second time.
Mita then came back to Tirana, where she currently
lives with her oldest daughter, Vjosa. Agimi and Bujana
with their families live in Greece and the other son, Besnik,
died accidentally in the United States in 1994.
Fragments from the book “Painful Correspondence”
My dear Mita!
This is the first letter that I am writing from the prison
and as you know, because State Security Comrades told you,
I have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Please don’t get sad, but look after your work and take
care of yourself and the children.
Don’t worry about me. I am fine and I am not sad and I
live with the hope that one day I will go in any place to work
in my profession. So I will not ask you for money any more
because I will get it by myself. But now (as you have heard) I
am in the old prison of Tirana, waiting to begin any kind of
work. If I change address I will, write you at once.
Regards and hugs, Tuk
27.IV.1958, Old Prison
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My dear Tuk,
I have waited a lot for your first prison letter. I just got it and
I am replying.
I have a lot to write, as much as you have had to write me.
But can we write all what we have felt and thought for each
other all these months, after January 3?
Your letter was short, but I am glad that you began to
write me again. I will count the days until I get a letter from
you again.
My sweetheart! Your letters will be so precious and wanted
all this time!
Don’t worry about me! I know that I have a big obligation
to raise and educate for a long period of time alone our children. I understand this duty and the other social ones, so I
will find strength and deal with the difficulties.
Don’t get sad! Hope you will have as soon as possible a
work place. You love working and it will be like a friend to you
in these days.
That’s why I will be glad if you have a workplace, but not
because you will not ask me for money in the future, as you
wrote to me. Surely you will need underwear or other things
during this time. Don’t be ashamed; write me.
All the children are fine. Today I got a letter from Vjosa.
She wrote me that they were preparing to celebrate May 1 in
school, and she was glad to celebrate it again in Tirana after
so many years. On the third semester she had got only fives
(the highest grades). Besnik too, while Agim got a four again
in grammar, nevertheless he is improving now. I am worried
about the grades he will get on the high school diploma. I will
write you again about this. Bujana is the same.
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She remembers you a lot and speaks a lot of funny things.
The children take care of me and don’t get me angry.
Mother left 12 days ago. So I have to pass every worry by
myself. Oh no! I am not alone, I have my children. What
about you?
Write me Tuk; as much as you can. I will write you too. I
am looking forward to see you right way you accommodate.
A kiss from the children, hugs and I miss you,
Yours, Mita
Berat, 6. V. 1958
My dear Mita!
Even though I have written you a letter a week ago, replying your first letter, now I am writing you again.
Today is May 24. This has been a very important date for
us. It reminds us of our unforgettable moments that bring us
together. I am not writing about the romantic side of this date
(even though I would like to) but I am writing only for the
current reality.
In my family life, May 24 coincides with moments of happiness and desperation. A wise popular proverb says “Life it
is not always full of flowers,” it has its happiness and its desperation. So considering what I am writing, I advice you to
be strong on this desperation moments because we have obligations toward our sons and you must be for them father and
mother, and to face the life alone as time as we will be separated. I was glad to read your words “I understand the obligation I have in life.”
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I have written my mother a letter and I said to her to come and
see me with Vjosa. Also I asked her to bring me some food, if
possible, because now we are under the prison norms and the food
is less.
According to the things I had with me, I kept the mattress,
quilt (with no sheet and bed), pillow, my gray suit, old jacket,
trousers, cigarettes, waterproof leather, sandals, 3 shirts, 2 Ashirts, wool sweater, white cap, vest, towel, chess board and five
books. All the others things they promised to send me there where
you are, so if you had taken them and if not, write me back. I have
the inventory of the things. So if they have confiscated something, tell me what.
I am in good health. Tell me how are you, how are the children especially Bujana. Tell me about their grades in the school.
Kiss the children from me.
Kiss you, miss you
Yours, Tuku
Tirana, Old Prison, 24.V.1958
PS: Today I got 500 leks that you had sent me.
Thank you!
My dear Tuk!
I got the second letter of 17.05.1958. I think now you
have got the letter I sent you before this one and you are calm
now to hear that we are in good health .Before some days I
sent 500 leks thinking that I have not sent you money since a
long time.
I will wait from you a long letter next time, as you promised to me. I saw you are sad and despaired from this last one.
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I love you so much Tuk! Don’t worry and don’t get despaired
in every condition you are. Try to be strong and to overcome
the difficulties wisely and patiently. When worried and despaired think of the children and me. I have seriously decided
not to despair. I have many reasons to be. I have often spoken
with myself (not having other person to speak with) and then
like a second person I have encouraged myself in all the matters.
Now I think for the job, to be a good worker, and to educate as good as I can my children, and to fulfill their needs the
best I can, I will think of you even though you are far away, I
will try to be always close to you with strength, decision, and
enthusiasm for the life and love for work and the care for children, and loyalty and all of this to transmit you. Do you understand me Tuk? So, whenever you are think the same way.
Think of job and be strong. I know you are so no need to write.
During the last months I have read many books, for example “A hero of our time” of Lermontov. The efforts road” of
Aleksej Tolstoy, has so far been translated in Albanian only
partly, “The sisters”, “Uncle Gorioi” of Balzac, “Storm in
Gang” of Tagora. “If I was a guy” of Stermilli, “Kujtimi
Flower” of Postol and some Chinese parts etc It needed a long
conversation to tell about each of them, especially for the first
ones. When I was reading “Storm in Gang” (a book which
you have written me to have read) I tried to find with my
imagination the part that mostly had impressed you. Komolo
was for me a dear character, with all the good qualities the
author had described her.
If possible and you need books write me to send some.
Write me for everything you need. We are on the last days of
the scholarship year. We have a lot to do. We finish the school
on May 24 May. I began the holidays on 5 June. The first
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days I will accommodate the home, because I have not done yet
the summer works. The children will write you when the school
will over. I will include here Vjosa picture that did it only for
you. She will come on 4th of June. We are all in good health. I am
feeling better too.
We all kiss and hug you.
Yours, Mita
Berat, 20.5.1958.
My dear Mita!
I sent you two letters and this is the third and I am waiting to have an answer from you.
I have written my mother and Vjosa to come and see me
but they are not coming yet so I am a bit preoccupied. I am
writing a letter to Fran too. In your first letter you wrote me
what I needed and I am replying.
First I want to see you. Come when you begin the holidays. Let Vjosa come with you and bring me these things.
I need some sausage, cheese, a little sugar, bread, a floor
mat, a hair comb, toothpaste, some stamps, soap, a copy pencil, envelopes and letters and some cigarettes. As you see these
are expensive things so you can sell my light suit. If you are
not able to come , sent the things in a package. If you would
come I had to give you some clothes like my gray suit, the
leather coat, etc I have no place to keep them
Don’t worry my dear. Continue to be strong and persistent because I can feel better in this way. On other hand I am
trying not to get sad too. Until now I have been in good health
and I have even not had headache. I think I am getting used
with the prison climate.
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Please write me again and tell me of you and about the
children results at school. Kiss the children for me.
Kissing and missing you,
Yours, Tuku
Old prison, Tirana
5. VI.1958
P.S. I forgot to say me bring another new book (novel)
My dear Tuk!
I have written a letter two weeks ago as of today. You have
not written me back. I don’t know how you have passed the
time there after May 24. (The third letter I did get.)
Do you have a job now? We have the same preoccupation,
your job. I continually think of you, for your food and the
place you sleep. I am worried for you. I don’t want you to be
sad. Every time I cook any good meal I think of you, and I
can’t eat it.
I ask to myself what is Tuk eating today? I am sad that I
am far away and I can’t see you to bring something to eat. It
has been a long time you have not seen a relative to come and
see you and to bring something to eat. I knew you have waited
for Vjosa and your mother. This last one is in Durres and you
know she can’t come by herself if somebody doesn’t accompany her. So that’s why even Vjosa has not come yet. She
cried when she came on holidays and couldn’t come to meet
you. I began my days off on June 5. During these days I cleaned
the house and when I sleep in a clean room I think of you
again. And Tuk, where is he sleeping? And I feel pain in my
heart. Life is so strange! I think of your conditions of living
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and I try to have a clean home (especially now that I am on my
days off). I do all these for me to loose my mind and for children
to live in a good family.
…I have asked to come and see you and to stay some days in
Tirana, but I have got no answer. I continue to wait. I will come
with children if I can. I don’t know what to do with Bujana! Our
children talk a lot about you. They are growing up Tuk! I am
glad to see them altogether as birds. Gimi likes very much working. He can’t stay a day without it. He began to clean and oil
again the construction tools. One day seriously he said, “Mum!
Can you find me a job until the school starts? I will earn some
money to help you and pass the time too.”
I told him, “you are young and you have only to go to school
and to became a good guy. “What about my father,” he said, “he
was younger than I am when he began to work to help his
mother … I had to give a long explanation. I think to let him go
for some days in Durres. He likes it too. Lately I have dreamed of
you very often as if you suddenly come. This way I miss you
more.
I am sending you 500 leks. I have not sent you since one
month before. I know this is little money. But I will go in
Tirana and sell any other thing and send you more money.
Write me Tuk, write me for everything. I am looking forward
to get a letter from you.
A kiss with love.
Yours, Mita.
Berat, 5.6.1958
My dear Mita!
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I got your second letter on December 10. I am sorry you
have not gotten my letter of November 5. Maybe you have got it
now. I learned about you from this letters so I feel glad.
I ‘m happy you are fine and on the other hand I ‘m sorry
you are obliged to work supplementary hours. I am preoccupied for your health because you are not in such a good heath
to work double work. This is a noble initiative that is compared with heroic actions, and I have just to thank you but if
this initiative (independently that it is for a good purpose)
damages your heath is a big cost for our children and me. So
I want to stress that you have no to preoccupy for me, I can
live fine in prison conditions, and if this sacrifice you are doing for me you just put in your mind that this makes me feel
bad and not in honest conditions. I feel like a criminal toward
my wife and my children. So take care of you. Don’t over pass
your physical possibilities. Did you understand me?!
. I got a New Year card from Fran .He had come in Tirana
because his son was sick. He felt sorry he has had no possibility to see me. I want to write him back in 20 January, so don’t
worry if I don’t write you in this date. I wish you Happy
New Year although late.
Kiss the children for me
Huge for all
Kiss you
Yours Tuku
Old prison Tirana, January 5 1959.
My dear Tuk!
Today is February 5 and you must have written to me. I think
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you are happy to write me back after one month you have no had
letters from me.
I wish you have been in good health and wish to be always.
Lately has been so cold and I have been preoccupied for your
health. When near the fire, I have thought of you!
We all have been fine. We have had woods inside and have
not felt the cold. Don’t worry about us. Bujana has four letters to learn and then she will write you with her handwriting. She wants to write you even now but I told her to write
you in the celebration on her Reading Primer Day.
We have decided that. The other children have not written, but it’s my fault. I usually write in the evening, that
time they want to sleep. I forgot to tell them to do it at noon.
I have been forgetful but now I am more Tuk. Two weeks ago
I bought an umbrella 750 leks and I don’t know where I left
it. When the rain began again I looked for the umbrella but it
was not there ….I lost it.
Every time I say the children I sent you a letter they feel
bad I have not notified them. Agim is better. I am sending
you a little package, a pair of wool socks, 1 kilo sugar, 100
grams of coffee, 5 boxes of cigarettes, 1 tooth paste, a soap bar
and the second book of the novel “War and Peace.” I read it.
But I will write nothing about it. Read it and enjoy it. I am
putting all this in a wood box as the post office wants it. Save
this box because if I get the permission and come to see you,
you can give it to me and I will send it back to you another
time.
I feel so sleepy tonight, maybe because I have been reading
late the last three nights “War and Peace.” I forgot I had to go to
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work early tomorrow. I am closing the letter now.
Good night sweetheart!
Kisses and hugs, from your Mita…
The no. 8 letter, Berat, 5.1.59
P.S. I am including here 4 envelopes and 8 letters that I
have home right now.
M.…
Tuk, my honey!
This time I came to see you happier than ever. I would not go
to sleep in hotel but to Durres, and the next day me and your
mother would come to meet you. But she was not home. She was
in Tirana to Kola, because Filip was with his family on holidays
in Dardha. I stayed two days on Durres to my aunt Toninja and
then I left for Tirana, I told Besnik to go and notify the mother
that I had arrived and I waited her to hotel. She didn’t come that
evening but on Thursday, August 20. I had bought everything
I had thought and we came to meet you.
My honey! I can’t express by words how much worried I
was when I heard about your health! I was on the road and I
had to be strong but even now I think I am not able to breathe.
I tried a lot that day to give them the prepared things for
you (they got only the cigarettes, the letters of them, and a
kilo of sugar) and they didn’t let me see you, at least to hear
you for a while. They told to me you were fine and that I must
be calm but you my sweetheart can understand how little
those words mean to me. And I couldn’t be calm.
My dear Tuk! If I had to sacrifice and pass the difficulties I had to
do a lot to be at least a minute over your head. But in this cases man
is powerless. Nevertheless I imaginably heard your voice that called
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me and with heart and soul I was there with you my darling! It
seemed to me you ask me all the time to drink water. I can’t give you
because it was bad. I put a wet wipe on your head and lips. Have you
felt me that I have been close to you in those difficult cases? But
maybe you are not so bad. I hope it with whole my heart.
I felt that those little minutes that I met you other times make
me feel happy.
I don’t know if you feel if you know how important your life,
your health, is for me and the children, and if you know this and
love us, please live for us that love you so much.
I asked in the Ministry to see you when you get out of the
hospital and they told me I would be allowed to that.
The children are fine. They waited for me gladly, but when
they saw my face and the returned food they worried. I had to tell
them that you were fine.
What else can I write? I wish many times for you to be
fine and this letter finds you in good health.
A great kiss,
Your Mita that loves you a lot
Write me more about your health
Berat 21, August 1959
Unfortunately Tuk Jakova couldn’t get this letter. He died
suddenly on August 26 in the prison’s hospital. According to
the official version communicated to Mita he died from appendicitis, but his death is still an enigma.
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LIRI LUBONJA
She is the wife of political prisoner Todi Lubonja and the mother
of well-known writer and journalist Fatos Lubonja, who was also
a political prisoner. Liri Lubonja
has perfectly described the persecutions and tortures she saw
during the internment years in her
book “Far and among the people.”
She testifies about the suffering of women under the same
Socialist system for which she herself had fought.
FRAGMENTS FROM “Far and among the people”
(Interment memories 1973-1990)
Arrests
It was 25 June 1974. Somebody knocked. I looked at
my watch. It was 6 a.m. Who was at the door so early?!
Concerned, I went to open it. An unknown person was
at the door. “I want to talk to Fatos,” he told me.
“Who are you,” I asked. He told me that he came
from State Security. I was shocked. “Do u want to see
Fatos,” I asked again as in a daze. He softly told me,
“Just to ask him for something.”
I went to wake up Fatos. He was surprised, wearing
his velvet beige trousers and his shirt. “What could have
happened?” He combed his hair with his fingers and
left. I was shocked. I knew it was absurd and I didn’t
want to accept this for him. Todi was spiritually pre39
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pared even for prison, since Tirana, but I never thought
that my sons would have the same misfortune.
I had dreamed a lot about their future — not about
wealth and grades. My dreams for him were intellectual ones, linked a bit with what I had not achieved in
my life. Fatos had a lot of common characteristics with
my oldest brother, Fiqret, a real intellectual that had always been a spiritual guide and inspiration to me.
We stayed all the day waiting at the State Security
doors. The Vice Chief said Fatos would come with the
noon train, but he didn’t come, then he told us he would
come with the evening train, but he didn’t come again.
The next morning he told us the truth — he was arrested.
It was a big shock for me. We all grieved. What could
we tell Ana that loved so much Fatos and was so close
to him? ...
Zana, Gimi and the girls went to Tirana. I lived suffering for my son, but also the feeling was more than
suffering.
I had very bad thoughts and I feared for Todi … But
I never spoke of them in those two days, because Todi
was in very grave condition too. We had even forgotten
to eat, although he was a diabetic.
Then, one moment I cried in anger, “We have to survive and I began to lay the table.”
On July 27, I went to job like every day. At noon
Abdulla gave me my register book of cartels, entrance
and exit sheets and he told me to go home. It was the
first time he did this. As always Todi came after three a
clock, tired and exhausted from the hard labor he had.
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He was ready to rest when the door knocked. It was
Hysni, an enterprise worker that said that the director
wanted to speak to Todi.
What does he want at this time, he asked very astonished. Todi started putting on his clothes, so I went to
close the door and say Hysni that Todi was coming. But
I couldn’t close the door because Hysni asked me to give
him glass of water. When I went to get the water, a lot of
people entered the room. Hysni disappeared. He had
done his job perfectly. The State Security Chief Mitat
Bare very excited and selfishly said loudly, “Todi
Lubonja, you are under arrest!”
Six men, one woman and the neighborhood council
chief had invaded our little apartment. I was so naïve! I
was preparing Todi’s medicines and his toothbrush, but
the one arrested could not have such luxury things with
him.
My action angered the chief and he told me something. Todi resented it too, so while he was wearing his
shoes, he said, “Why do you speak her that way?”
Nobody could contradict the chief especially, in these
cases, so very nervously he ordered me, “Hurry up! Get
on your shoes and come with us!”
What was this? A third punch for Todi, after Fatos
was arrested? I understood I was not arrested, because
if he had arrested both of us he would be happier.
I learned the truth only when I went to Burrel and
met Todi. During the investigation they told Todi “We
have arrested Liri too.” It was a psychological pressure,
for the arrested person, who had no relations with his
family. He was completely isolated. Todi told me that
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when they took out of the cell he secretly checked with
eyes, the shoes, sandals and women slippers trying to
find mines among them.
I couldn’t accompany Todi even to the door. They
had taken him while I was putting on my shoes. He was
wearing an old light suit that kept working even there
on the tiles. We had no time to think that summer he
would need more warm clothes in that cold cell.
He went through winter with that suit. Accepting
clothes and food was part of the strategy used for the
psychological pressure toward the prisoners.
I was so alone among seven unknown people that
have just begun the operation.
The chief told me with a declarative tone not appropriate in that moment, “Liri Lubonja, do you have guns,
other materials, or banned books in this home.” Contracted from his behavior, I answered, “I have none of
these. Give me a paper to sign and leave.”
He got angrier. “What did you say? You tell me to
leave? He knew very well his job, I didn’t. I had never
seen how the arrests and inspections where done in
homes. They checked everywhere beginning with the
underwear, lifted one by one between all these men, until
digging on the flowers vases on the balcony.
They went through every letter found on the drawers and cupboards were inspected with great attention.
There were two pictures that drew the attention of one
of the men.
There were on it two old, noble men. One of them
had a beard and mustache. They seemed to be different
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in the wearing mode. So very devoted in his job the
man that found the picture, passed it Koco Josifi, the
investigator, that had come from Tirana. But he didn’t
paid attention to it.
It’s normal that Bajram Curri and Kostandin
Kristoforidhi were not any compromising material for
him.
I put the picture on the drawer respecting Todi’s father memory that was dedicated to keep those cards in
good conditions, sticking a cardboard inside. There were
two flacons “Viks” that draw attention to Hekuran, but
the investigator said to leave them alone.
The chief that came to arrest Todi, told me that he
was from Kuç. He asked for birthday, then he said, “I
am one year younger than you and I have participated
on the war one year earlier.”
Even as I was in a big trouble, I remind a friend that
when worked with Todi in “Zeri i Popullit” newspaper
had said once to tease me:
“Do you know why Fterra is separated from Vlora
and merged with Saranda? Every time the Kuç people
got on the bus they said to the Fterroti people, “Go to
the end, you have fought less than we do. One day
Ferroti people couldn’t bear this and wanted to separate.”
Fterra was my father’s birthplace and my oldest
brother’s village. I had never seen this village until 1971,
but I don’t know why I loved it. That time we had
laughed, but how could I do now? Could I tell the chief
that I had participated on the war since the beginning,
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that on 1944 I had represented the youth of Tirana on
the First Congress of the Antifascist Youth and that I
kept the Memory Medallion? It was worthless.
But when he threaded me to take the house away
from me, I said, “I have fought as much as to have a
room to live.” It was senseless because the right to have
a place to live was of all people. But I remembered it
was not the tone I had to use with him.
They couldn’t find guns, so they began to check for
banned books. I convinced them we didn’t have any.
Then I added, “It depends what you call yellow books?”
He shook his head angrily and added, “You know
quite well what a yellow book is.” I knew it, that why I
asked.
Something had happened in September 1955 when I
turned back from Soviet Union. Their employer that
worked in Durres customs found between my books
“The adventures of Tom Sawyer” in Italian. I don’t know
if it was for the word “adventures” or the Italian language but this made him suspicious. He divided it from
the others and said: I will turn this book later. Instead of
the book he criticized me: Todi Lubonja’s wife reading
banned books??
When that book was translated in Albanian I wanted
to send a copy to him with a written message. I don’t
know if this Lezha chief knew anything about literature, but I was angry, but the council chief put is hand
in my arm advised me not to get angry.
While they searched the room where Gimi slept, they
took all the books. The Tirana investigators checked
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everywhere — in the bedroom, in the notebooks, in the
notes and letters.
Koço found the money and counted it as if he were
disinterested. There were altogether 800 new leks,
brought from Fatos from some things we had sold on
Tirana.
They kept two files and wrote processing form for
all those things they thought were doubtful. They were
almost all mine, except a manuscript by Todi.
They took my work files from the History Institute,
which included the period from Prizren League of 1879
until the June Revolution of 1924, a notebook with flowers’ dates and a notebook with notes from the Albanian
Antifascist Youth Congress of August 8, 1944 and some
other notes that I had kept from October 1973 when I
began to work in agriculture storage.
Florian Kolaneci, the other investigator, thought to
would find “the key” in these notes. But I had written
them with great care, convinced that one day they would
be read from them. It was only I that could read between the lines. They could find only the daily reality
of workers, described from person that looked at them
for the first time.
But the main investigator, Chief Hazdenari with his
“cleverness,” wickedness and his predisposition observed
ironically the expressions and words. He highlighted the
part I wrote about the “saving campaign in medicine.”
When I had to be hospitalized in Tirana, the deputy
director of the Lezha hospital had told me, “You will
not be hospitalized in Tirana, but in Shkodra because
you are included in the saving campaign.”
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And then the search was over. They filled their forms
and with the exception of the books, pictures and letters, they put everything else in Gimi’s room. They confiscated everything – except the washing machine.
They solemnly “sealed the room” with string and
molding material. In fact, we had observed that when
we they took our home, police could enter any time they
wanted.
During the search, hanging on a nail in the wall was
my kitchen apron. I had some recently developed film
in its pocket. They checked every where in the cupboards, but not the apron, so I felt excited even through
the pain of everything else. They would have no opportunity to destroy that film. The pictures — that we didn’t
know if we would have the chance to do again, altogether — were saved. I was really surprised with that
strange feeling I had while the seven people were around
my house. Checking the bathroom, the vice chairman
came out with the oil burner, holding it by one leg. What
did this mean? What proof was in that? I understood at
once — it was dirty. A spider had made a web on it.
That’s why he had brought it. He must want prove that
we didn’t even know what cleanliness was. I looked at
him indifferently. No body talked and the vice chairman took it back.
Based on the chairman’s order, I had to go to the State
Security. I wanted to lock the door but vice chairman
and another man stayed there. They would question
those visiting us.
The small people reception room was full of cigarette stems. They couldn’t breathe normally from the
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strong cigarette smell. So when I entered I wanted to
open the window. Somebody outside ordered me arrogantly to close it. He was Florian that came near the
window shouting loudly. Maybe he still remembered
that word that I had said during the investigation in my
home when with Koço they were checking the cupboard
and he found my notes. He also saw a little square box.
I don’t know why but he hesitated to open it, and I purposely to offend him took the box, opened it and said,
“Don’t be afraid. It is only a television remote control.”
I began to open it. Koço more skilled in this works looked
at me and smiled a little, while Florian very angry told
me, “I am not afraid.”
I was waiting in that reception room thinking what
had happened during the day and what Gimi would
say at 8 p.m. He had gone to Tirana to get information
on Fatos. Would they let me go?
Their “show” with me ended. After an hour or so
they told me to leave. I went to the post office to call
Tirana. Gimi told me that at the moment that he and
Zana arrived to Fatos’ apartment some people had come
to investigate. They had arrested Todi’s brother in law
of Todi. There was no news from Fatos.
Then I told them. “They took daddy too today.”
Penalized
In the 1960s I had read in Tirana a book in Italian,
“La morte civile,” the “Civil Death.” It is what the author had named the phenomenon that happened in the
communist countries for party or government cadre that
was penalized by the party.
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The book described the death of a woman in Rumania. Since that time, I had a great impression. I had just
lived that story as mine, maybe because she had been
woman. In our country, we have had such “deaths,” but
except any known person, we have thought very less
about the others.
Why has it happened like this? I often asked myself
and I felt guilty. When the commission of the deportation for internment was created, of which we learned
only in 1974, time after time we heard that X or Y person was interned to work somewhere, but his children
continue to go to schools and have no problems or responsibilities. It seemed to be so simple and acceptable.
But the reality was different.
That death of an alive person was really absurd, ugly,
and unacceptable. People that had been your relatives,
friends or acquaintances were now just strangers. One
time, walking on the sidewalk I saw a passing that man.
I don’t know the reason he was in Lezha, but when he
came near me he turned his head on the other side and
didn’t speak to me. There was no time to be astonished.
It was the same as in the fantastic novels or tales — you
were just turned into an invisible creature. No one
looked at me, be they intellectuals or laborers. I began
not to see them too. It seemed to me they were poor
creatures that suffered when they saw me from far away.
No reason to get surprised.
A penalized thief, after finishing the prison term returned on our neighborhood. All the neighbors waited
her with great affection when in the same time they
didn’t accept the 3-year-old, Ana, to enter their homes.
Nobody looked at me sometimes, when I went to the
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store. Greeting was a forgotten gesture. But it was better than when looked at you in a very curious way.
People came to town with their mind set that the
woman over there was the wife of … One day, when
my observers where so close I could not stop my self, I
said, “Do you think I am an animal of zoo?” They didn’t
expect this, so they said something and left.
. . …It was not so difficult for the adults that use their
logic, but what about Ana that was still a sensible, kind
and friendly child? Could Ana understand that her
teacher acted the same with all the other children in the
kindergarten? Ana was happy when she saw her on
the road and called her …Teacher…. but her teacher
acted differently, especially when Ana was with us. The
same happened with her friends when their parents
accompanied them.
Ana could not understand. Was it her mother’s and
her grandmother’s fault that kept her tightly by her
hand? She got angry and cried and bit the hand to let
her go. Then she would tell us “mom is bad” or “grandmother is bad”. We were sad, but what could we do?
Only when we went home she was again that kind,
quiet child and asked for forgiveness, but she still didn’t
know we were condemned to the same way she was.
Once Xhija, the nursery tutor said, “The child is a
little dirty.” I didn’t understand. Dirty meant she had
lice. I couldn’t find the cause. Ana had no friends out of
the nursery. But I didn’t think she caught the lice there.
I continue to idealize these institutions where parents
leave the children out of need. At the old nursery there
was only one episode, but at the new one, the one Drania
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managed, she traumatized the child and us. That’s why
I am writing about this.
A night earlier Zana, as ordered by the tutor, took an
hour to clean her daughter’s head. It was a cold winter
day in February. I was in hurry because I had to go to
the Shëngjin storage. At the entrance the nursery director stood with very serious authority. She inspected
Ana’s hear and arrogantly said that she could not go in
and closed the door. I went to the bus station and on
the bus I cried for the first time after all the things that
had happened to us. Ana was crying and saying, “Ana
has no lice.” I was touched because of Ana. How could
these people offend even children in this way?
I told the other workers what had happened to me.
Jupi lit a fire, and we put Ana near it. She continued to
cry saying “Ana has no lice.” Then Jupi went in the city
and bought a chocolate bar for her. At noon they told
me to go home. “If Abdulla comes, we will speak to
him,” they said. Without these good people, the world
would have been entirely senseless.
Ana
Ana grew up and began kindergarten. But her life
became more complicated the more she grew up. It
didn’t have to do with the daily great deprivations. It
was a more delicate and traumatic concern. Her father,
then her grandfather, and Mimi (Gimi) had gone not to
come back. She could not explain this. She asked time
after time: “Where are they, why don’t they come?”
- In Tirana, working, we answered and she repeated
to Teti.
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- My daddy is in Rane, my grandfather in Rane, and
Mimi in Rane.
One day when she didn’t see from the window of
the kitchen from where she looked the world.
“The hospital horse is missing,” she told Teti with
regret “The horse left for Rane.”
When she grew up a little more, she began asking
with worry, “Grandma, how is my daddy?”
- He is very well, he wants the best in the world for
you.
Hearing that she was glad and calm again.
… One day Ana came upset and worried from the
kindergarten. Her face was full of desperation and surprise
- Is my daddy Tosi German?
- How could he be German? He is my son. Am I German?
Ana listened and tried to believe what I said and trying to forget the words of her best friend in kindergarten
when they had a quarrel. Gresa joined even some other
words through the next days — “enemy”, “prison” etc.
On other hand Ana must have been more familiar
with the “Germans.” We acted as if we were disinterested in what she said, smiling and acting as if were not
worried of what her friends say. One day I used another
explanation, unsuccessfully. I was talking to Ana about
some good Germans, that come to Albania to work as
friends. But Ana told Teti very surprised, “Oh why is
grandma saying, bad words.”
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First we must know what happened in kindergarten to understand these reactions. One day Ana said
she didn’t like to go to kindergarten just because her
teacher Reti had given her the German role in the play.
“Why doesn’t she say me to recite a poem,” she asked.
We answered that not all the children could tell poems. But she was not convinced she insisted, “Me, me,
why can’t I recite a poem?”
She has right not to believe.
But the hardest for Ana were the visits in the prisons. In July 1975 she met her grandfather in Burrel. Ana
continually spoke, sang songs to her grandfather, while
Teti didn’t speak a word she said only “yes” or “no.”
When the visit was over, we greeted each other. Ana
began to cry and shout. But she didn’t like to go, she
pulled her grandfather shirtsleeve and said, “Come
home with.”
When she visited her father, she saw since far way,
went near the big iron door and slapped her hands
happy, shouting, “Here is my father.” Then she embraced him.
Teti sat down on a corner, and didn’t speak, didn’t
move. She was afraid of the officers and policemen
around. Her father was an unknown and abstract figure for her. She was only one month when Fatos was
arrested. She didn’t move even when we called her, even
when Ana criticized her. When parting only Ana cried.
Tears of pain, but beautiful ones. She didn’t speak there
but during the road home she asked, “Why doesn’t
daddy come with us? Maybe those persons don’t let him
come?” Then later she concluded herself that the per52
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sons where just officers. “Why don’t they let him?”
On October 20, 1976, Ana, who was not even 4,
“passed her big first trial.” She walked out from Spac
to Rreps. That was 7 kilometers. Ana kept her
grandmother’s hand and asked about the river’s color.
It has another color because of the pollution in it.
Ana asked frightened: “Will the night come?” Tetis
was happy in her mother hands. It’s better to come this
way every time without car. In Rreps Ana continued to
ask whether the night coming, but at the end a car that
came from Oroshi, took us as far as Shpal. We sat down
near the road and waited. The girls, tired, slept. A passenger took of his jacket and covered the girls. Another
car took us and we arrived to the Mati Bridge. It was
night when we arrived to Lezha. The next day at the
kindergarten Ana didn’t play with the others.
“I have foot aches,” she said to the teacher.
The girls played with one another. Teti threaded Ana,
“I will put you in prison.” So she knew what the prison
was! We asked her about the meaning of the word
prison.
Ana answered – “Don’t you know?”
“No,” we said. But she shook her hand doubtfully
and said “Hmm you know, you know.”
Another time I sat near the place where was written
“Stop” near the big door of the Burrel prison. A truck
came there and Ana asked”
- How did they bring the food in the grandfather’s
prison?
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For the first time Ana used the words “daddy and
grandpa in prison.” She was getting older, as she even
liked to say. Then she didn’t speak any more for Rane or
job for her father and grandfather but asked insistently,
“What did they do? Why are they in prison?”
The grandmother answered strictly, “Nothing.”
Interned
Although the main part of the former camp inhabitants was not interned any more, the villagers called us
the same, “the interned”.
Some were disgusted by the word. As I was told
some of them lived on the command offices and annexes.
The camp was behind them. After the camp was closed
all its environments where just storage now, but in 1975,
when a big campaign “cleanse” the country started, the
offices got full of people.
The first at the former offices was Meli’s family. She
and her sister married Italian engineers after the war.
They had even one child each. Although they didn’t have
any more ties with their husbands, who had returned
in Italy, they were interned. One of the men was put in
prison with “a group of saboteurs” before he left for
Italy. Zeneli, their brother, that didn’t like to leave the
sisters alone and had joined them. All called him “Uncle”
the same as his two nephews, Boxhi, and Fredi did.
When they were young, he and his little sister, Meli,
who I had met in Lezha, had been partisans.
They came from a wealthy family (their father had
graduated the military academy during King Zogu’s rule
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and he was large landowner).
Persecuted all their life, during 1950s they had slept
for some time under a bridge. In Fishta after five years
they were not interned anymore but had no right to
move in another town or to return in Tirana.
Fredi, Hajrie’s son (the oldest sister) had fallen in love
and married a Zadrima girl, a Communist’s daughter,
the head of the civil status office of united cooperative.
This relation was unacceptable for the girl’s family.
They had threatened him with knives, and to quell all
this, it was approved for them to live in Rrila, the farm
sector.
Hajria had praised them in Rrila when she came to
see her brother and sister. “Poor man! The less he has,
the less he is glad!”
Meli and Boxhi had the tap under the steps. Sometimes they thought this was a privilege and the others
this was disgrace.
In addition to the two rooms where they lived, they
used other places of the former camp, especially the
garden, to grow good vegetables and raise chickens.
Xhevria lived next to them in a big room. She was
from Procesti, a Peshkopia village. She had a son of 12to 13-years-old and the wife of the oldest sun, Rushen,
who had 2 little girls.
Hasan and Selami the two other sons were in prison,
because a friend of theirs that had come from Tirana
had escaped to Yugoslavia. It had been so shocking. In
the investigation room the men where asked to accept
they have helped the Tirana friend to escape. In the court
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they were sentenced with 16 and 14 years of prison.
The family used to live on a cooperative pension of 110
leks of Xhevrie. The younger woman worked as an agriculture worker in conglomeration sector.
After Xhevrie’s room was a wider place. Enver
Pacrami lived there. He was Fadil Pacrami brother, so
he was moved from Tirana where he had worked as
storekeeper. In Fishta he and his sons worked in agriculture. Ten years of prison he had done for agitation
and propaganda before coming to Fishta. The accusations were that he complained about the marmalade
quality, the water, and he watched Yugoslavia channels
on television. The two witnesses said he had often
watched Montenegro programs in his television. Somebody else that hoped to be forgiven had accepted to testify for the other nonsense things. His wife a very slick
woman, after trying a lot could go with her sons in
Durres where her relatives were. In that place lived
Fadil’s family and in a single room Zana and the girls.
After the kitchen was Neta’s room. She was about
30-35 years old, from Korça. When the other were asked
for the reason of the interned they spoke with a little
voice, otherwise she told me with a Zadrima dialect repeating three times, but I didn’t understand. Another
person translated for me — “prostitution.”
But Neta didn’t get angry, she was happy that at the
end I understood what she meant. Was that woman
another one glad that she had no political reasons in
her sentence? I could not understand.
She had been married. She had a son about 13-14
years old and he was in Korça with her brother. She told
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that her husband was dead, but somebody else that
had had any quarrel with her told he had separated
her. She had relations with a Zadrima driver, father of
4-5 children; she had a woman praised by all the people.
Nika entered in Neta house as in his house. Some of the
former interned told stories about Neta (she was not
interned after she had fulfilled 5 years).
Time ago she took a telegram that notified her that
her father was sick. After taking the permission she went
to see him. Another time a telegram notified her father
death. But after some times there was a second one that
notified the death of her father. The people that told this
story were sure she went to cells of the prisons to snoop
the arrested women.
Neta didn’t hide the friendship she had with some
state security employees.
She tried to find for them stupid women and called
of them to indulge Golga, who he was the investigator.
Lately she had told Zana as confidentially that Hekuran,
the chief of the security in that time, had ordered her in
to take care in a special way of Liri and Zana.
Neta worked as a shepherd of cows together with
another girl. She was a privileged job not only because
she had a good salary but she had some other perks
too. The cows were to give the meat as an obligation of
the cooperatives toward the state. When the cows gave
birth, the shepherds took the milk.
Once Neta had a quarrel with another woman over
a bucket of milk. They had no spoken to each other
since that day. The people she loved or wanted to make
friends she sent a bowl of milk or yogurt. She said
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smiling that when she wanted to have some meat she
did like that. She chose the best cow, fed it on the grass
and when it was full she put the knife on it. The damaged cow was brought directly to the abattoir, and Neta
with her rights took the part of meat and all the interior
parts of it.
She spread over the sector pieces of punch. Even this
butcher profession she had gained there added to my
bad feelings for that woman.
During the summer she saw her son, who was a student of the first year at agriculture school of Korça.
One day he came near my fence and asked me an
Italian dictionary. He wanted to learn Italian.
The entire rancor I had for his mother I deflated to
him although he was unfortunate, his father was dead
and his mother was interned so far. I said to him without opening the “door” that the language could not be
learned in this way and that I had no one. Later I felt
bad for my gesture and that I didn’t try to help him. He
was a doubt victim too. This doubt for people and the
self-protection instinct maybe was destroying us….
After the big iron gate of the camp was a particular
building. Gjon’s family lived there. It was interned since
1975. They both had been good workers. Roza had her
picture taken among the best workers of the city in the
table of the Emulation of Professional Units. She had
been candidate to be the heroine of the Socialist Labor,
but there were some letters from Mirdita written for her.
It was written there: How could they live in Tirana, in
the capital, when was known that Gjon’s father had
helped anti-Communist guerillas!? Some others said he
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had been a guerilla too. So they were interned. Gjoni
mothers the guerrilla old wife, didn’t move. They left
her in Tirana. But she could not leave alone without
her son. She was old, lonely and had no money so she
went with her son. She was a wise woman but very
strong. She cooked for all the family, did housework,
and all the other time nevertheless she suffered from
high pressure of blood she passed on the garden, even
hot, near the tape, where she planted vegetables for some
days. I told her that it was dangerous to work under
the sun but she didn’t hear until she got sick.
She tried to help the son that had five children. Two
little children were born in internment. The oldest girls
have had excellent results in school in the Bilisht agriculture school. But the only work given to them was
digging. The oldest girl, Kristina, began to work half
illegally sowing not only for her family but also for the
other interned and villagers around. She was wanted
as tailor especially for the girls that prepared their bride
wealth. The Council threaded to take the sewing machine, but they didn’t do it. The last chairman, a young
fellow, wanted to sew a pair of trousers for him. The
second girl Angjia, worked on the field with her mother,
and the third girl Leta a smart girl that was a very good
pupil, she was Ana best friend. They were in the same
class and fellows. In the same house had lived even
Ylvia, interned from Tirana in 1975, together with her
son Shpetim because her daughter construction technical was sentenced for agitation and propaganda. Even
when she had come out from the prison and turned back
in Tirana, her mother and her brother had not given the
permission to return. Only when retired Ylvia went to
her daughter in Tirana, while Shpetim, although tried a
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lot and was ‘a free citizen” couldn’t move form that
place for about 14 years.
The new couple, Luti and Lida lived next to us. Luti
had been a wrestler, a good one at that. He told that he
would go in an international match when they had interned him. His wife was from a family that had helped
the national war. The worse thing had come from a Luti’s
brother that was sentenced with many years.
Altogether after the five years interned were declared
free citizens from the State Security, but they had no
right to turn back in Tirana, or to go in any other city.
As the other tells “Taras Bulba”, when passed there,
didn’t forget to remind them not to leave, because they
would be homeless in the future.
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VASIL KATI
He was born in Labova of
Kryqi, Gjirokastër, in 1920. After
he finished the elementary school
in his hometown, he attended the
High School of Shkodra, where he
met members of the city’s communist. During the war years he
returned to the area of Gjirokastër
and participated in the partisan
movement. After the war, Naku
Spiru, who was minister of
economy at that time, appointed him in Tirana as a coordinator, staring a career in macro-economy. He then went
to Moscow as a representative of Albania at KNER and
later in Beijing.
In the 1960s he was Minister of the Foreign Trade and
Deputy Minister of Trade. Enver Hoxha condemned him
in 1975 together with the so-called “enemy group of the
economy.” He was sentenced to a 15-year prison term
and was freed in 1990, just when the dictatorship was
ending. His book of memories “On the waves of life” was
published after he as freed. He died in the 2002.
THE GREAT NOSTALGIA
LETTERS WRITTEN IN THE PRISON
(MANUSCRIPT)
… I was taken to a new place to live, after a full isolation
of six hundred and ninety nine night and days. I am a few
kilometers away of you, my fellow friendly prisoners have
told me. It seems to me as if I am coming from the dark side of
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the moon. I don’t know how you are. Inform me urgently for
your health…
Try to come and meet me, but we must curb the emotions,
otherwise we would suffer more, and the traumas and stresses
would create other troubles and sadness….
Ballsh, September 1977
(A fragment from his first letter sent from prison)
… I saw you from the moment you were far on the horizon.
I wrote in the letter to be strong, but I was first to not be able bear
the emotions of that moment. We hugged and kissed each other
like no other time. We wanted to speak, but we were unable.
Only the hearts communicated.
I was very troubled that my mother didn’t come, and you
told me she was sick. I didn’t believe it. Tell her to write me only
a few words, I know her hand writing.*
Those few minutes were like seconds for us. It was so incredible for us, the husband to meet his wife, and the children to meet
their father. It’s so difficult to describe such moment — a genius
writer could do that. My children were like flowers in April, at
the time I was first put in prison. Now they seemed to be like
flowers in the autumn. They are living the best years of their life
in very bad conditions, but life must be lived in every situation.
The little son that was in a stroller when I left now runs and put
his hand on my chest. He had his nest there, and like the swallow, never forgot it ...
Ballsh, October 1977
… In every birthday of yours, I try to draw your portrait. I
miss you and that convinces the pen to write. I wish to send
you bouquets of flowers but I can’t find flowers anywhere here.
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I sign every day your names on the palms of my hands.
Then I see them, and it seems to me as if we were speaking
together.
The years went on, but for us they are the same. The days
and nights are the same as summer and winter. The frost is
not melting.
Sometimes I envy the birds that sleep during the night
between the branches of the trees. I try to sleep but I can’t. I
think of you my children … good children and with good
qualities.
Try to keep your soul pure, because it can have a positive effect on your feelings and body through the hardship you suffer. When you were younger you were like a
cranberry branch, and now you look as like the rough
branches of a dry plant. I was in front of you only as a
picture as you grew up, but your mother and my wife
who acted like Onfalia and Laudamia of ancient times is
a shield for you. Even though I am old, I will try not to be
burn away like a cigarette and hope one day to be together
again …
Zejmen, September 1982
My dearest
Even though our souls are from each other, they speak
together. So we will keep our family’s compassion and love
like the sun that comes up every day. We wish the evening to
be similar to the morning, to Venus, and not to the fog that
doesn’t leave any tracks.
Sometimes I dream with open eyes, as if nature formed
rainbows. A leg to put by me and another leg near you so we
can create a bridge.
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To the little guy I wish from the bottom of my heart his
birthday. Celebrate it as if nothing has happened, to remember it well in the future. In every step let he see the
rock climber that puts some holding nails into the rock very
carefully. Time after time he would like even the books of
the old and blind poet of antiquity where are described the
difficulties of the heroes of that time. He will be reminded
about the pain of past too.
You looked like a bouquet of violets in the picture, like a
drizzle of the morning that doesn’t leave the plant to shrivel.
Night and day I keep you on my chest, I want you to stay in
a warm place.
It’s not possible that for all our future to be covered by
clouds. There will some blue in our skies. Even the child will
be again like fresh lilies and not shriveled roses. The happiness is never absolute, and with all its beauty it breaks through
some times. And in the clear sky there are sometimes black
clouds. But there are also some open paths through the fog.
Some important people say:
Where there is pain, joy can still exist. Let’s hope so…
Qafë-Bar, March 1985
* At the time this letter was written, the mother of Vasil Kati was no
longer alive. She had died in internment in Ndërnenas of Fier, just
some time earner in July 1977.
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DRITA ÇOMO
Drita Çomo was born in Tirana
in 1958. In November 1960, when
she was only two years old, her
family was interned because of the
political sentencing of her mother,
Liri Belishova. Her father, Maqo
Çomo, was also persecuted by the
Communist regime. She spent
part her childhood and adolescence interned in Kuç of Vlora and
then in Progonat of Kurvelesh. At the end of all she was
interned in Cërrik, where she finished high school, but
because of the incurable sickness and the malevolence
of others, she was not allowed to give the final test required to earn a high school diploma. The sickness advanced and on February 19, 1981, at a very young age
she died at the oncology hospital of Tirana. In the most
tragic moment of her life, she was prohibited to have her
mother near her, remaining alone until she died.
“22 years… so little time…So little time to know so much
pain…”
That was she had written in a poem that expressed
growing up with pain.
“How can bear all these years - close to irons, the shortest
appointments
When the pessimism is interlaced with goodness
In the eyes the spring has come
It happens to smile with beautiful children on the road
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And know that will never have to be mother… …
And concludes with a hope given vision
I am glad that I love and love me - for a piece of sun, for
something nice
Drita, in the endless dark abyss, found a piece of
heaven in hell. She kept a very precious diary.
After her death, part of the diary that could be saved
from the State Security, was published in 1977 in the
book titled “Light that comes from abyss.”
Parts of diary from the book
“Light that comes from abyss”
Friday, 1.X.76
On Tuesday, both grandmother and I, went to meet my
father and my uncle. We could meet only the uncle. My father was not in the same place any more. “Where is he?” But
nobody is interested if you are worried or not. All are dump.
We don’t answer-is the answer.
I will never forget that evening, when in the dark I was
waiting before the prison door and a little far there were a
group of policemen that talked with lower voice. Suddenly I
could hear some words “The coffin…I think it will be out
tonight”
I was horrified and began to tremble. I thought I could
not breathe any more. “Oh my God, no this one, no” All that
day I was tried to be as quiet as I could and I didn’t cried. In
the first moment I thought only one version: they have arrested him to judge him again. All the time I had thought of this
and I almost had forgotten that this was only one of my assump66
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tions. Only that moment I understand that as much as terrible is
a something there is always something else more terrible than
this one. I could think only for one thing “Hope to be alive, hope
to be alive, oh my God, hope..”
Next day they told me again to go and to come back “tomorrow at seven o’clock” .We turned back with my grandmother in
the dark road, walking haphazardly, not being able to speak a
word. I could not see anything and I could not hear anything, I
had in my exhausted brain only that terrible thought…
We went to the State Security and asked the chief. He refused
to meet me. Then, worried and weak as I was, I insisted, “I will
wait until he comes out,” I said. “And I will talk with him right
here.”
I don’t know how much did I wait. In one moment a slim
man, wearing a gray suit came out, “Sorry, are you the Chief
of the State Security?”
“No, I am the vice-chief,” he answered. Then we entered
the reception room. He was polite but he didn’t answer to me.
Every effort was to no avail. However I could understand
from the conversation that the most terrible event has not
happened. He was alive. And this was the most important
thing. He was alive. The other things were senseless before
this.
Next day we went to Tirana. I went to the Ministry and I
got the same answer.” He is fine. He is in our hands. But for
now we can’t tell where he is. Come back after one month. He
can even come back where he was”
And now there is a long, passive waiting. What would happen?
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Friday, 16.IX.77
On Tuesday I went with Bule in Lezha, we got a telegram
written that tomorrow the uncle had the judgment day. We
got the telegram at noon, so were forced to get a taxi to get on
time to Tirana. And then took the train to Laci, and from
there by bus we went to Lezha. We arrived very late so we
went directly to the hotel. Next day in the morning we went
in the prosecutor office. When we were just getting out from
the hotel, Bule, stumbled on the last step and felt down.
She was trembling. The court began about 8.00. Sokoli
was waiting us in the lobby, well educated and serious as
always.
There were a lot of people. The lobby was too little and
people dispelled each other or got over the chairs.
.. He came accompanied by two policemen. He was paled
and with widening eyes and had shackles in his hands. I
couldn’t know him. He was quite different. He moved his eyes
as looking someone to support him or to give a warm glance
or as if he couldn’t see anyone eye-to-eye. Then he could see
his son and his eyes relaxed for a while and then he was all
relaxed…
It was a man’s court. It was the first time I assisted in a
court.
He spoke. Sometimes invasion by a strange concern, and
the other times he seemed to be in full apathy.
It was so difficult for me to know him. That man was
Agroni that I loved so much, the physician that walked for kilometers to help the villagers. Was he the same man that all the
villagers praise and love?
The court finished at approximately 12:00.
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The decision was given at 16:30.
Then we went to the State Security and asked to meet him. We
could speak to him for about quarter an hour on the corridor. Now
he was quite, smiled and spoke almost normally. Then we left. S.
was worried and shocked too. How will he bear this for all the
life?
In the evening the three children came to the hotel and Bule
asked Sokoli to meet the girls. Both were so nice, so well educated, and so kind. They had a sweet and tender voice that told
their innocence and pure humanity. I thought. Oh my God, Why?
So they went. The hotel receptionist came and told us the
children could not stay. I accompanied them. It was a dark
and cool night. They left. I didn’t know when I would meet
them again.
Friday, 7.X.77
Today I get a letter from my dad. The first two letters that
he had just sent us we have not gotten yet. This is the third.
Ten years. Once more from the beginning! We don’t know
the sentence motivation yet. But this is not important. Once
more from beginning! The same as the game” Don’t get angry”
” The freedom is one of the most precious wealth that God
must have given to people. All the treasures hidden in the
earth and sea are nothing comprised with it”
Servantes
Sunday, 26.II.78
I have about two months that I don’t write in my diary. Let it
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be this period of time like the memory of poverty. Titi came back
from military and he has no found yet a job. I have not found a
job too, while ours mother salary didn’t suffice even to feed. So I
couldn’t bye notebooks. Three days ago I began to work and I
bought to myself the notebooks.
I work in the communal enterprise as a garden’s worker.
These two days we have even worked as transport worker,
distributing woods in the city with a Zuk van or farm truck.
I get tired but somebody told my mother than I will became
stronger so wanting or not, I ‘m implementing his advice. In
general my colleagues are old. The only guy with whom I can
amuse is a gypsy about 30 years old, very black. He sings all
day and shouts, telling jokes. There is a funny woman too, a
little younger than the others. But now she has a medical
report. The driver of Zuk is a woman from Saranda villages.
She has about one year married in Cerrik, so the people are
not any more curious to cheat about her.
But these days my presence made the Zuk object of discussions.
What else can I write?
There has been a lot of time since I took English lessons
and not reading literature. I have read something I have found
around. Now I have no time.
At least, at the end of the January my mother took the
permission and together went to meet my father and uncle. I
had so long time not seeing him and I missed him so much. But I
can’t express this by words.
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Tuesday, 13.II.79
Yesterday, me and my mother met my father and my uncle.
We were notified since Saturday. I went to Elbasan on Sunday morning by bus to cater, and I turned back at 11.30. I didn’t
go to see my uncle. The other time left, I spend in the library.
We went to Burrel, in 6.00 of the morning. Two guys accompanied us*. The road was long and boring. It was sultriness. My
mother felt bad by the car and vomit. I was thinking what we
could do for one hour and what I had wondered to say to them all
this time.
They permit us to meet 10 minutes with my uncle and 30
minutes with my father. They said this at the last moment. It
was unaccepted so I forgot everything prepared before. What
I said I thought it was not the right one. The minutes flied
and at the end I thought I had said nothing, even we have not
kissed each other as much as we wanted. I looked like a child
that his mother had promised a toy and had not bought it,
lying him.
Once again a long and boring road! Then we had a short
rest between two tiring roads. This is my father in my life.
My strong and kind father!
Now everything seemed to me senseless, almost ridiculous. People walking on the road, children that play, worker
buses, young guys that smoke and meet girls! Newspapers,
words,… and my father there for 18 years. My father! Will I
have any more my common life again? Some times I feel
ashamed from my self because of my little worries and my ridiculous sufferings…
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Monday, 19.II.79
On Saturday China attacked Vietnam. These have been
two days full of something unexplainable but great and not
common. I was anxious. It was the first time I wanted to hear on
the radio news and not music. In our monotone life a sudden
interest was born.
Since when I was to my father I don’t feel well. I have pain in
different parts of my body almost in whole my inner organs, I
have waist and kidney’s aches, especially during the night and I
don’t know how to stay. Today during the evening I had
cough…The thermometer was 37 degrees
Tuesday, 27.XI.79
On Sunday I was with Bule* in Tirana and we met uncle
Bardhyl*. They let us speak only for 10 minutes through an
iron door. He put his face on the irons and he kissed us, and
then we did the same. Bulja couldn’t walk. We turned back at
10.00 and I accompanied Bule to the train station and I went
out to by some things in Tirana.
When we turned back we found home Sh. He slept there
that night. He drunk a little with my uncle and began to sing
old songs of his youth. He singed passionate and talked in the
same way for those years. Ida, Ledi and Laura glanced at him
and singed together as they could. I turned back home only
this afternoon.
……
Thursday, 13.III.80
Today we get a letter from my father. He wishes me my birthday. It has now been 20 years that we wish each other “Happy
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Birthday” through letters. “I am sorry only for one thing,” he
wrote, “for Drita’s health.”
It’s strange and unbelievable to think that you have not to
live for long as all the others. Where is that something that
makes you different, where is it that thing hidden? That something that makes you think as a casual passenger in the world,
that makes see the others as foreigners. Your relatives suffer
for you and treat you in a special way, and people see you
with compassion and curiosity. But you are the same as the
others. Nothing changes. Nevertheless you are different. Morbus Hodgkin. How this sickness did entered your body. And
you will have it until the death.…
…
Monday, 17.XI.80
I don’t know what to do in the future. But every story
will be the same. It’s worthless. Even somebody’s friendship
has a hidden interest. You have to leave alone. To decide when
you are only 22 years old…
Maybe is absurd, time will tell it but I promise to my self
to keep my dignity.
…
Tuesday, 27.I.81
It was a windy night yesterday. Today is a sunny and
cloudless weather. I love sun. I feel better. Yesterday the number of my leukocytes was 2000. I have good appetite. We order once in two days a chicken, G. has fried it. He has helped
us a lot. We eat together. V. and I sometimes even drink a glass of
wine. What can we do else?
Last night I did handwork. I unsowed the red scarf.
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The future is not known, it comes before the person as the
autumn fogginess that comes out from the swamp. Many birds
fly in the sky moving their wings without looking to each other.
The dove doesn’t see the falcon and this last one doesn’t see the
dove. So nobody knows if the death day is close or far…
Gogol
Friday, 30.I.81
On Wednesday I had my leukocytes 3100 and yesterday
4000. I feel better. Yesterday evening I go down the steps after so many days, resting in bed. I have a good appetite too.
A day before yesterday G phoned me. It seemed not to be
fine. I sent Titi a card for his birthday. He is 25 now, but he
thinks to celebrate when I will go there. Yesterday I talked by
phone to my mother.
…
Monday, 9.II.81
On Saturday I talked on the phone with G. We talked
only about my sickness and I could say nothing else, I couldn’t
even ask him if he was fine.
I have been very weak yesterday. I can’t breath and my
pulse throbs very fast, especially when I get up. I have no
appetite any more…
This is the last note on the diary. After ten days on
February 19, 1981, Drita Çomo died. Even her mother
wasn’t there, no relatives — the dictatorship doesn’t
allow it. The last days she was kept with oxygen and
when one day it lacked she fell into a coma.
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Her youth not lived was closed in loneliness.
What would she say for the last time?
The people that fight
”I want three days,” said the member of Political
Bureau. “These are hard accusations and I want three
days to prepare to defend my self….” His nervous and
tired voice suddenly became strong. “How is it possible.
Could I, a Communist, not have tree days of time to
protect my self?”
It was possible. They did not give him a day. It was
only the beginning. The war had three years that had
over and from their dreams they had not seen anything
real. Until that day everything had been black or white.
They had dreamed a white, pure, lighten, cloudless future. But the days pass and they see things that they did
not like see. Only the persons that conditions obligated
to be accused by the system, asked astonished. “How is
this possible?”
Days and nights it was the only answer they ask from
themselves. The y had won for something right and fair.
Where was it now? So they wanted to shout loudly:
- How is it possible?
But it was only the beginning. It was the first tragedy and maybe the most grievous, maybe because it was
the first and maybe because the man sacrificed was one
of the most honest and dignities persons to live the life
that had sacrificed during the war.
The meeting finished very late. He looked at his
clock, in the car, and so that it has lagged two to eight, It
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must have happened when he had banged his fist on
the table and cried loudly, “How is this possible?
Thirty years later when he had taken again his old
leather wallet, that watch was again two to eight.
He thought for a moment that time had not moved.
In fact it had…but not for him…
Maqo Çomo, her father after 16 years (seven years
in Zvernec and 9 in Burrel prison) took to the investigation in the Interior Ministry and after about one year
investigations they sentenced him again for agitation
and propaganda for ten years. The condemnation for
the second or third time was a practice of the dictatorship not to let “condemned” people get out of prison
alive.
The period time of investigation went on for month
and month and during this time the arrested person
where in the unconditional power of the cruel investigators, isolated, and with no relations with their relatives. They had no defense advocate. These days where
even difficult for the family persons that live anxiously
because they had no news.
**
Telegram was written by Vala, Agron’s wife.
The court of Agron Belishova was one of the ugliest
of the dictatorship system. After six exhausted months
in the investigation cell, he was sentenced 10 years of
prison for agitation and propaganda. This capable, honest physician that had worked for about 17 years with
devotion! Even after the prison he was taken in the deepest places, far of his family. Vala, his wife raised up, sacrificing their three children.
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For about twelve years Drita’s mother was prohibited to meet her husband and then after 15 years was
taken only 4-5 times under the strict masses of security
(with the car of the Interior Ministry and two Security
Officers.)
Drita has written this fragment in a piece of letter
for Naku Spiru, head and famous publicist in National
Liberation Antifascist War and in the first year before
the liberation. He was killed tragically on November 20,
1947 because of the Yugoslavia’s Titist intrigues and the
feud between Enver Hoxha and Koçi Xoxe. He protected
the independence and the interests of Albania and
democratic and humanist principles. Drita had heard
of him a lot from her mother that had been his wife and
his collaborator.
*
Makbule Belishova, Drita’s grandmother
**
Bardhyl Belishova - at that time a patient in Tirana’s hospital prison.
*
Garentina Memisha
**
Vjollca Telaj (Suparaku)
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ROZETA PEPELLASHI
She was born in Korça, on
January 11, 1939. She finished
high school in her hometown. The
Communist regime executed her
father without a trial, under mysterious circumstances in 1949.
For that reason, her family was
sent to an internment camp. The
family was allowed to go back to
Korça two years after their internment.
During this time Rozeta finished high school, and
worked the hardest physical labor. In her memories book
titled “Spirit Pieces” (1999), she describes her suffering
during Communist system.
Fragment from the book “Spirit Pieces”
It was November 29. It was holiday celebration even in
the Camp as in the whole country. There were a lot of families
gathered in that big place; each family was separated from the
other by sheets. We were four children staying with our
mother, and we were also listening to the celebratory music
given by the loudspeaker outside the camp. In this moment
somebody came and asked our mother. The chief of camp
wanted her. I can never forget that man. He was called
Leonidha and all the people get terrorized even when they
hear his motorcycle noise come. He was the horror of the camp.
My mother went there and after two minutes we heard
her shouting. Something really important has happened because
we heard her to shout and in her shouting it was real pain and
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love. She came back but her eyes where enlarged and full of tears.
She took with one hand the youngest eight-month sister and
with the other gathered us around herself. Her body was the
only place when I felt secure.
Tragic death has taken away our father, and it came faithlessly by people that he had loved and trusted. The State Security officers killed him in Butke, of Kolonja. What a macabre death! He was not even 35 years old . I felt pain inside of
me and tears went out of my eyes. Love tears, nostalgia tears,
tears for his innocence and for his youth…That maledicted
system killed a lot of innocent persons…
And my mother didn’t know what death was. But it
knocked to her door. And she, my sweet mum, was now widow,
when she was only thirty years old. She accepted with a great
devotion to rise up her four orphan children. She didn’t stop
working for thirty years. Her hands were strong and secure;
her judgment was always infallible, almost divine. She was
able to give the house happiness and good fortune. She was
kind, devoted and self-possessed. Her eyes have lost they real
color, they seem to have seen all the tragedies of this world,
but they were still full of devotion.
Oh my sweet mother!
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LUAN MYFTIU
He was born in Berat on
2.02.1933. When still a little boy,
he lost his father and mother, becoming an orphan at an early age.
His father was a supporter of the
National Front (Balli Kombëtar, a
nationalist organization that fought
the Communists) and a respected
patriot. He was arrested and sentenced to death in 1945, but then
his life was saved. After a few years he died in the Burrel
prison. While his mother could not come out alive from the
psychiatric hospital when they put her without mercy.
Although the life of Luan Myftiu would continue, sufferings and sadness followed him during all of his life.
He finished the Pedagogic High School of Berat and
worked as a teacher, but in 1975 he was arrested.
“What have I done,” he asked the investigator.
“You are the stabbed meat we keep in the refrigerator,
when we need you, we take you and condemn to let the
others that sing songs, see you,” was the answer of the
investigator. He was condemned to a prison term of ten
years for agitation and propaganda and was taken in Spac
prison
After 1990 he came in Tirana and participated actively in
the democratic movement. He has also written many satiric
poems, aphorisms, and many other stories.
They are published in political essay titled “In the communist territory” and two books with fables. He has trans80
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lated “Aphorisms never described” of Oscar Wilde and
“White nights” of Dostoyevski.
The mother
I don’t know how the other mothers do they love
their children but I have to say that my mother loved
me in a very strange way. She kept on her finger a special ring to protect me from any hidden curse of her
heart, when I did something that hurt her. But she never
revealed to me her love, as if she wanted not to touch
my privacy. She was careful to hide me her exaggerated
prudence. But I could dictate this weakness of her. As a
kind lioness she wanted to rise up a proud calf, and then
allegedly indifferent she forgave my bad behavior.
Maybe this queen of beauty through me wanted to put
the power of her pride in the cultured environment
when she had been bride. I don’t know why I saw the
beauty of her spirit every where on the icons of the
churches of the town, that I visit almost every Sunday. I
went through the roads paved with white ZAJE, and a
green grass, I entered the church with a racing heart
from an unknown feeling. Behind the fume of the incense I saw the beauty of the brides and elegant girls,
that had come to pray in God to forgive their sins, I saw
the sweet sadness of the wall pictures, the majesty of
silence, and the magic of the divine voices of the chorus
of the children. It seemed to me that only in that place I
could reveal the paradise of unexpressed love of my
mother. I felt so drunk from a strange passion that I
thought that all the ceremony in the church was organized for me. And I felt the need to thank all the persons that came in the church to pray. So since that age I
had a special relation with that house of God. And even
today I don’t know how to explain how did I under81
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stand the meanings of the bell that rang when somebody died, and I cried running to my mother, that never
asked me what I had, hugging her, happy that she was
alive…even she didn’t like me to express the weakness
I had for her. She never complained for her problems
when my father was arrested by Communists, and she
had to stay twice a day head down in front of the prison
gate with hope that they could accept her foods prepared for her husband. This creation was now invaded
only by the feeling of duty. An anger wrinkle in her forehead could not ruin the harmony of that creation that
found the happiness only in peace. Maybe, have her
beauty had any important role in that tenderness? I
adored and was fascinated after her, in silence, looking
that even the females admired her beauty. Maybe this
jealousy had created a kind of hostility toward my father, that made me do such mistakes that I was sure
that would made her angry, just to see how would she
protect me in every case without taking care of the sadness I could cause to my father. Now that he was in
prison I thought he have asked this, and both I was despaired because I had not known the love he had for
me, and I condemned him for this pitiless revenge toward me. Everything that happened with me, I judged
as I wanted. Communists were some games in the hands
of my destiny that did what it said.
Now my mother looked everyday evanescent, while
during the night when I strangled her through my thin
arms, she rarely remembered I was close to her. One
day I saw her crying. Her brother was sentenced to
death. He was a copy of her sister from the soul, Smart,
intuited, but without the culture that his intellect asked,
he saved as a treasure the pride inherited by his father,
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anti Turk rebel, that with pureness of the patriotic feeling had gained the sympathy of the persons that must
hate him. This brother loved madly his sister. Her beauty
was added the nobility of his brother, and his hothead
was adorned by the angel beauty of her sister. They still
loved and behave as in their childhood.
Who will protect my beautiful mother now, from all
the arrows around that her beauty attracted toward her?
Communists really killed her brother but they did not
tell the quarry when they put him, when they throw
down his cadaver. Even they didn’t feel well when she
cried. Communists were very afraid by tears poured for
their victims. My mother cried secretly. She didn’t want
to cry. She could not accept that her brother was dead,
thinking that he had been a very good person. She cried
secretly for the humiliation they had done to her brother.
They had kidnapped the pride to my mother, which is
why she was half-dead. The other half of her ran after
his memories, not to leave him alone
During this time, the income was decreasing and the
need was greater. So began the sell of the valuable things
for little money. The hungry knocked for the first time
in our door.
My mother went way spiritually every day from us,
as that captain that don’t go near the passengers that
will be drown, when the ship is full of water and terrorized by the screams of the conscience that is not able to
help them. She thought all the time; she did mechanically her duties as wife and mother! The people in power
tried to convince her to leave her husband that would
never get out of prison and to get marry but she revolted
and said what she could to them, while the nights,
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shocked, she passed without sleeping. I tried to stay
near her, especially during the night, she didn’t forget
to indulge me, but it looked as if she prayed not to annoy her. One night she told me to hear if I heard steps on
the ceiling, and when I was sure there were no such ,
except the silence of night she laugh as if wanted to say
that she was kidding, while I could see some tears in
her eyes. That time I need her love, and searched her
love. I didn’t understand why she was so cold to me
every day more and more. Why had she put me away
of her heart? I followed despaired the whispers and
movements and her voice but I could not arrive in any
conclusion. I could not find a cause why her love for me
had lost like this. So I did many mistakes to take her
attention, and took any scorn of her. But no, nothing
happened. She felt like my love for her was a carry.
Then I took of my pride in which I hide the love for her
in order to offend her, but she worried only for some
moments and then she was indifferent again. She asked
now a new pact that I couldn’t accept: leave her alone!
But I couldn’t, when I saw she was suffering! While, she
maybe wanted to learn from me. So many times I had
dreamed myself dead to taste the happiness her compassion expressed with tears and screams for my loose!
Later on I understood I have had a sick love for my
mother. I wonder if her heart has felt that. Had she felt
that how wild my love for her was? She had taught me
to treat her cruelly. I went to school for her, I wear new
clothes for her, I ate and drunk just for her, even slept
for her. She did every homework I had , she vindicated
me when I didn’t go to school, and never told me what
she had done to protect me, she paid my mistakes as
hers.
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Once the neighborhood’s children that came often
in our home, have pull off in the yard all her silk dowry
bought in Italy and where wore as actors, and played
theatre. From the counter of veranda a child had felt
down a jar with grape paste, about 30 kilograms, and
had began to cry from being afraid from punishment.
My mother came. All the children were frozen. Her
clothes were put over the roses of the garden and grape
paste had made dirty almost all the house. She laugh
and asked for me, put me in a room checked me if I was
hurt and then took all the clothes on the garden and
began to clean the house, without scorns and without
frightening the children of the neighborhood to come
and play again. I tried to help her, but taking care she
didn’t understand I had done that work. She surely understood but didn’t thank me, when she knew this didn’t
give me pleasure.
It was wartime and our father was carried with different duties, so he rarely came home. But we were not
alone because the mother took home poor and lonely
women, waited them as the brides that go to their
mother’s home for a month. At the end she accompanied promising to invite them again next year. We were
so surprised by her devotion in this charity.
Now except being silent she didn’t eat. But we never
understood the reason of her strike of hunger. Did she like
to leave us the ration of limited bread the state gave in that
time? Or hungry made her feel less spiritual pain….those
days communists had sentenced to death even her nephew
that she loved so much and was a copy of her brother, for
whom I don’t believe she have never stopped crying until
she went near him. Did she talk in those nights when she
was awake with her nephew, which waited to take away
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from the moment to moment? How could a child be killed?
How could a child that had not even killed a butterfly and
had not frightened a bird to be killed? Maybe she felt this
was the end of the world and there is no more reason to
live. While I asked with obstinate, her love, I think I have
bothered her asking something that she could not give to
me. Oh mother you had to bear so much! The people that
you had protected, now didn’t give you even a random
job to feed your children! Now you had only to pray even
to the guardian of the prison, the doctor for a visit, the
baker, and the friends of your husband that now made as
if they had never known you. You climbed down with
nobility these steps of humiliation and you told another
beauty that even you didn’t know to have. You washed
these steps with tears of the offended proud ness and I
don’t know what kind of deal you did with death that
signed in your forehead the indifference. What did you
kill more mother, absurd sacrifices or the cynic ingratitude of people? Forgive me mummy. You must leave this
life! Maybe your coldness was a way chosen to make easier
the separation…I think you have suffered a lot to log off
these thin strands of our strong relation of love.
But how could we not be angry at this abandonment
that you did every day? Did we felt your problem? Or you
give us so much love when you were “awaked” that kept
our hearts so warm. How sweetness did go by your smart
smile? Where that benevolent irony did go?
You felt down mother…!
No other catastrophe could damage our soul in that
age more than this that happened to you. We lost forever
the wish to build something beautiful in life, something
similar to happiness.
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Did you know that?
Forgive us mother if we have made you suffer even
after the death!
You couldn’t go away without a scream! You couldn’t
go tell the executors about their real face! It was a duty
asked by your brother honor, orphans tears, and the
good work of your husband that was suffering in the
cells of the Security without any fault. Your spirit could
not leave some bums to kid with its nobility, that the
ambition turned them in some beggars or killer, while
their criminal instinct made they believe they were divinity. And your pride run since from the darkness of
the communist system had fired it and bursting as lightening that hit the head of a snake. You screamed in their
offices “Cruel persons…criminals! And you didn’t hear
the telephones rang and the doors slammed, and you
didn’t see how they put chains in your hands how did
they put in cell and then turned back tied home.
And we found you alone, chained hands behind with
German chains, cross leg so beautiful, sat down on the
big shelf over the steps. You didn’t speak and could not
learn who had put you there. And why did they put
you exactly there? Some people said that she was
brought by two policemen; some others said with them
were two even some civics, and a woman that have seen
everything didn’t like to speak. We asked our mother
but she didn’t speak. She stayed with head down as
being guilty without moving her eyes as if she wanted
to say with her silence: I did this now! This moment
was as a first slap that communism gave us .I went near
her and kissed in the cheek, she turned her head on one
side as ashamed while the chains made a noise banging
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on the wood both with her with white hands. We tried
to put off the chains, but a policeman climbed up the
steps and told to us not to put off the chains to our
mother otherwise they would take her away, not leaving to stay with us.
Was it a dream? Or a mysterious force that gave us a
punishment to estimate better our mother? After years
we were convinced that this was a revolution that would
be coped with so pain! While we were thinking how to
feed and move her and take to bathroom she as if understand our problem, with an uncontrolled moan
smiled and asked us some food.
One of us took off the chains and she with free hands
tightened two first buttons then began to eat as hungry
and timid as an unknown person in her house. The great
shock had frightened our tears and I don’t understand
even now how could we found the forces and be so careful toward her in that moment. In the moment a person
is in the kingdom of happiness he doesn’t take attention the people that gave it to him, but since the moment he became a beggar he prayed even for mercy. We
had not still understood that without mother love anything else was important! We called this happiness our
right and her compassion as her duty. Now we felt that
the love of every mother was not something terrestrial.
Now that we missed her we were amazing before it! All
the life would fight now to win a love that was similar
to that of the mother! But no…We were real people for
as time as her love was inside us. Strange! Our care for
her made her suffer more. Lionesses stand up and we
were not dreaming, we had gained again the person that
we were just loosing forever.
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We were again in the kingdom of love! We were again
people as the others! I slept that night as always with
her, but crying happy. And she cried with me, and I
thought they were joy tears but she felt that was the last
night that she slept with us! When the next day came
we put her chains again in her hands as she taught us.
Then she went and sat down to the place the police had
put her. And she looked at us smiling as if she wanted
to say that nothing had happened. And surely we
thought as all this was a game! After we did any thing
any cousin said to us, we turned back to our mother at
once to insure ourselves she was there. She was as beautiful as a forest fairy, she was quite and head up as we
have heard to stay the brave persons in front of the team
that would kill them. She looked like a bride, while, the
wedding guests, were not coming yet to close her in the
cage.
DOSTOYEVSKI COURT
I was an orphan because I had lost my parents at a
young age, and in no time I didn’t know how to build
my relations with others. I was as a beggar of a human
love, because the orphan without understanding will
ask all the time to feel the spirit with that lack that parents lack had created. As much as I grew up, greater I
felt like a boat on the sea with waves.
I don’t know how I found a book of Dostoyevski and
since that day I never forget it, and I didn’t need any
more the other advice. A hidden voice as if consoled me
and said that the others must take advice by me. How
could I imagine how much I would suffer for his influence on me, especially reading the book in that age,
when the experience doesn’t leave you to separate the
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dream by reality? Because the genies are important for
as much as we need to feed our spirits.
Although I am not penitent that I read with passion
this author, when I think that without him I don’t know
where my boat would have gone in the conditions of a
dictatorship that destroyed her sons. Aren’t sometimes
even the children that damage their children thinking
that they are the best in the world? Why Dostoyevski is
guilty when I had no one to teach me that I had not to
read him in that age and in the conditions of a social
system that punished you if you love and the other loved
you without the permission of the political party?
At the beginning I was surprised even to myself.
How is it possible not to be angry with the persons that
used irony on me or the others that looked at me with
detestation, maybe they thought I was in a worse level
than they were. I consider all the people as good as bad.
I stayed awake to find who was good and who was a
bad person. And looking the others like this I was good
for all although I felt nobody loved me as I thought. So
Dostoyevski had put me in a great trouble that nobody
has solved until now— what can you do that all the
people love you? Is it possible to be loved by all? Why
is it so important to be loved by all, if you have forces to
love them?
I was fixed of the idea that in the world everything
could be arrived with love. Even you can make feel bad
all the persons that have made bad to you and also they
can admire you.
But when I remind my father killed by the communists and my mother that was hanged with the scarf of
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bride, when they killed her brother in tortures and her
nephew too, all the thoughts I had in my mind felt down
and I lived for weeks silent looking every person as a
bad one and Dostoyevski as a great sabot tour that tried
to justified the devil accusing like this the angels. And I
tried without entering in the universe of his book in that
endless world of stars that has its laws of gravitation,
and in that darkness I tried to become common and to
save from the tyranny of Dostoyevski and I start to love
and hate the people as the others did. But during the
time I felt that I must behave with the others as hypocrite because in the dictatorship you can’t love or hate
someone as you want because this contradicts the balance given by government to hate or love the people. So
that’s why I had to leave from the people, in order to
justify them. But I was not quite. I had a question in my
mind — What about the people that deserved to be
hated? Trying to choose this question Dostoyevski
helped me, advising not to care of them, for as much
time as I could not repair them. So at least I didn’t make
enemies the persons that were not guilty for my poverty, even though they behave with me as the state
wanted.
Once I had an illusion especially when the communists looked less wild, but during the time I understand
it was only a technique of them, made by the fear that all
the tyrants have when they said for someone that dies —
he is saved! From this situation save even the persons
appointed as “sacrifice” but it was a temporary amnesty
because they know their time would come again. But the
man is strange he doesn’t accept the bad for himself!
It happened like this in one of these periods when I
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was appointed as a teacher in a very far village, because I had just finished the Pedagogic School, the only
high school our town had. Was really great for me to
build in practice that wonderful world inspired by
books and in my case by Dostoyevski. Now I was so
thirsty for parental love, I would become a second parent for innocent creatures that lived in that harsh rock
that was communist dictatorship. Now, nobody could
stop me to build within that half program the hive of
the human love where the children feel how great the
world of the goodness is.
And so strange! How much the human spirit feels
the sincerity and nobility! But the communism that
builds up over the hate can not bear that people love
each other. Because human love is built over the freedom, that’s why Communism is terrified by good deeds
and compassion. It had to punish every preacher of good
deeds and generosity. Exactly when I arrived the apogee of my good opinion and the others toward me, even
of them that didn’t understand why they must see in
bad eye, suddenly comes an order, to put me in prison.
Just for not tiring the reader with the frighten story
of my kidnap that made me the State Security, as he
tried to accept that I was guilty, I can’t stay without telling you shortly one of the episodes of the my tragic investigation, but that today reminding make me laugh.
It was a dark night when they called me as usually to
ask me for the faults I had not done. Except the chairman
of the Branch were in the room and some other officers
of the Security. They seem so interested to tear on someone so I felt it would be very difficult to be silent.
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- Speak! - screamed the chairman that was over the
table to pull me up by my hair.
- Why have you called me, I have done nothing!- I
whispered.
- What? - he screamed like a beast - Have you have
not done anything? What do you think, will we arrest
you when you do something?
- But how is possible If I have not done anything….
– I wanted to insist
- Surely! We are called state security, so we can’t let
you do something and then put the chains. And he said
to his friends:
- The others have told us that he is smart but as I see
he is like a donkey!
- When I have not done any fault why do you want
to arrest me? –I asked angry
- What do you want to do, to arrest our sons that
sing songs in the picnics?- and he got my beard and
said:
- Look at my eyes? And say me shortly: Do you love
us?
- What did you say - I suddenly said.
The chairman moving in the room repeated:
- I asked you if you love us?
- And you, what about you, do you love me - I whispered.
- What? Do we love you? - he screamed and then a
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sudden punch knocked me down. I felt my hand wet.
Maybe the German chains had slit me any vein.
They got me up and put me on the chair as a toy, and
one of them stopped my blood with a sticker. The chairman continued:
- Do you think we are as the prince Meshkin of your
Dostoyevski?
- I know you can’t.
- How do you dare to ask if we love you?
- I said that because I have had no deal with you.
- What do you mean - he screamed again - that you
have had the right to deal with us but you have not
wanted? Why not and why didn’t you wanted?
- I knew that I would be punished…but I have had
reasons
- What? Have you had reasons to hate us?
And when I convinced them that I had really the right
to get with them the chairman cried:
- Listen here, say you are lucky you live in a state
visionary like this because for the party ideal I will open
your brain with scalpel and eat it with a coffee spoon.
And he said to his friends: “And you say me to give him
only ten years of prison. This person is convincing me
that we are bad men and cried: Get out of my eyes
After two months I was at the court hall. When all
there wait to hear what crimes had I done, the prosecutor asked me:
-Have you read Dostoyevski?
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-Yes I answered shortly.
-Why have you read it? - said not prepared the man
of justice
-As a literature teacher I had to know everything for
him, I said
-To save the pupils from his indication? – he asked
ironically.
-Maybe yes!- Even for this- The pupils must know…
- What about you? What influence have he had on
you?
- I am waiting to hear this from you, it was said with
irony this time.
Somebody in the hall laughed. I interfered at once.
- I have understood in his influence to love people
only as people.
- What about us? – said the prosecutor - How do we
love them as animals?
- No sir, its not that! You love the people but not in
the same way. You can’t love in the same way the communist and the kulak or the enemy of the class! And I
remind a sentence of Dostoyevski: Please God! Save us
from ourselves!
The sentenced to ten years of prison term was given
to me that afternoon.
THE BALL WITH MARMALADE
When in the camp of reeducation finished the
ritual of arrests sudden there came a frighten silence. In
which the anxiety from the unknown was so torment95
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ing as much as the fear from death and happened that
very often punish the people again and they curse the
Communism even in their sleep. These were some cases
when the dictatorship tried to subject its victims, moments when the solemnity of the territory broke down
the scream of a cat that had stomped the tail. These are
the moments in which the violence leaves its daring
place and in which tragedy and humor can sometimes
mix.
One day just in the time when had finished the kidnap of the falcon birds in the camp was heard an unusual noise. The screams of the two captors that were
hitting someone with kicks, a fellow, that looked as if
said “ Go on like this, this is a good way.”
In these cases when usually more frightened are the
executors came running the commandant of the prison.
- What have he done? Asked when he saw the
blooded condemned man.
- While the rest of the camp is in the sleeping halls,
this person gathers pieces of marmalades in the cafeteria - said one of the officers.
- What else?
- When we punished him he said us “I want it for
my mother…I want it for it”
- And what else?
- He have gathered the marmalades as a ball with
the newspaper “Zëri i Popullit”
- What do you want these marmalade?-asked sudden the commander the mountaineer.
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The fellow didn’t answer.
- Tell me why do you want it? And when he wanted
to add something more he noticed the thin neck as a
stick of the fellow, and his eyes with black circles around
and kept himself screaming to the subordinates:
-Who has left there the marmalade?
- The prisoners. Those one who we give it as antidote when they enter the miner.-said the officer.
- Why did they not eat it?
The police went near the boss and said on the ear
“because it is acidulated.”
- Oh I see!- and the commander said to the fellowSo you need it as the food when you escape?!
- No commandant, I want it for…
- Tie him- said the commandant
It was so strange. That day the guiltier was not put
in the cell and was not tortured by the punishment team.
All got surprised but the curiosity didn’t last because
we soon take the notice that the military doctor of the
prison had said that the fellow was so sick that even if
let him free, he would not be able to go his home.
I occasionally learned something more about the life
of this mountaineer. A cousin of him prisoner in the
camp told me:
“Don’t look him now, because Mark (this was his
name) has been so imp and so sly that his friends called
him with the nickname “roe deer” and surely he was
like a roe deer when he followed his father to collect
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medical plants, because his father had his hand cut in
the state Saws and after this they have not given him
the right to work again, even accusing him that he have
don’t this accident with purpose. All because of the biography! So the young guy was so close to his father as
much as he forgot he has a mother too. Poor Mark, he
was too young to understand that rudeness of her
mother was part of the fear she had for the end, when
she saw her husband that didn’t eat just to leave something more to eat to his hungry children. One day his
father died and the son except the pain, felt a bit angry
that he had not notified at least once, complaining maybe
one time. But one day he saw his mother crying with
the picture of her husband on her hands he regretted so
much that began to give her an unusual love. And he
saw the miracle on her face how this mountaineer became more kind. But his mother grown up him with
great care , and the son felt since too young the detestation the communist ambient had for him.
I don’t know why the cousin just here, let the story
and began to tell something from the end of the memories.
When Mark asked the investigators why did they
arrest him , he was surprised to hear that cause was a
dream that he had told two of his friends. He had
dreamed resurrect of Christ that had said to them that
would bring on the earth the love and equality between
the people.
-What kind of equality you want?- screamed the investigator hitting the guy on the face.
- Do you want to eradicate the class war ? Although
we will be mercy with you, more than your Christ, iso98
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lating you only for 10 years…!
When the wild tortures began that he accept the accusation against Mark during that hell thought of his
mother and the little sister that were alone and nobody
could help them. One day very sincere as he was he had
asked the commander of the prison if was possible to
sell blood and the money to give to his family, but the
commander did as if he had no heard anything.
The mood of Mark change from the day he formed
the ball of marmalade that was permitted to give to his
mother, the police that had called him in the appointment just kidding him “come on marmalade.”
His mother came once in a month and brought only
a kilo of boiled maze, which Mark didn’t eat but disperse to his friends to wish for the health of the home
people.
Only when the policemen were convinced he would
not live for long they let him to give his mother the ball
with marmalade. Poor mother took it and cried all the
time, when she thought she could not bring to the son
even a simple homemade pie.
One day suddenly the personnel changed the attitude toward the prisoners, because something had happened. Some voices spoke for a big amnesty. Some officers came near the prisoners and spoke with them for
their opinion toward them. Some of them said that not
all had merit a punishment so hard. Some others said
that some people were sentenced with no fault. Then in
the camp some person came to stimulate the prisoners
to pray for pardon. But it was surprising! No one of the
prisoners did such a request! Maybe all took this as a
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new trap. This concerned the command and then one
day entered in the camp the commissar who didn’t enduring such a contempt and generosity of the political
party , directed to Mark that thought would not contest
him
- Mark! Will you make any request to go to your
mother?
After a short silence the guy said:
- No…commissar!
- What? …Why? – screamed the man of the party
- But I have not done any crime to request amnesty!
- Really?- said the commissar angry
- It’s not your fault –said the policeman that accompanied the superior- but ours that had leave you to get
out of the camp balls with marmalade
Mark stayed head down.
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SAMI REPISHTI
He was born in Shkodra in a
family with patriotic traditions. His
grandfather was a fighter with the
Albanian League of Prizren in 1878
and his father was fighter against
the Serb invasion and power intentions.
After he finished high school
in his hometown, he graduated
from the University of Florence in
Italy in the Faculty of Modern History.
In 1945, he was sentenced to a prison term of 15
years, of which he served 10 years. After he came out of
the prison he escaped to Yugoslavia from where he went
to the United States, where he currently lives.
In 1977, he received in France the title “Doctor of
Sciences in Philosophy.” He is among the first Albanians
in America that in 1965, before the U.S. Congress, asked
for Kosovo to be granted independence.
Although in exile, Sami Rrepishti was not detached
from the problems of Albania. His curriculum is very rich
with studies, book publications and different articles.
A FRIEND AND A TEACHER
At the beginning of the June 1948, in the swamps of
Bedeni in Kavaja, was emanated the caravan of the prisoners. In the side of a hill there was a line of big booths
covered with old sheet metals, appointed for these
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people to live in. All over barbed wires four meters high,
in an area of about a quarter of hectare. On the corners
there were the Guardian Towers, where soldiers with
guns observed every movement and were threaded to
death all the persons that tried to pass the barbed wires.
There were about 900 persons inside. It was the camp
that later on was named as the unfortunate camp of
Bedeni.
We were organized in brigades and companies. And
we were in orders of any sludge of the society. We began the work until early in the morning and on the mud
with insects and snakes and the policemen hit us without mercy in order to work hard and hard. We walked
without resting a little and the head down, the clothes
sweated, the body shriveled up by suffering. We could
move with great difficulty the arms and legs to do those
rhythmic movements, monotonous, because of the hard
work but we had to fulfill a certain amount of work
called norm.
In the evening in the camp we got in line to take the
blessed bread without being able to talk with each other,
we were so tired and we stood on beds without having
a shower or without cleaning, sleeping covered with
some old clothes, that only us could call a bed.
* * *
Today as everyday we are in line to go to work. It’s
dawn. When the sun shines we went to work, in a caravan without line and shape. There are guardians with
sticks in hands around us, and we run not to be the last
one, just because the guardians hit us.
One day a friend felt down just near me. I just wanted
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to help him get up when a big hand took him with a
powerful strength. Then I helped him too. We were turning back to the camp and together with the weight of
the tiring of the day, we both kept by arms a man that
was almost dead. During the road we didn’t speak at
all. In front of barracks we let the sick person. He didn’t
move. We called the pharmacist that for our good luck
was a real hero. He put him on the bed. We understood
everything by the mimic of pharmacist face. Near to the
person that was dying we said the first words with the
person that had helped to carry the sick man both with
me. Since that day he became my friend. We found the
moment when we were altogether and went and came
back from work to greet and to talk to each other. In the
camp this was more difficult. One day after I introduced
myself he told me his name. He was named Hamdi
Gjoni. He was graduated from Madrasa of Tirana and
had fight since too young to serve where the country
needed him. He was like a real man. He had a strong
body that never gave up and he had a beautiful smile,
part of his character. He spoke slowly, convinced, for
everything he said. I liked him since at the beginning
and I start to love him. In the difficult hours of work, in
the endless suffering days of camp, we made so close to
each other. He was so smart and gave me advice. He
was more pragmatic and helped me. He was very stoic,
assertive, and brave and he was like a model for me
that I could not found in the daily life. This man gave
me inspiration, faith in myself and determination. I really liked him. He was for me like an island of support
in that sea of sufferings. I was so happy to have a friend
like this.
* * *
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During the work day not far way from us, the policemen and their servers, joking and deriding , were trying
to put in a man back about 40 years old a carriage full of
soil. It was a daily view. The sick persons, the weak ones,
the old persons, were beat and tortured every day. They
had to work hard and when they could not, the policemen
tortured them. The man that was trying to stand up under
the weight of the soil, but he was weak. He was not tall.
His feet were thin and trembled by the weakness. He kept
the weight of a skeleton the bones of each could be counted.
After a while he felt down. Then the commandants began
to kick him and the policemen to hit him with sticks.
Mean persons!- I heard Hamdi voice near me. I
looked at him strangely. Words like this could take him
toward the death.
- He is my friend – I was told - he has been a professor, from the first fighters. He is a very good person and
I love him so much. I will introduce you to him. His
name is Bego Gjonzeneli.
I met the professor after that day and many times too.
After the first words about the life we had, was done another discussion about a new situation. After some days
after the revolution of the Inform-Bureau of the June 1948,
we were obligated to hear the newspaper’s reading. We
sat down in the yard of the camp under the sun and heard
the newspaper reading, with long hours, hypocrite
speeches, that were held all around the country. But we
care for another thing. Would this condition last? It
seemed that it was shaken from the foundations. But
nobody could say exactly anything. We could not have
contact with anybody, we were hermetically closed. I was
still young. I heard the thoughts and the words the other
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said. But I liked more the thoughts of professor. I still
remember him. He lay on the drawn land and he put his
right elbows on it. He was always with two or three other
persons. Then as if he wanted to tell what he thought he
spoke very slowly and fluently. He thought continually
as if he wanted to tell what he thought. These thoughts
were linked so well and he made the other person feel
very fond of his thoughts. He was worried about the country and our luck. We could survive on Beden.
Some months later we were transferred to the Maliq
swamps. We hugged each other as best friends.
* * *
They took him a September day and we didn’t
know anything. I couldn’t even greet him or say
goodbye. Hamdi told me that he and four others were
turning back to Vlora prison. I didn’t understand anything.
-You will understand it later. Maybe this is a farewell forever.
I was astonished. I saw only the tied hands of the
five friends that were climbing on the truck accompanied by the military guardians with guns.
The end of the March is the anniversary of that
macabre that I heard two months later. I was told that
they were executed because of a tentative of escape from
prison. From the first people I heard were even the professor and Hamdi. The surprising news shocked me. I
was frozen and I didn’t know what to say. I would not
see them any more, and their voice would not sound
any more. I looked the Vlora friends that usually used
to stay with them. They were sad too. They kept their
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head down and they were still shocked by the hard
loose. I tried to get any news for their last days. They
told me that they had scorned the offered mercy. I trusted
this. I had heard many times the hate they had and I
knew how proud and assertive they were. They
inspirited the conviction on the justice of my ideal. But
when I try to convince myself they are dead, that they
don’t breathe, I feel a pain in my chest that strangle my
heart and my face diminished from the wind and the
sun, two teardrops fall in my face
I live spiritually all the day with them….
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JAMARBER MARKO
He was born in Tirana in 1951.
In 1974, he graduated from the
University of Tirana with a journalism degree, but a year later he was
arrested and sentenced to a
prison term of seven years for
agitation and propaganda (a common sentence for those the regime deemed to have criticized
the government). This was a big
shock not only for Jamarber, who
had begun to express openly his dissatisfaction toward
the Communist regime, but also for his father, the great
writer Petro Marko.
He was freed in 1979 and worked for some time as a
maintenance worker in a brigade in Kinostudio. His passion has been and is still now to write poems. He never
stopped writing.
They were published in recent years in two volumes of
poems that were valued much by critics and readers. The
short article chosen for this anthology was written in 1984,
but is published for the first time here and is a special
one in the experimentation of the poetic prose of Jamarber
Marko.
Soul Authority
I felt in love with my road on the horizon of which
looked clearly the signs of a future a bit majestic. Although the façade that I see I gave a majesty shadow.
That time I still saved myself as the glorious beggar of
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happiness. I had to get out from the inner fog antique
armor of a winning march. It was like a big love clutched
with fury on the general movements of that time. My
horse began to fly with the endless army of wishes, studies, maneuvers, these one of animals and insects….
Underneath the water of disregard, our swords
looked as if took care not to come out on the surface.
Time after time, amazed circles shook the marks that
traveled toward dead coastal areas. There were even
some suns rising that I passed with my horse run.
The time passed. I thought that love for a new construction left behind the followers. I was lonely. Did I
have only the victory? On the high façade of the miracle
I was put as a knight fighter, symbol for them that wait
to enter on my constellation. But passion doesn’t have
where to go when the dreams became need able comparison able joint. I say that the independence is linked
with the fixing of characters. Until here my love went….
After this my sword dissolved on the light that accompanied the obligation of them that wanted to be
cured…and this happened for the best of the reason,
which seemed to win over my feelings.
These people now come silent. They represent their
documents and pass on equipment combinations that
check the regularity of an empty perfection. And on the
special cases they turn back again. But this time they
can be known by their striped wearing of the institutions when they have gained the right to win. The concept of time is now shifted in a perfect scale….
I keep in my hands the diagrams of the organization
of their thoughts. From the radiographs can be looked
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the silence and convince. Their small loves are eliminated on the effect of the great love. The sensibility is
destroyed and the differentiation based on the overcoming of a spiritual quietness make them able to resist the
influence from the entire human past. In this point make
me happy, the decreasing of mistrusts, which are put in
garbage and their elimination is duty for a foreign department of cleaners.
So piles with pieces of characters are burn far away
of the institution, but although the big quantity of the
smoke on the air, is absorbed liberally, the moment.
Some minutes before, while I looked the miracle of
this giant, I get astonished from the invisible weight
somewhere inside myself. The usual day started its routine. After a while will the decrease began but it will
feel very little only on the automatic memory. Even
thought something is disobedient to me. A silent mechanism, as a black wing of bird, which touches the empty
walls of my crippled memory
Who is knocking on the thick glasses of my silence?
All the arrows tell the normality of the radiation that
waits the perfection. Is there no defect at all? My heart
on the big screen, pulsate the moment. Then there was
a face that refracted on the weight of the atmosphere. I
don’t remember any more, even the moment. I know
that during the morning somebody came near me different from the others do. I want you to help me. We
are….The documents are ok….As all the others you will
be examined too…Yes sure…
For a moment the voice is clear and then lost on the
constant fervor of the vehicles. A close man ore
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more…More? As all the others… Maybe my
mother…With the old ring as antique as the world is.
Looking with her eyes… On the gap of the spirit the
steams of the doubt condensed in faces. The face that
are circulating both with my intake of breath
My man... I run in the waiting hall...They sated
down waited the moment. Unknown faces. Despaired
and with problems…Maybe my sister. The memory
doesn’t function. The doubt is so strong. Maybe has
passed some times ago. I run on the places, roads, and
corners, No face I can see. All are directed with the
mortal silence toward the façade when the antiquity
knight dreamed.
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AGIM MUSTA
He was born in Gjirokastër in
21.08.1930. He finished the elementary school in his hometown,
and finished high school in
Tirana. He then graduated with a
degree in Literature and Languages from the High Pedagogic
Institute. He worked as a history
teacher in Saranda, Kuçova and
Tirana for about a decade.
In 1962, he was sentenced to a prison term of 13
years from the Military Court for anticommunist activity.
Agim Musta is a well-known scholar and serious researcher of the dictatorship period. He has published many
of books that present harsh reality of the time of dictatorship.
We can mention here “Alive files” 1944, “Who was
Enver Hoxha? “(as coo writer) 1996, “The State prisons”
(Albanian-English) 2000, “The deeds of Communism in
Albania” 2001, and “It happened like this” 2003.
We have chosen for this anthology a short, but very
important, description of one of the cruelest people in the
Enver Hoxha regime, who the author himself has given
the nickname “Black General.” We have also chosen the
article “The polygons of death” that describes a problem
still not seen in this book, the one of finding the sites
where people were executed and killed during the dictatorship system.
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BLACK GENERAL, NEVZAT HAZDENARI
I knew Nevzat Hazdenari’s face since in 1947, when
he as military prosecutor was famous in the courts organized at the “17 Nentori” cinema of Tirana, against the
“enemy groups”. I had in mind his big head the same as
the old Slavs, his strong body a little curved, his steel
color eyes, and his hands as the paws of the Siberian bear.
I had heard that his origin was from a bey (landowner in
the feudal system). He was very poor in Leskovik. His
father died during the 1930s, he went from one coffee
shop to another in the Korça, in full poverty, until he died
on the road and the municipality organized his ceremony
of death. In that period of time Nevzat continued the
Normal School of Elbasan (high school) on a state scholarship. His friends called him “The Beast”. His preferred
books were the novels with tortures. In 1938, after he finished the school in Elbasan he was appointed as a teacher
in the Postenan of Leskovik village. Former students of
him say they peed their pants when the teacher threaded
them even for the littlest mistakes. After he could not carry
on the Fascist Party during 1939-1942 he took of the black
shirt and wear the red one, being part of one of the most
important directors of the communist movement in the
vice Prefecture of Leskovik, both with Kiço Kasapi and
Ali Gina. In the spring of 1943 he killed in the pass of
Postenan Gaqo Tasho both with his son Petraqi and Petro
Tashko, for the only fault that they were distanced from
the National Liberation Movement, when they have understood that it was directed by communist. In the end
of 1944 was executed Muharrem Rusi, former Chairman
of Municipality of Leskovik, and an honorable and respected man all over the district. After the dictatorship
was put in all the Albania, Nevzat was appointed as a
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military prosecutor of district of Korça, where he became very famous with his deeds. He participated in the
execution of the Maliq Engineers group in November
1946, putting with his hand the rope on the necks of
Abdyl Sharra and Kujtim Beqiri. Ali Selenica, jurist, that
have died in the prison of Burrel in 1963, had told me
that in 1945 when he worked as an advocate in Korça,
the communist military court with prosecutor Nevzat
Hajdari gave every day in the name of the people 10-15,
condemns with death. Most of them were intellectuals
and ignorant villagers that have joint Balli forces..
The court doesn’t do any difference between the real
guiltier and the innocent persons. The sword of communist dictatorship in the hand of criminal Nevzat, “cut off”
cruelly the heads of innocent persons. Some kind of courts
where not organized neither in inquisition period of time
nor in the ottoman period of invasion. In every moment
you can be revolted by this kind of “justice” that has been
cruelly violated.
Mr. Ali, the advocate of the accused person, said
that accusations against his client were absurd and pathetic because his client was mute and he could not commit the crime of agitation. Nevzat had offended the advocate with dirty words and had accused him as a fascist and for this reason he protected the enemies of the
people.
Mr. Ali Selenica replicated with the prosecutor Nevati
saying to him that the only fascist there had been he, a
known fact in the entire Korça district. Captain Nevzat
got angry and court hearing to be temporarily halted.
Mr. Selenica an hour after this was put in a dark cell of
the security of Korça in chains. After three months of
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tortures made personally by Nevzat, Ali was sentenced
to eternal prison as a people enemy , while two his sons,
to save from persecutions were killed while trying to
pass the border Albanian-Greek. Within 11 years killing a lot of people, executioner Nevzat took the grade
of General, being like this symbol of state crime. There
was no arrest case for enemy people that Nevzat had
not participated, asking the person and caressing with
his paws. There were no prisoners that have not been
bleeding by the meeting with him. Even the other little
executioners in the investigation offices, in the prisons
and in the camps of interments, stayed as shocked before him. He had to deal with famous intellectuals, ministers, generals, and the members of the political Bureau, closing his carrier with the “group” of Beqir
Balluku. In 1954 when the political prisoners in the
Camp Number 4 in Tirana, tried to open a channel to
save from the communist hell, Enver Hoxha’s “the justice” sentenced 20 people with hard prison, four of them
Abdulla Bajrami, Mark Zefi, Isuf Velcani, Zyhdi
Mancaku were executed in the cells of the old prison of
Tirana by executioner Hazdenar, nagging skulls with
iron lever
The personal meeting with this Lucifer I had in a
room of investigation of the Tirana prison was in the
April 1962. He was accompanied by 3-4 graduated officers, which stayed behind him. I was chained. They
sat me on the concrete chair of the accused person, while
general Nevzat, with a ruler in his hand asked me what
I had talked with his brother in law, the teacher Fatmir
Berati. I told that with Fatmir we had been colleagues
in the “50 vjetori” school of Textile Industrial complex
and we didn’t have much confidence to each other such
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as to speak about politic. He screamed and said to the
officers that we must be killed, but it was Enver Hoxha
that wanted them to apply the laws. “These persons
wanted to re create Social Democrat Party , that one that
Musine Kokalari couldn’t do, and they have to suffer
more than she did” He hit me so hard on my head without hair. I fainted falling down by the chair. When I
gained my conscience I saw my self in my cell, with a
dirty rag on my head. Officer Koli who was kinder than
the others came and brought me a wet handkerchief to
take off the blood frozen on the face and on my clothes.
I knew that Fatmir Berati was brother in law with Nevzat
but this last one didn’t speak with him, because Fatmir’s
origin was from a family touched by the communist
system. This was the first and the last meeting I had
with the main executioner of the Enver Hoxha dictatorship, black general Nevzat Hazdenari. In 1959 Nevzat
remount the group of Leskovik of 1947 adding even
other unlucky persons to fulfill the exact number of
twenty persons. This time, the vice prime minister of
the Interior Ministry, Mihallaq Ziçishti, with his helpers, Rexhep Kolli and Nevzat Hazdenari performed the
operation.
Vangjel Cini that was able to survive from the group
of Leskovik told me of those days of terrible tortures.
The arrests were done at 2 a.m. on March 30, 1959. They
were arrested 19 persons within an hour, because the
number 20 on the list Kolaq Kozmai wad dead and for
this took a hard critical observation micro executioner,
Tare Isufi, chairman of branch of interior labor of
Kolonja , that had no had notified in time the government agency for his substitution.
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They tortured me inhumanly. They let me keep only
my underwear and chained me hands and feet, and
added a chain on the neck. Tare Isufi pulled me in the
floor, in a room of tortures while Nevzat hit me with his
shoes on my fingers of hands and feet. I fainted while
they pour me out buckets with cold water and when I
came on my own Rexhep Kolli and Nevzat told me to
accept that I was Greek agent, otherwise they would
kill me slowly. After this, Nevzat changed the torture,
strangled my neck and on the last seconds of breath he
let me free, smoking in my face, that caused me a terrible cough, that I will never forget. After three days of
tortures they took me to the Starje River where they had
opened a tomb about 50 centimeters deep. They put me
inside and Nevzat directed me the revolver on the forehead. I closed my eyes and he shot in the air, and then
ordered to take me in Tirana. After 10 months of tortures when we accepted everything the investigators
offered, according to the scenery of General Nevzat, they
put us before the military court, except Thanas Lulo that
couldn’t break, and they were afraid to bring him with
the others because he could do the same he had done so
not to accept with contempt the accuses but this could
give courage the others. During the court séances
Nevzat, before the layers threaded us continually, saying that would send our heads with large baking sheet
in Leskovik, as the head of Saint Joan the Baptist. After
four court séances where sentenced to death, Mihal Cini,
Thoma Buda, Janaq Ruqi, Hajredin Gega, Shahin
Hajdari, Kico Kuqoli, Thanas Vila (in a special séance)
that were executed after some days while Xhevat Zerja
and Musa Shemja died in the hands of the investigation
executioner Three other persons died in the prison and
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all the others died after they gained freedom, except
me, that I could see the democracy coming, and to reveal to the sun light the crimes of the dictatorship.
For every enemy group that would be arrested in
Albania, Nevzat would create something new for his
tortures toward them. For the complot’s people of Teme
Sejko he used the hive of bees, for the group of Devolli
he used the iron cupboards, and the people that would
be killed he broken the skulls with iron lever. There were
other tortures too such as the salt put on the open
wounds, petroleum ampoules, the electricity, putting the
people on the ditch with excrements, squeeze of the
genital organs, putting in a barrel with pieces of ice, hang
in gaff (torture instrument with hooks) with head down,
inflating with a pomp from anus but he called this consummated and out of fashion.
He went once in the Soviet Union to get experience
and even in china, but it is said that the Chinese’ “Comrades” were astonished by his Albanian experience.
They said they had nothing to learn this Albanian genie
for tortures and thanked him giving as a present a book
with sketches tortures made on the time of the Min dynasty.
In the 1974 the dictator called Nevzat from Elbasan
when he was chairman of the Internal Branch to investigate the “sheep of army” The spirits of Beqir Balluku,
Petrit Dume and Hito Cako knew how much have suffered by this Satanic that time ago was their friend. It’s
said that on them he tried the tortures of Min Dynasty,
treated as he knew. He closed his glorious carrier with
this invest gory as one the most dirty and cruel executioner that Albanian country have had. The dictatorship
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gave him a villa in Tefta Tashko road and a special pension. He died suddenly and people say that he is poisoned with order of dictator to disappear a live archive
of crimes.
THE DEATH POLIGONS
How many people are accused in Albania during the
dictatorship terror nobody knew exactly, but the places
where most of them are killed are known and called by
the people as the polygons of death. There are killed
people kidnapped from the road in the periphery of the
towns. There are killed partisans from behind their back,
on the sharp rocks and valleys and buried by the villagers without never known their names. There are killed
innocent persons, without any court decision, unregistered in no list at all, the name of who turn up alive on
the civil status offices, and nobody knows where they
are holed. There are killed citizens that tried to pass the
border and their bodies are burned by the commands
of the border post offices. There are executed people
and they bodies are thrown in the abyss, where never
pass even the wild beasts. There are shot near the rivers
other citizens and their cadavers are thrown in seas or
rivers. There are dead in the cells of the Security offices
and prisons and their bodies without life are thrown in
the garages of the cities. During the years 1945-1948, in
the most of the cases the executions of the enemies were
made during the day, to frighten the citizens. So were
executed in Tirana and in the May 1945, in the sunlight,
17 personalities of the Albanian government, in the place
called Kodra e Priftit, near the porcelain factory in
Tirana. Two days before the execution, the municipal-
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ity workers under the supervision of Security officers
had opened a shallow hole. Had not passed a week from
the execution date when some thefts opened the covered hole hoping to find worthwhile things in them,
but they went on delusional even without covering again
them, because the killers had captured them everything
before they killed them.
In the begging of the 1950, the interior ministry ordered that every Security branch to have its polygons
of death. In Tirana there were some death polygons but
the most important were near the river of Terkuza and
Erzen. In those places are executed hundreds victims.
Many of them were taken away by the waves and ate
by the birds or bitten from the wild animals. The words
“at the shores of the river” were a synonym of death.
When somebody cursed to another, he said “I hope to
see you on the shore of the river.” Another important
polygon in Tirana has been near the Bridge of Farka, in
the shore of Erzen River. Nuri Stepa, a driver that time,
a person that suffered in the same prison with me has
told me as follows:
I was traveling from Elbasan to Tirana with the truck full
of olives. Without passing the Farka Bridge, a policeman asked
me to stop and to switch off the lights. I obedient to him but I
felt that something unusual would happened over there the
river. It was 11 o’clock p.m. The moon was pale but I could
see an automobile Gazi of the Security and an auto prison.
From the automobile climbed down some persons and from
the auto prison two other persons sat down. The policemen
kept them by they arms .After them from the door of the auto
prison they threw out on the land another person, pulling
him by his feet, He surely had died during the transport with
auto prison from any heart attack. In the pebbles, near the
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bridge leg, the two victims were executed shooting them.
After this they put all of the bodies in the hole opened, and
they throw on them some sand and gravelly soil and left to
the automobile and auto prison turned back toward Tirana
direction, so did the policeman with his motor car. I was really shocked from that macabre execution that my hands
trembled when I began to drive. It has happened ten years
ago but I have not still forgotten that horrible night, that
seemed to have happened as yesterday evening for me.”
In the pluralism years many skeletons of shot people
are found near Erzen, as the hole of the 22 killed persons near the bridge of Beshiri, 12 kilometers southwest
of Tirana, in February 1951, on the occasion of the named
“incident” in the Soviet Embassy.
In Tirana there executed many people even near the
Bridge of Sharka, near Vora, in the tunnels of Qesaraka,
in the Mali me Gropa Mountain, nearest the Bridge of
Brari and in any other unidentified place until now. On
Shkodra the most important bastion anticommunist in
Albania, as execution place was appointed Zalli i Kirit,
from Bardhaj until the bridge of Kir River. In that curse
place are executed hundreds innocent, especially during the years 1945-1946, after the “operation of purification” in the Malesi e Madhe and the fail of the insurgency of Postriba. There are others executions even near
the Buna River, near the cement fabric, where very often the cadavers during the raining got out on the surface or went away from the waves of the river. There
have been other cases when the cadavers are left on the
surface not buried, piles one over the other, as happened
after the Postriba insurgency. This was purposely made
to frighten the citizens of Shkodra. The phrase “Go to
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the Zall of Kiri!” was as a proverb for citizens of Shkodra
and symbolized the death from killing blow.
In Vlora, the polygons of death have been at the
“Bishti i Kalldremit” during the road Vlore-Kanine, in
Hambare, near the bricks fabric and near a little bridge,
and also the national road, but not arriving until the
Qafe e Kociut. That bridge was called from the Vlora
citizens the “bridge of Ballists”. They are executed there
hundreds sentenced or not from “the people courts” of
the communist dictatorship. Even these days every honored Albanian that pass this bridge, remind those men
that were killed with the only guilt— they loved Albania.
In the Gjirokastër, executions were done in the square
of the Chains and in the Buduk, near Drino River.
In Berati, the polygons of death were in Uznove and
near the village Morave, near the river Osum.
In Durres the executions were made in Porto Romano
and in the Bisht Palla.
My suffering friend, Dervish Sulo, former prosecutor of Durres, during the 1950s told me:
The sentenced to death people were executed in Porto
Romano, Once upon a time there was there a fabric for refinement of Leather and there were many ditches, where there
were put garbage of leathers decomposed by acids. So that
was not necessary to be opened new ditches for the executed
cadavers. We put the automobile near the ditch and climbed
down the person tied hands and feet and shoot him with gun
or revolver. When the person was an important one, we took
with us the doctor of the Branch to sign. In the most of cases
he signed the next day after the person was executed. When
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the person that would be executed was strong and aggressive,
for having no troubles he executed in the cell first, hitting with a
lever in head and then they took him in the place of execution and
after the murder they called me as a prosecutor I was and the
doctor of the Branch, to compile the report of execution, that was
supposedly done at the polygon of death at Porto Romano. Late
on the night the cadaver was thrown in the ditches of Porto
Romano and was sucked at once from the garbage of the fabric.
Within a short time, it was decomposed entirely. According to the
general of the Security Halim Xhelo, that was put in prison in
1965 and found hanged in the hospital of Tirana, after the year
1948 for the disappear of the cadavers of the executed people,
was used the slaked lime, which during the time decomposed not
only the cadaver but even its bones. Halim Xhelo said the most
of the killed people, are used as cadavers in the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Tirana and some are sold even abroad, to
the clinics and hospitals of the universities.
In the prison of Burrel, the elite of Albanian intellectuals during the years 1946-1990, are killed or have died.
Over 350 prisoners most of them famous intellectuals
graduated in the most famous universities of America
and Europe. Every prisoner died from hungry, illness,
cruel tortures, was covered with an old blanket and was
thrown in a ditch that was tens meters after the prison,
near a cherry tree. The ditch was covered with roof beam
and woods and over them was put a thin layer of soil.
Every time a prisoner died, his cadaver was pulled out
from the prison late in the dark and then thrown in the
common ditch. Over the cadaver they threw an amount
of burnt lime. Cherry this wonderful tree that Japanese
keep as happiness symbol, over passed the borders of
borders of the barbed wires of the Albania and was made
motive of inspiration for a Hungary movie maker who
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had escaped to the west. He did an artistic picture titled
“The cherry”. Unfortunately in Albania cherry tree of
the prison of Burrel never mentioned from our historians and artists. When the prison of Burrel was closed
in 1990, to disappear every track of crime, bulldozer,
became flatted everything behind the prison, not leaving nothing from the common ditch of the cadavers.
In the years of pluralism, the familiar of victims tried
to find the cadavers of their relatives in that cruel prison,
but was impossible to get
In the district of Korça in the river of the village
Shipske, in the years of pluralism, are found hundreds
cadavers of people, executed by communists during the
years 1943-1944. In the joint of skeletons are seen clearly
rusted nails, which tell that victims before executions
are crossed as the Christ tortured and nailed. In the
swamp of Maliq, in the district of Korça for the drainage of which have worked many political prisoners, the
persons that died from the hard work, from the tortures
and illness, didn’t ditch, but threw on the crud of swamp.
In the autumn when the prisoners, went to the prisons
they had come from, the raining took with them the crud
of swamp and the decomposed cadavers come over surface. They were pulled by the dogs of the villages,
around the swamp and were done subjects of horrible
legends for villagers.
Hundreds of political prisoners worked side by side
with the ordinary prisoners at the camp of Bulqiza Mine
during 1947-1957. They were moved from Bulqiza that
time when the Hungary revolution began; being afraid
that a revolution could began from the prisoners there.
In the prison camp of Bulqiza, during 43 years of the
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exploit of the miner with the prisoners, over 700 people
have died. It’s enough to mention that in one day of the
year 1969, from destroy of a gallery, died 17 prisoners.
Nobody said a word for those unlucky people in the
time of the dictatorship. Necropolis of Bulqiza the greatest of the camps and the prisons in Albania was destroyed before than the communist system was destroyed.
To save in the people memory of Albanian history,
the duty of the municipal councils is to identify the polygons of deaths and to put on them memory plaques.
When will this happen?
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DOM SIMON JUBANI
Dom Simon Jubani was born
in Shkodra in 1927. He began
Apostolic School to become a
Jesuit when he was 16 years old.
After the closure of religious
catholic schools in Albania, he
continued the public high school.
In 1957 through 1958 he took
the “Order of Missal” and served
in Mirdita as a priest.
He was then arrested and sentenced to 26 years in
prison.
He was freed on April 13, 1989. On November 4, 1990,
he celebrated in the graveyard of Rremajt the first catholic public mass after decades under ban in front of many
believers.
For his great contribute, he was decorated with the
title “Doctor Honoris Causa” in 1991 from San Francisco
University, and took the diploma in human sciences with
the motivation “Bringer of a new era in Albania.”
In 1996, Michigan honored him with the diploma with
the motivation “Initiator of the free word and catholic
press.”
Dom Simon Jubani is the first Albanian that after the
implosion of the communism was called in audience from
Pope John Paul II. He worked with devotion to rebuild the
catholic institutions in Albania. He is also author of two
books with memories.
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THE COMEDY TIME
Please don’t think that in prison everything was a
tragedy. Everywhere the man is, in his life, near and
close to tragedy, there is always something ironic. So in
the prison there where many people that suffered from
the complex of inferiority. They had never read a book
in their life, but speaking with cultured persons with
whom they were obligated to stay all the day they felt
bad and mentioned titles of books and authors they had
never seen even in their dreams. But they could not pronounce the right names, or made other mistakes so, was
impossible not to laugh at them. Some others wrote
books. And after this gave to me hoping to be mentioned
as one of the best writer in the world such as Shakespeare
or Moliere! But their writings were copy of them! They
stole any verse from these famous authors and then gave
the writing to me. So as I took off these verses, or phrases,
the work of them looked as a bad composition of a high
school student. When I said this they got crazy.
They thought I envied their works so they hoped that
when they got out of the prison their books would be
sell even in the world, but as I know some of the published books of them are only sell with half prize, because the people of west don’t care of the history of mar
tires. They don’t like them at all! One of them, which I
read, what the man that wrote it called masterpiece, I
told that, was below the intellectual level of the
Scanderbeg’s horse. The other one I said that he lived
only to eat!
Pjetri told me that the operative didn’t read the letters of the villagers because he could not understand
the silly things they wrote. The villagers were smart. I
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will tell you only this. My friend from Bushati had received a letter from his wife. She wrote: You are hundreds time better than I ‘m, there in the prison, because
those 600 grams of bread full of pebbles, debris, that
you eat without paying I have to work in good or bad
weather to earn the money to buy, sweating all the day.
While you rest all the day there in the cell, when I look
forward to do a holiday, because on Sundays we have
to go in conferences and other works.” Wow! So we in
the prison with chains on hands were enviable by the
others in freedom. They were free. What a comedy! This
made senseless the threats of the prison director that
told us to take care, because I will take your family from
cooperative to the camp of interment, and if you continue to behave not well, I will take it even in prison.
But the letter of the villagers from Bushati said us
that they have to come in our conditions, so it was not a
big tragedy for them.
Other sources of information for our comedies were
the press and the radio. First was the newspaper “Zëri i
Rinise” that solved all the youth problems.
We read also the other press outlets:
The first prisoner: They accuse us of not having cars
The second prisoner: What do we want the cars for?
We love each other so much that we like to travel altogether, collectively in the buses; even we like to travel
with open automobiles, in trucks, because we are close
to each other and we breathe better.
The third prisoner: The persons that live in the west
don’t love each other so they travel individually in per-
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sonal cars. That’s why the poor ones spend all day in
shops to buy the imported Albanian goods.
The first prisoner: The people there don’t do anything else they look for all the time on the garbage …
Sometimes I couldn’t keep myself and read the text
as I wanted. One day I said to the director: “Why don’t
you take us condemned to the capitalist world? According to your newspapers, we will suffer there worse than
in Burrel!”
In such cases for me opened the curtains of tragedy.
It must not be forgotten the wise people words that said:
that too much joy often brings bad luck, and adds that
“the mouth speaks and the back hurts!” After this they
tortured me, but hardly and I became only ash and dust
like the phoenix. But the next day I got up again as Phoenix to begin the comedy again. Do you know what the
secret was? Prying to God. It was he that gave me hope
even when I couldn’t resist. Believe with all your heart
and pray and you will see how a man can be transformed
in a phoenix. Or better, a died man resurrected for the
third time.
Another source for comedy was even the radio that
served to educate us, because even the prison was named
the big department of education. So the terrible word
prison disappeared from the dictionary and the world
could not comply that in Albania there were prisons,
and for more that there were even a place where were
not buried and the interned and prison red were the
real heroes of the war for freedom.
So to educate us they turned on Radio Tirana with
loud volume and through the speaker we were lucky to
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hear the more funny news of the time. The first event
we were waiting for was that Mehmet Shehu after a
nervous crisis was suicide. The peak of the comedy was
the death of Enver Hoxha. It must be written in the annals of the world history the joy this news brought in
prison. I still remember the voice of the deceased Ded
Begeja that was extremely happy. Even on the face of
the guardian that opened the wicket to see, looked the
wish to laugh with the others because in one way or in
another he was slave as we were. He guarded us because was easier than to guard the cooperative fields.
Usually he ate before us bread with nuts that his wife
had stolen from the cooperative.
Some times when I was in good mood I teased the
policemen saying: I have nothing to do I am against the
communist and communism so I have to stay here, but
what about you, what’s your crime that are condemned
to stay and guard me for about 12 hours? And when
you are hungry you eat worse than I, a piece of bread
and nuts, or tomatoes do, stolen from the cooperatives
by your wives. It’s so pity! I am sentenced with a temporary condemn while you are with an eternal one.
In the dictatorship regimes better than any one lives
the person who rebelled and don’t care of his life, the
others, beginning from the most important to the last
servitor of the dictator, live anxiously, without knowing the friend and the enemy.
Another scene of the comedy of the cell was when
the inspectors of the prisons came from Tirana. All my
friends looked at me to feel surer. The people coming
from Tirana were wearing the Sunday’ suits. They
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ties of Burrel with military uniforms.
They opened the doors and the visitors entered but
in the rooms they felt the smell of our dirty clothes, and
especially from the full jars with “our emotional moment productions” So the greatest person between them
came from Tirana kept a speech before 30 people covered with some old bad cotton blankets. “We are here
to see even the application of the law, so who has something to say, any comply for any injustice we are ready
to hear.”
The thirty people look the person that had come to
protect them. But they could not speak they had no any
comply; all the rights of them were respected! They
could even swear of this. How could our rights be broken when we didn’t have rights at all? Their eyes gazed
Dom Simoni, as if they wanted to say: Speak, speak for
us! And surely Dom could not ignore those gazes that
wanted the priest word that for them represented the
Christ. So I got up and I said: Are you speaking of laws?
What are these laws? The written or the unwritten ones?
Because we are treated here according to the unwritten
laws, because this place is not a prison but an extermination institution and it’s not easy to understand that
we live as animals” Surely I never ended my speech
because the man that had come to protect us, gave order to chain me, and beat. So the prison comedy for everyone and me had always tragically end.
EPILOGUE IN THE SKY
And now God, what can I do?
It was the end of that terrible night. I stayed over
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myself, lied in the coffin. At the end I was dead. There
were glad the persons that hated me and there were sad
some others that loved me. I had done this migration
road that for me have had not less bushes, although the
flowers didn’t lack, as long as God saved me to see the
spring, even to let me open the door. The cadaver was
there without moving, unusual thing for me. Around
it, passed hundreds people. I think this is called “to make
homage” or better to honor died person. But I had no
need of honors. I wanted any praying to make easier
arriving to the last place. Any phrase like “Give it God!”
But nobody thought that the soul needed prayers. The
most of them talked for my works while I was alive.
Somebody even laughed.
In the first line as usually, for the fate irony, which
had always played with me, there were the highest communist authorities of the country. Surely they were there
to cry for my death. Oh, how much I wished to get up
from the coffin that moment! But I couldn’t move, because according the custom my shoelaces where linked
with one another, not to became a ghost. And they had
not thought badly. My body was full of cold sweat because I wanted to scream: Do you think I am dead? No
sir. I wanted only to laugh a little with this melodrama
that you are playing around my coffin”
But it was not possible. I was now in suspense between land and sky. I didn’t know yet where I was and
were I was going to go. So the thought that I had completed the terrestrial road, was troubled by another idea
more difficult, I had to begin the last travel from the
moment my body would be put in the soil. And until
that moment the soul would see with pain that sheath,
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inside which it had walked for 70 and more years all
over the world and that would began to impair and had
a bad smell. The soul and the body were still linked together with a strand that would be broken very soon.
How tragic and funny the ceremony looked! There were
missals, preachers that made the mass for my soul, in
the place when I had celebrated many times. Even with
words that being alive I felt happy to say. The preacher
spoke a lot about a Dom Simoni that had nothing in
common with the real one that was neither in the land
nor in the sky. Instead of saying that I organized the
first mass in Shkodra he told that I was grown up as
orphan. Was this a merit or did he wanted to feel me
ashamed I have had no father? I thought regretted that
more enemies have when you commit a heroism than
when you do any wickedness” Then I began to laugh at
the moment when I would leave my body I would have
no more enemies. And I would be not an orphan any
more. And my merits would be weight in a scale that
didn’t err. What a big deal! All the life I remained reactionary for my people and for my enemies.
Everything finished. The chime rang. Its noise made
even the cypress to cry with green tears. All over the
graveyard were dispersed the funeral music of “Dies
irae”. The choir began to sing the hymn of death. A big
tear went from my flying soul and fall down on my frozen face, just a little before it was covered forever from
the mortal lid. I didn’t see who else cried. I remind the
strange phrase maybe real that was repeated every time
someone dies. We gather without known each other, live
even though we don’t like to live, and die not crying”
Let it be! It was I, crying for my self! And it was the last
tear…after this…Hmmm It was really this that bothered
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me, while my soul was light and light and light. In my
heart I had got my saint some minutes before my mouth
with broken teeth in the prisons, was closed forever. The
long line of clerics with purple paramente, came near
the coffin for the last time. The lid was covered and tightened with nails. I disappeared and I didn’t see any more
myself. At the end I was really dead. Four men pushed
up the coffin and went straight ahead, followed by
people, to the opened trough through the common
tombs of Rremajt. I was angry. Have I had not deserved
to be buried in the cathedral, near the other preachers,
and with the prime cardinal?-I said to myself. Then I
laugh at this thought. It was not important where I was
going to rest. Maybe I must be more content to sleep the
long and last sleep somewhere near Doctor Shiroka. He
would help me to get up even though any important
bone missed me.
I heard the noise of soil that fall over died person on
the face. The spades moved quickly while closed me
forever in that trough, the live persons thought of the
works they had, where the gluttony for life waited.
At the end on my tomb there were done a soil mound
and was put a simple wood cross where was written: In
this place rests Dom Simon Jubani”
Does he rest? No sir, this is a great mistake. The rest
is far away. I felt that I was flying on the clouds that
looked as the white sheep wool. I don’t know how did I
remind this word, but I had memorized some time ago
from a school anthology. Maybe Luigj Gurakuqi wrote
it. I will meet him in Paradise – I thought happy. It was
the same as flying with an airplane. At the end I arrived.
It was a big gate that shined ,through the clouds. But it
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was closed. But it was not blocked and I had not how to
notify that I was there I cried loudly as if I was before
Mirdita’s towers” Do you want guests , sir?. I laughed
again. But after a while I was serious again. I was afraid
that Saint Pjetri didn’t understand me. At the end he
came and opened the door. I told him shortly who I was.
And it was not difficult because I still remind the words
said for me in the graveyard.
Oh! - he said - You are the priest that has never
stopped! As you have been a preacher you know that
you can’t enter paradise, without balancing very well
the good and bad things you have done in that life. And
let’s see what the balance will weight from. He opened
a little that gate and let me do only one step inside. I
thought I had to deal with Saint Mehilli. I had preached
many times for him and for his balance, from which it
depends if we will or not see the God face. But I saw a
man with a walking stick in his hand. He was Enver
Hoxha. He was in white, and he had some big wings
the same as the main angels on the pictures. I got really
afraid. I cried but not saying right the words: “Saint Peter
Melon (pjeter-pjeper in Albanian), but this man is not
Saint Mehilli. Do you know who this man is? He is the
devil. Deviiiiiiil! My voice rumbled on the sky. I trembled
myself from this ghost voice. This man coming now with
the stick in its hand tortured my body. Now he would
tortured even my soul the same way, trying to bake it in
hell flame. Saint Pjetri closed the ears with his hands.
“Why do you cry like this you the preachers of Albania!
You are so late on time! You are so old timed! God calls
Saint Mehilli for an urgent job. This man is his substitute. And don’t be afraid. This man have entered regularly in the paradise according to the rules of the catho134
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lic and apostolic church, because two minutes before
death this man have said that he had regrets, and has
denied Marx, Engel, Lenin, and Stalin and is turned with
heart and soul in our religion of Christ. And when he
has come here his behavior has been excellent. He
doesn’t leave any soul to enter the paradise. Especially
Albanian souls that you know well are full of bad qualities. And when Saint Mehilli has been busy this many
weight the souls, and now I am sorry to say but all your
colleagues and friends have finished in hell. He says
that they have been deal with politics so that this make
a big sin for a preacher, who has to deal only with the
souls, because there is no pluralism here, God is over
all, the creator of the sky and the soil, the one that looks
everything, and nobody can lie him!- So screamed Saint
Peter – and gazed me in eyes as if he wanted to say: Its
enough now just weight now, because there is a big line
of people waiting the same thing, at the paradise door”
I looked at the balance, the person that kept it, the door
of the paradise half opened and I run like crazy, I went
our over the clouds and I thought “What can I do now?”
I had not finished my words yet when I awake up. I
was sweated. Oh thanks God it had been a dream! The
fault is of the meeting of one day ago when I had participated. I had waited that day with a great wish. When the
church had re began its activity many missioners and different personalities of our Church had come to see us. They
wanted to help us to heal our wounds of soul , some to
stay forever with us, and tell what had happened in the
Church nowadays because we knew about the Old Testament. But I was not worried for this. As a Church person I
had always felt myself in time of the new and old testaments. I felt well because the Evangelist doesn’t know time
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and events, and those happened in church even important couldn’t be able to overcome the Evangelist.
But always speaking new words and being young
in the soul is never bad. Every man that is a bit smart
must adapt to the time, otherwise it’s better to enter the
museum and stay there frozen. And there he can enter,
if they accept him to be part of it. Because some people
are not adapted to the time so it’s better to put them in
the museum near the tall mummies in the archeological
museum
So I went happy, in black suit, and white tie and sat
in the first row, where my place was. The lector was
Jesuit. The hall over filled because people have nothing
to do, they had no job to do, and were very interested to
see what had happened in the world and in the Church
during the time we were out of everything. The meeting began and the lector introduced us with Council II
of Vatican and advised us to learn as soon as we can it,
if we wanted to be the same as the universal Church.
He spooked shortly about the documents of Koncili, and
for the actual conditions of the Catholic Church in the
World, for the Pope John Paul II, for our future and the
future of our church. He spoke in Italian and had near
him a translator that for the first time listened the church
terms, so the people were a bit confused. Even the people
that knew Italian felt that they could understand less.
At the end began the questions. All wanted and were
interested was being saved. So the first question was:
What must the man do, to be saved? Can the people
that have done crimes be forgiven, for example, Enver
Hoxha?
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I was not much interested for the first question, because I have clarified them by myself according to what
was written to the Evangelist. And for the second question I thought that Jesuit would answer shortly to that
man that had done such a crazy question: Hell is for the
people that denied God! But, no sir. I was not right. “If
he has regrets in the last moment-he can be forgiven.
Even he can be in the Happiness of the Paradise now,”
said the Jesuit.
I began to tremble. For bad luck that day not to look
so old I had put my teeth prosthesis that I couldn’t bear.
They caused me pain that I thought I was going crazy. I
took them off and put in my pocket, and that moment I
felt free, and I get up my finger and asked: Padre are
you saying here that Enver Hoxha maybe is waiting us
in Paradise? If he went there, where can I go? Because
Dom Simoni and Enver Hoxha can’t stay in the same
place. Otherwise the paradise of Enver Hoxha would
be Dom Simoni hell. What can he take away from me if
I stay with him in paradise? Because is all what he thinks,
to take away. So the paradise would not be a place of
evaluation but condemning, for them that have given
their blood not to change the flag! No sir, if you like,
forgive me, if you don’t, kill me. I will never go in that
kind of paradise, neither now nor ever!
All the people began to laugh. Surely most of them
had the same opinion with me, so they applauded what
I had said.
But I didn’t care of applause or acclamations. I had
the idea that I could find there at the door of paradise,
the person that had tortured me. He is even so hypocrite. Maybe he can lie even to God, as he did with his
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people. And if this is true, where can poor Dom Simon
go? It’s not enough the prison but I had to go in hell for
the fault of that person, that my Jesuit teacher, who was
merciful opened the doors of the paradise to him and
closed to my friends and me. What a problem! Courage
Dom Simoni I said to myself- while opening the home
door that looked like a paradise- just courage!
First of all you are not dead. Secondly God is great
and full of authority and can’t do such mistakes. At the
end he has given us a mouth to speak. So trying to calm
myself I fall down in my strong bed. And I dreamed
that I was dead. The dream I told you above.
And now, where can I go? I asked myself even when
I was awake. Suddenly I remind the words of Saint Peter that told Christ: I have nowhere to go, far away of
you! Only you have unlimited life!
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Father KONRAD GJOLAJ O.F.M.
He was born in Velipoje,
Shkodra in 1918. In his preparation as a cleric, he was influenced
from the Missal with German origins Dom Alfons Tracki.
After he finished the
Franciscan College and the university in Rome, in 1943 he was
appointed as professor in the
Shkodra Franciscan College.
After the religious high school was closed because of
a ban by the communist regime, he served as priest in
Mal Kolaj.
In the year 1947 was arrested and tortured, then freed
in 1950. In 1958 he was arrested for a second time and
sentenced to a prison term of 25 years, which he served
almost entirely in the Burrel prison.
After the religious services were allowed again once
Communism fell, he served as a priest in Lezha, until he
died, in 2000.
AN INCREDIBLE THING
After he talked a lot, the director noticed that Viktor
would go for an answer that the Brother Njaci, had said
to the operative. Victor said: But I am not Njaci…so the
director answered: I have nothing to do, go!
Viktor looked at me and said: It’s not surprising that
you have to go somewhere because you have said that,
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my bones and the communists one, never gather together! I laughed and said: And now… Where are you
going to take us now, in Beijing? The director listened
to me and answered: “I don’t know. I got rid of you. But
take care, the wherever you go.”
That night they put us together in one isolated room.
We couldn’t sleep. We thought where we were going to
go. Viktori had 8 years with a paralyzed leg. He took
some special pills that his brothers brought from abroad.
It looked better.
In a moment he asked me: Do you want to see Viktor
walking as a young fellow? He got up and walked very
well. I shocked. It was incredible he had played as sick
for so many years. I advised him to take care and to
continue the play even in Burrel, because if they understood he was playing the part they would kill him. I
advised him too, not to trust his friends, because not all
the people have a good sense of things.
In the morning they accompanied us with a car and
three policemen to Burrel. The road didn’t have any incident, and was quiet. We entered the prison area. Two
policemen got us in a room. They began to check us and
with song: Here is Burrel prison, when enter a day but
never get away. Then they separated us. Viktor was put
in another room of isolation and I in the other.
At 8 in the morning, a policeman took in one office.
There was the prison operative there, who asked me:
How are you sir? He told the others I was a priest. Where
is your friend? I told them that he was killed. And he
said: “Oh its so pity! A dirty priest no less! This was the
famous expectation in the Burrel prison.
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They put me in Room Number 2. The responsible there
was Gjon Perjaku. The room had the bathrooms inside. It
was a little difficult to adapt. I found there many intelligent people, with dignity, and culture, and knowledge
and experience. They were always proud and superior
toward the time personalities. They were very polite
people, human and very well educated. They always used
the term “MR” when they spoke to someone. They had
methods of foreign languages copied by hand, through
the years. Only there I could understand what an intellectual generation Albania had lost. This unforgettable
prison had 10 rooms and 60 people and 12 cells with 20
people. Who were they? They were in prison since the
time of the war, kept in the prisons of the mountains and
in 1946 were put in Burrel prison. There were between
them engineers, doctors, economist, professors graduated
in the most well-known universities of Europe and
America, military officers, politicians, diplomats, prime
ministers, ministers, artists, writers, well known scientists, journalists, clerics of all the religions, publicists, excellent students, that were considered criminals, traitors,
and the communism enemy, almost all are eliminated as
never existed. Only known a part of that generation and
those kinds of intellectuals, could understand the pomposity of that period when Albania had decided to be
Europe part with mind, heart and soul. Turn of direction
from the East was the greatest tragedy of the country in
the 20th Century. It is not repeatable that kind of generation. We are the only country that has committed suicide. Suicide is condemned by the God and the man, but
this was a historical suicide.
I was impressed once by an officer of Enver Hoxha who
was sentenced to prison after military ranks were banned.
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He had not agreed so he was put in the Burrel prison. The
first days while taking a bowl with soup (it was called the
liquid that brought the cook), he looked at it and asked the
villager near to him for some pasta that he had brought
from home. The officer wanted to make the liquid more
viscous. But the villager said to him: I will not give you
anything, because you and your friends did these terrible
prisons. The officer, who some time ago had been a former
vice minister, left without speaking a word. Later on this
officer had told me that he had never known what was
done in those places. This was the pure truth because the
most of the people didn’t know what happened in those
places, and it’s not good that the projectors of these terrible places have not proved by themselves these ones.
A LIFE WITHOUT CALENDAR
We didn’t know the date. The poverty was everywhere.
We lived only with the past, with no hopes for the future.
A senseless life, no meaning of it, no continuity! The only
thing to remember is becoming old every day. The worst
thing is that we think and we are, while in reality we live
for the others, without the right to think. We remember
only when we look the white hair or wrinkles so we get
despaired and ask why do we live, how much will this
last? Is it worthwhile the life passed in the prison for 10, 15
or 20, 25 years? The time goes and flies with it the dreams
the wishes and illusions, the thoughts to have a family, to
continue the school, so the future was thought to be the
prison even after 13-14 years, and we remind that time
that the half of life has gone. The people condemned by
fate. This psychos tired the brain of hundreds fellows that
suicide having no hopes. God helped them not to loose
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their soul!
The pessimism is very dangerous especially when
the hope for the future is a little one or doesn’t exist.
There were a lot of fellows that didn’t hope to get out of
the prison, especially when the rebuilding inside the
prison began. That was a terrible time, when suicide
was considered salvation.
-We are liberated but nobody wants us to create a family as we want, without school, a job, wealth, perspective, friends, position, people that always have worked with
bricks and mortar, detested, condemned with a seal, even
with a passport with a special series, divided from women
and children, thousands and thousands with the name:
”Politically condemned.”
This was the name of 500,000 Albanians during 47
years.
Bearing this name you have not been member of
socialist society — “What a danger.”
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SELFIXHE BROJA (CIU)
She was born in Gjirokastër,
in 1918, finishing high school in
Tirana. She then continued a
course for foreign students in literature at the University of Florence. Some of her writings are
published in the daily newspaper
Kolombia, starting in 1935. In
January 1947 she and her husband, drama writer Xhemal Broja,
were interned in Kuç of Kurvelesh. They were then interned for the second time in 1966, for five years, in the
Gradishte of Lushnja. She died in August of 2003. She
published her book “Billows of life” before she died.
THE SECOND INTERMENT
On the afternoon of December 14, 1966, activists of
the neighbor notified that on the next day would be organized a special meeting in our neighborhood and we
would certainly participate.
My husband said to them that I was sick, while he
was engaged with an assigned term job and he was late
on time and he could not leave it.
“Why the meeting was for?-We talked to each other.
But I was sick, and my husband preoccupied for the job
he was doing, so we didn’t speak for long.
We slept late at the night. Just on the dawn somebody knocked on the door, and we woke up with fear.
Every door knock in that time made us feel a bad hunch:
the same was the feeling of that moment. Further more,
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our older daughter was appointed to work in Shkodra
since three months ago. This first separation had given
us sadness and nostalgia and anxiety too. The distance
is surprising for bad or for good, but when speaking for
a parent usually he has a bad hunch. So we thought of
her. We waited to knock the door again while the instinct of the auto protection gave us a hope that behind
the door could be the neighbor. But the second knock
and the scream “Police” erased every illusion. My husband almost naked, went to open the door while I was
hoping in a misunderstanding. But I heard the ominous
question: “Are you Xhemal Broja?”
-You and your wife will be send to internment. Do
you have other family members in your home, said a
harsh voice.
- My young daughter is here with us and the others
are working in Shkodra – he answered.
-The girls are not included. Prepare your luggage as
soon as you can, we don’t have time to wait-added the
operative looking us as a cannibal. Was it a causality or
chosen the person that seemed like a monster?
I remember even now that face.
Angry, I asked:
-Why will we be interned?
-Shut up because of that tongue that never stops you
will be put in prison - said he.
-Have I spoken? Where and when…? If there are
laws, let I be sentenced according to facts and not slanders or malicious guesses.
-This is a neighborhood decision-answered he.
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- Neighborhood? - I said more than wondered and I
said one of the members of the Front chairman, which
was in one corner.
-Have you, of the neighborhood, asked our interment? Why? Why this, only because we have been correct, and honorable, and for the sympathy and respect
the citizens have for us?
None of the four people that would execute the order spoke.
We didn’t know that the meeting of a day before was
provoked for this purpose. A delegated man in that
meeting, G. Çuci (Central Committee Member) that even
didn’t knew us and we didn’t know him, had predicted
the accuses that consisted on:
1.We had been once and one other time interned
(even though for that masse of 20 years before, with the
order of the Central Committee we had been declared
innocent).
2. We had done propaganda about the Tirana Conference of 1956. (The events were happening in 1966).
The fact that made this accusation fail, because if they
have had such dates we would have been included by
the persecution in time, and not after ten years when
our positions were not so strong.
3. I had written decadent articles (while these articles,
published in our notebooks and magazines, were observed well before)
I am opening a parenthesis linked with the masses
toward us:
In the intellectual settings had iodinated whispers
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about this event,, in general for both of us: for the reputation of the fighters of the first ranks for the liberation
from occupation, and also for the consideration as
people with healthy morals citizen principles, and for
the contribution given as writers and trying for a good
function of the art and culture section. In general to camouflage the bluff predicted, two or three days after the
event, in a provoked conference with intellectuals, the
man came from
the Central Committee, M.Myftiu, through other
problems for the event expressed in this way: “If Xhemal
Broja wanted the same as his wife did we are not guilty.”
This declaration of a person of such importance made a
great effect and it could not be doubt that he was lying
shamelessly. Neutralization that defeats breathing, they
sacrificed one of us.
After the prediction of the accuses written above, was
asked to discuss and according to the practice in these
cases, to give the color that the decision was taken by
base (masse) two or three element instructed, proposed
the masse of our internment as not desired people in
Tirana: Oh what a tragedy and comedy was played to
cheat the people frightened by the pressure of the dictatorship.
In reality our decision of interment was an act of the
Commission of the Deportation-Interments, not the decision of the one day ago meeting. This was clear because
of the district decided to go, since a week before, of auto
vehicles for transport, as drivers declared. The order repeated “hurry up we don’t have time to wait” shook us.
The 15-year-old girl, still with her night gown on, shocked
and crying without being able to focus on the reason of
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their leaving, she saw one time her mother and the other
her father. The unlucky her parents!
One of them said to her: Keep yourself and wear, and
help the others to gather the stuffs. He spoke in a soft tune
and it drew my attention: “How is it possible? Or is he a
parent too, and imaging his child in the same conditions,
suddenly made him feel “human”. My inner monologue
was interrupted by his question:
-Where will the girl stay?
- At my brother’s home, or sister’s, or there where
she can still be kept - I answered.
- Go first to your aunt, then decide - said to the girl.
She was that moment like a baby that wanted to be
protected, or she wanted to protect us?
-Wear and come with me to accompany me-said the
same person-Where is the aunt home?
She saw frightened but when we approved she left accompanied by him. We trust that “person” to our daughter that moment. When we were leaving my sister with
my daughter came. She was so shocked. We said her to
take care of Meri. But Meri these words made her suffer
terribly.
She cried in a terrible way. Her crying must have
domesticated even the wildest beasts of the forest but
not the executors of the decision. She hugged us and
didn’t like to go, then the operative cried in a loud voice:
- Hurry up we don’t have time to wait - while the neighbor that alarmed asked what have happened he said: Go
home and shut up.
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So we had to go, and to leave our daughter. We were
separated! The noise of the car neutralized the crying
of the girl that said: Mummy, daddy….! That overpass
the borders of pain, penetrating the depth of night and
that warned a mournful dawn.
Deep darkness! We were leaving Tirana roads and
first we were concentrated to see all of it. The catastrophe was real and tragic. Where were we going? Would
be so capable to effort what accepted us? What about
the girls?
The car stopped at the square in front of the Textile
Combine. There were a line of cars there that draw our
attention. The home stuffs and element of Sigurimi accompanying them, made us understand they were in
the same analogue conditions. Through the people
spread around or in the cars we saw some known persons, with many in the mix making us more disoriented.
What was happening? What was the cause of this
senseless action? Or it was only a campaign, necessary
to frighten the people and poor them that had “win the
lottery” to represent the example? While the sacrifice
was commit…
As we were, informed later this caused fear on the
people, and for many days no one walked on evening
and everybody went home and didn’t get out since very
early. But taking account the general atmosphere, despite the demagogy used for this event, very people were
angry and didn’t accept the situation.
***
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When we arrived at the station, the line of cars as a
mortal cortege went on traveling south. In our car
climbed another new person, P. Guga, with his clothes
luggage. He looked so sad. My husband knew him a
little, but now we were joined by the same destiny. Our
greetings were, poorly, frozen as our soul was, black as
the night of our future.
He was in the top of our physical and psychological
abilities, in the period when life hopes for light more
than ever, right now the ax bump in the trunk. We were
tired of the life, and when we must be cured from the
last wounds this hit made us feel worse. We were unable to give hopes to each other. This meditative silence
was shelter of our gloomy thoughts
After some hours of an anxious travel, near the destination, the district of Lushnja, the group was spread on
different directions. We were included in the group made
of four families and two singles. The sector appointed for
us, was in the deepest bog of the district. In the past that
piece of swamp was full of snakes, endless mosquitoes,
etc It was called Shenapremte. Actually was simply named
“Sector” while the interned that populate it, had baptized
it the “reaction city”, because the most of the families was
the family of high functionary executed or escaped, from
Bajraktar related, that were killed in the fights or the killed
with or without judgment, the escaped on the last period
of the war or after it some of them that compared the conditions when they had come, when the enter until the throat
in the mud, with the other now, ironically said to us: You
have come now with hands in your pockets, you have no
reason to comply! What a bitter irony!
***
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When we arrived it was almost, evening. Everybody
took his place appointed to live. In one of the flat in the
same apartment, we were appointed to stay there were
three families, in fact three couples, because fortunately
the children were not included in this masse of punishment so they remained in Tirana. The other couple was
put in one of the booths destined for all the interned,
while the two singles, one teacher and the other economist, even thought sentenced to politic, were put in the
place that gathered even ordinary condemned from the
grounds of society.
From the operative of the area we took the exact instruction:
1. To be present at the appeal three times a day.
2. We would respond to criminal charges if we went
beyond the proper borders.
3. If we need to go to Lushnja we had to take permission from the Interior Branch of the District. And for
any other reason to go outside the district we had to
take permission from the Interior Ministry.
Under the curiosity with their help, of the entire
people that were interned or free, that were breaking
their routine day, we put our stuffs in our place of living. When we finished was full dark and there was no
electricity, we had no lamps, or candles or matches. We
didn’t know what to do. But after a while two young
men came and offered their help to fix the electricity. In
our conditions that help had a double function. Talking
a little we learned that the first one was interned for 5
years and the other was deported. It was the first time
we heard for such escalated masses.
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-Why are you accused, we asked them.
Smiling bitterly one of them answered:
-Me, for my grandfather’s “fault”, and this one, for
his uncle’s fault.
One of them was the nephew of Mehdi Frasheri, the
other as the nephew of Teme Sejko, former fleet admiral in the period after liberation, executed recently . They
were there with their families, waiting anxiously to fulfill their sentences, that in the best case would be escalated on an easy masse... Otherwise, the most possible
thing, repeating of the 5 years old time that was also the
warning of the other 5 years old that would come again.
-Did these cases exist? –we asked impressed.
-Only here in this sector there are many families, not
taking account many other families and individuals and
like this happens in Lushnja and Fier too.
- There is no hope for freedom?
- It’s only an abstract notion and maybe it will remain like this until we die, the man said angrily
This information ignored by us, gave us a big shock.
How is possible that this administrative masse, based
on the classes war, such as the familiar faults , that in
many cases the accused person didn’t know them, or in
base of slanders, guesses or class origin to take such a
punishment character and not rarely forever?! Was this
action legal? Did it conform to the constitution, declared
as the most democratic?
It was the first hit we took, not begging yet the practice we had to cover. In silence, A. Plaku and T. Cela
left, they would be our best friends in our memory.
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We were alone, shocked and angry. We felt in the
soul something was broken and could not be glued
again. So we couldn’t even speak. We spoke with our
silence. The pain was great for those two young persons, so friendly, and so sincere for their friends, familiars, and their parents and our children and for the
people and the poor Albania!
So we had to accommodate. We were so shocked
and had a frozen heart but we began to move. At midnight we finished and thought to eat something. We had
no eaten since 24 hours again ago, but we couldn’t eat
anything. It was not easy even to sleep. We were anxious, our brain was in alarm. Gloomy thoughts in our
mind and we had to win this battle for death or life. The
reality was gloomy but we had to live. We had to leave
for our dignity, for our children, and the mother, and
even more to challenger those who caused this. We could
no surrender. So after the night, in the morning we felt
in our soul the sparkle of life.
We stayed at the window and we absorbed the life
breathing in what nature was giving us generously. We
felt as if we found it in the flavors of girls, mothers, and
our home memory, and we felt really nice.
The next day was as the others, but after that day we
would walk on the unknown. And the greeting of the
morning was the roll call. One by one those human shadows wait the roll call. We were like the livestock to be numbered, which attested the presence, with two syllables:
Here, here, here … was spread the terrible echo as the denial of the human dignity. Here sounds mechanically even
our voice that was melt on the poor generality.
With the hurt soul, wounds of tiredness, with a ter153
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rible presence, that amorphous masse of women and
men, young and older, mutilated physically and morally, without no future, and no hope for it, with the tools
and old clothes and the food to keep alive, skidded on
the battle with life. In that line of people were included,
even us.
We were appointed in the process of the uncovering
the corn, which in that period of time, presented less
difficulties.
All looked at us as new arrival. For some days was
cheated that stroked for the hard faults” would be
brought from Tirana, as interned, elements that represent functionary elements. These had stimulated the
fantasy of the citizens. The guesses for the faults or mistakes done and for the function we must have had were
exaggerated. So looking so normal people before them
they looked disappointed: Are these the persons? But
the curiosity continued: Who are they? What’s their relation? What mistakes could they have done? Who has
been director, inspector or vice minister…? Everybody
thought according to his impression. But there were
between them people that had hate for the governing
person, which caused their suffering, feels fine to think
that these people had to suffer as they do, even though
they were little fishes. So as employer they were their
tools! Let they prove the misters how difficult is to earn
the money to live, they are sat on the armchairs, and
used the cars. Somebody else said: Can they work? Or
will they work or will make as if work because they
have much money from the people? Sure they will. They
have not brought here to stay? I don’t believe they have
reserves in money, the government must have had se-
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questrated. As I see they are obligated to work in an
obligatory work. Look there as they stay as wet chicken.
Look that one, he seems as he doesn’t care. Hmm… being presumptuous is not the right place here.-he smiled
with sarcasm. Somebody said to shut up, and he said to
him- Let they hear me, I don’t care, and they are the
supporter of the persons that made us curse the day of
birth. Let they pay the part of debit they have, to pay.
They are only bad lemon for the functionary persons.
And this rancor was part of the others soul too,
looked in their eyes that gazed crooked. While another
part of people, on contrary, reflect human solidarity, that
in certain condition take more deep character. That affectionate silent look that spoke more than the words
do, gave us hopes for empathy and support. But there
was another opinion too, presented by the sector’s chiefs
and the chairman of council, and the secretary of the
party organization, made up of 4-5 members, and form
some free citizens, their “tools” or in their service. What
were these people that represent the official authority?
In general they were people without no cultural horizon or profile, keeper of the mentality of the villager
linked with the assets; independently it belonged to the
structure of the socialist system.
They were disposed to break not only moral –citizenship laws but even them of state, if they would find the
way, only to profit. Sometimes these people overpass even
their jurisdiction of disciplinary masses. How pity for that
person that was in target by them! Except these people
there were some others that had been former interned or
deported for easy condiment masses had accepted to be
provocateurs and spies. We were informed for this by our
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benevolent, with which we had good understanding since
in the beginning.
The next day, through a telegram we told our family
the place we where. After two days, the older daughter
entered. We felt the presence of the normal life that we
saw now as buried forever. We learned that Meri was to
my brother home, where my mother was. The mother was
felt terribly badly by the news. But except us she was preoccupied for the girls too. Meri was as shocked as she could
not go to school the next day. She asked the grandmother:
Is there any worse thing than this? This is similar to death!
And the mother wise and smart and softly said to her: Oh
my daughter, life is full of bad things! But we have to bear.
The bad never ends. Only death is incurable because with
it everything ends.” She heard her words that looked like
balsam for her wounds. “I was so happy, but I ‘m so poor
now, grandmother! Tell me, will they turn back again between us? Will I hear again their voice? Will I feel their
caress, their advice their scorns. Tell me that one day they
will come back. Lie me if you can, and I will try to believe
you, because without this hope and belief I have impossible to wait.
The mother with her kindness indulged her hair as the
time she was a little girl said: You don’t know what the
future brings; You have no reason to loose your hopes.
You have your life in front of you. Only wait. You are not
alone. We will pass this altogether.
After the consultation we saw reasonable that Meri
turned back in home, with the grandmother, to be more
independent and to save the house too. But we couldn’t.
I am just telling that after we left, those executing the
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order said to my sister that accompanied Meri that they
will keep the home’s keys and Meri would go to the council of the neighborhood after 2 or 3 days if she wanted to
live there. When my brother was informed for this illegal
act, said Meri to go and take the keys. Their aim is that in
the most luxury and new part and commode to shelter a
family. But happened that having the keys one of them
theft the jewelry that where on the dresser, that we shocked
didn’t think to get with us or to give the sister.
When Meri turned home, as everybody that turns in
its place, she didn’t feel the intimacy, the smile of mother,
the security that father gives, the love of sister or brother
that feed the optimism, she didn’t find in her house memories of happy or bitter days, where even the simplest things
bring intimacy, but she felt only emptiness. She couldn’t
keep crying. She was re living her lost. She whispered:
Who gets this?
Who transformed everything in desert, in fogginess, in
shadow, as the death has pass over? Death? Yes a death
when still alive. That death that brings hate, revolt that
tires you asking Why?
After we liberate from interment we turned back in
Tirana, Xhemali began researches, corrections, and two
dramas with social theme and the elaboration of the other.
He didn’t stop reading and studding, especially in drama.
After I insisted he gathered the memories in a book, but he
couldn’t finish as he was sick by cancer. He didn’t lye in
bed. But when understand that he was dying he said: I am
not afraid from death. But I have a callus in my heart a
grief, that even the tomb will digest, and with tears in eyes
as rare happened, and this not only for my sufferings and
my and your delusion but to all my friends, all persecuted,
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for the people, country, in front of which all we former
communist have gone a stone in the establishment of this
macabre system, and must apologize. We that contribute
to bring this system don’t have only to keep some oil in
our hand and to burn ourselves in the center of the city, to
apologize all the people. One of his last wills was: For a
free and united Albania is necessary the condemning toward the genocide caste and the forgiveness of the regrettable.
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FATHER GIACOMO GARDINI S.J.
A devoted missionary, even though 87-years-old he
came in Albania to continue the interrupted work by the
communist dictatorship.
Padre Giacomo Gardini was born in Pordenone of Italy
in 1905. Later her became part of the Jesuit society, where
he studied to be a cleric. In 1930 he came in Albania and
teach for some years. In 1936 became a Priest and he
continued to serve in the Albanian catholic church.
He was arrested and imprisoned in summer of 1945.
He was sentenced to a prison term of eight years and two
years interment. Then he was liberated and was allowed
to return to Italy. His body was far away, but his soul was
always in Albania, although he suffered a lot. In 1986
was published in Italy the book “10 years of prison in
Albania.” After the restart of the church activities in Albania, Padre Giacomo Gardini turned back to serve again
in the Albanian churches. His religious mission went on
until 1996, when he died.
Fragments from the book
“TEN YEARS OF PRISON IN ALBANIA”
Arrest and process
In the old prison of Shkodra
After I got “the merited reward”, with the decision
of the 28th of August 1945, I was transferred to the old
prison of Shkodra, called the Great Prison, which was
just behind the Municipality. It had been built since the
time of Turkey, when Albania was invaded by the Ottomans: A building not so great but terrible to live on it,
really allaturka (old style). It had two floors; in one side
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there were the head of and the corpus of the police and
on the three other sides the prisoners. There were two
or three rooms for sick persons, and some cells just under steps, to keep aside the most dangerous prisoners
or under the strong masses of security.
Inside was a yard 25x8 meters, in the center there
was a hand pump to get the water from the trap. The
living quarters were made of four big bad rooms with a
wood floor. Everyone of them included in four lines 4060 people that lied on the floor. During the night they
looked as if they were a big body carpet and mixed
crossed legs. There were a lot of parasites around.
From the little yard, in the down floor, there were
the BATHROOM-s, put on a road without windows,
without no water, and with five or six “places” allaturka
(old style), i.e. some simple cells that brought the dirties directly in ditch— that’s why the smell of dirty was
unbearable.
On the sides of the yards in the upper floor there were
two cells that served as bathrooms and to punish the disobedient people, to beat them with stick or to wet them
with cold water, or make them stay all the night with the
down head sat on the steps with feet until the knees in
cold water, punishment that I have proved by myself.
The only place to do the morning toilet for all was
the water pump placed in the middle of the yard. Let’s
say everyday they leave us move for about one hour on
the litter yard surely in the observation of the guardians; we had no radio or newspaper information and
under hard inspections. Every broken rule or just a
simple doubt, caused by a liar spy rewarded with stick
beats. The food was 700 grams of maize bread and wa160
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ter from the pump. These were the routine of my day as
prisoner. It was done any improvement later but the base
was the same.
As I first told the place was dirty full of parasites, fleas,
bugs, and lice that could not be exterminated even taking
care for tidiness. The walls were full of red marks. Fortunately the American people provided all their allies, between them Albania too, great quantities of DDT. So remained a little even for us the enemies of people. One day
in our rooms everything, planks, clothes, and we naked
were disinfected with DDT. Then they ordered us not to
touch anything for two days and three nights. It’s easy to
imagine how we stayed in that pulverized place. We
couldn’t breathe! But even though in danger for our lives
such as contamination, in that place full of people, we were
happy because at the end we were disinfected by parasites.
The American people later, send both with DDT even
some flour. The prisoners could profit a little by this
abundance.
In the prison we could eat some soft and white buns.
Some of prisoners especially the mountaineers that had
never seen such buns, ate with greed. But after some
days one of them said the other one: “I am constipated
since five days.” The other said: I have six days…The
word passed from one to another and resulted that a
big number of the prisoners was in the same conditions. The directory informed for this, took some harsh
measures.
Next day they brought on the yard a big barrel with
oil and began dispensing it. A glass was filled to drink
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for one by one. The cure functioned. We were more than
500 persons and the bathrooms were those that I described above. So seeing that the white bread made us
feel bad, the prison directory, ordered to take the usual
ration with maize bread.
The field of interment
In the building of the Vlora prison
There were about 1500-1700 people in the camp of
Tepelena. If we think that the operation-interment had
began since 1945, in the time for which I am writing
about (1952-1953), the guys now were 16-17 years old
so they were capable to work. So usually they were
called to work in necessary or hustling works.
After the Easter of 1952, that time was a big day as
now is, somebody in the camp notified we had to go for
a work mission. So were prepared some lists of persons
capable physically to work, took some clothes, somewhere someone cried and we left. We were about 1700
persons. The group of people stopped at the edge of
Vlora, near the green hills full of olive trees. We had to
live is some wood booths, in some floors’ beds. There
was a big space that was used as yard that and as a storage to keep the constructions’ materials.
We accommodated as we liked, according to the
friends, relatives we had, the age as being a real family.
We could see from the yard the sea area from Arta until
Vlora, its harbor until Kanina, further was the Sazani
Island, which seemed as a guardian for all the area. From
the sea we could breathe the fresh air, which was wonderful!
The next day after we arrived, was a busy one with
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the organization and separation in groups with the appropriate representatives, restricted freedom to visit the
city, norms in the camp, and possible punishments. Then
were distributed the tools. I got content when I saw that
director was an Italian, engineer Ugo Monai - one
friulian from Tricesimo (Udine).The workers loved him
because of his good manners and good heart, while the
superiors evaluate him for his ability. He had been as a
custodian angel for us, especially for the priests.
The area was partly dug and partly pegged. It was
the project of a complicated building and we didn’t
know exactly the place where it was. But we that were
learned with such things were not difficult to understand that it was a big prison building.
I was as half master, so that’s why they gave me the
duty to supervise an important and delicate sector in
that prison system: places for the prisoners under the
process and the sentenced to death.
Its shape was made of 10x8x35 meters with only one
entrance, without windows, but only holes in the cement and ceilings when the light and would enter. The
inner part was made of a narrow corridor that went from
one side and to the other. During the sides of the corridor were the cells, different and strange shapes.
In that construction yard the worker worked well,
and the food was not tasteful but good and enough.
Even our guardians have been informed that interned were not prisoners, especially because between
us were even some paid workers, although, it was not
easy. A long time must pass to take our rights and to
earn some money for the work made.
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We did different jobs, to fill the foundations, to carry
stones, to prepare the lime, and not for much time the
building looked one meter from the land. While in the
hills, olives were broiled, and teased the worker taste.
So during the night, they went out hiding through the
trees and take some of “theft fruits” We ate olives until
the autumn and we didn’t think we had done anything
bad. Surely they said even to me Bon appetite, smiling
and being more quite when they separate “the guilt”
with a priest.
As above mentioned except my daily food nobody
gave us clothes, shoes, or money, and there were little
persons that have reached to earn money in other ways.
I, less than all… But one day I was called in the directory, because somebody had sent me from Italy a check
of 5 dollars. From Italy…that was so poor! This was the
reason why I doubted. The worst thing was the check
had come from Vatican. “Who sends you the money?
And what purpose with?”
I asked to see the document to read the name of the
sender. For the reason they asked me to answer. I said
to them just to buy clothes. It was the end of the conversation. I don’t know how much they gave to me in Albanian leks, but it was not much, so they could not be
doubtful.
A year later I had another similar case with harder
fallout. The cousin of an interned person sent me time
after time, from Tirana, 100 leks (a little more than one
Italian lira), but she didn’t tell the name. I thanked her
with my own because this little help in my bad conditions helped me, but I was despaired because I couldn’t
thank the unknown beneficent.
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One day I was called to the police headquarters and
in reality they kept a serious process file. They asked
me for events happened in Shkodra, trying to reveal who
where my friends there. Bothered and sad I wondered
my Jesuit brothers or friends, for whom I know they
were not in dangerous, I mentioned Padre Pietro
Palladini, deported from Albania with some other Italian in 1946
We had been closed friends that time but he was in
Italy. “Did he-asked the officer-reminds you, helping
you directly or through the other persons? I answered I
didn’t have directly no letters no helps. “And from the
others?-insisted he. I told than for a help I got from
Tirana but I didn’t know the person. I told even the exact sum. “It’s ok-said the officer, and let me went. Later
when I turned back in Italy I was notified from Padre
Pietro Palladini that he asked from the unknown person time after time, colors asked in Albania, in order to
sell them and to help me and any other Albanian Jesuit.
But the person, to whom Padre Padallini had faith, profited more for himself. The police have revealed the game
and had arrested him. During the process verbal my
name was mentioned. So I was called in the commissariat and they didn’t bother me any more.
“Obligated to make clay bricks”
The work in Vlora had continued all summer but
the chiefs were not content, the autumn had come and
the weather was bad and especially during the night,
began the rain, and it was not possible to work. We
celebrated Christmas gathering some things that we
had bought, somebody had gone until Arte, and had
brought a very good wine. After so much time “fast165
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ing,” celebrating Christmas made us feel happy and
made we sang simple songs of mountains, and some
others known in the city. It was Christmas night and
we forget our state of being.
It was all clear it would not continue like this all the
summer.
So in the middle of the field, we got the order to departure. The same work, carrying our clothes on the
machines and over them stayed us, divided in two
groups; the same start in the midnight a very cold night,
and arriving in Tirana, while was morning.
We unloaded in the wide yards of a brick fabric, and
let us enter the great empty rooms, when we wait to
come the dawn. When the doors opened all run to go
somewhere for personal reasons. Then they brought us
a cup of hot tea and then began to clean the rooms.
The fabric was so nice for the time. Accompanied by
the chiefs we visited the different departments. They
explained us the turn of work , the collection of the soil,
its sift, its compress, and the shaping in the desirable
model, it was made on the spot, then in the ovens, from
which the finished material. Every phase in that time
and place, wanted a long lasting job and no interruption during the process.
First we worked with the workers that were there
but after some time, that we got the appropriate practice, all the responsibility of the fabric passed to us. We
worked during the day, and during the night we only
did the oven process needed to commit all over the night
not to leave the fire to switch off.
The briefs baking needed the appropriate amount of
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fire and must pass from one department to the other, to
complete the baking process. The oven was a circular
building separated in rooms. Some teams of workers
filled the rooms with unbaked bricks and after baking
process the other teams got out and so the process continued.
All the sectors worked hard but the last phase was
especially more difficult. The environment had a hot
temperature, and the air was full of dust, and the hot
red bricks must be carried by hands. We finished the
work tired and the body full of sweat, with dust in the
mouth and in the nose, and skinned hands. It was really terrible! Exactly in this place I was appointed in the
beginning and I continued for other some months
But I want to add that not that entire situation was
negative. For many years before, I had worked in the
water until the knees and I was sick from rheumatism,
because I had a strong pain that sometimes didn’t let
me stand straight ahead.
But this contrary “cure”, as worker in the ovens, was
wonderful to cure me. So how can I not think that God
thought of me? He came near me even in other ways.
Liberation
The deal with Italy , according the Peace Treaty, re
beginning of the friendly trade relationship, the decision that all the prison red Italian or on the camp of
work and interned was ready, they had to return in
Italy. I thought I was dreaming! It was the first time in
ten years or more that I dreamed the liberation, because now I was convinced that I would never leave
that place any more.
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My messenger smiled and sad congratulated me,
and went way saying! Lucky you, you will go while us
will remain here on the slush.” I didn’t say anything. It
was better than speaking, I just thanked him, and hurried up. I walked in the town almost running, some
people that knew me wanted to congratulate me, or to
comment to event with me. But I was in hurry that day.
When I arrived at my department I noticed that everybody knew the news and the interned curious looked
at me. They congratulated me but it was not difficult to
see sadness in their eyes too. They were suffering because they would loose even me and the spiritual consolation I had gave to them. I wanted to give them hope,
and tell that God would think even for them. But I felt
really sad and touched. I loved them with whole my
heart, as they loved me. This love made me feel as if I
was in a family. I cried as they did and I think I am not
lying to tell that if I will had the possibility I would not
have turned back in my country, because I wanted to
consulate those people that suffered
So tears and congratulations in the camp, than according to the Albanian custom I offered them cigarettes,
a glass of raki, and for the women sweets. A real luxury!
I had no more money but the custom was fulfilled.
One evening during the committing the rituals we
heard a knock on the door, it was the Sergeant, the chief
of the department, and three plain clothes. Instinctually
we didn’t speak, we were a bit worried and after a while
we breathed calmly when one of them speaking a poor
Italian, said that the “government” wanted that our
return in our country to be dignitary so they ordered
us to wear new clothes. He called the others (a tailor
and a shoemaker) to take the sizes for clothes and shoes.
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They greeted us and went away, we looked each other
on the eyes but didn’t spoke a word with words, but
we talked with our look.
The day to leave had come: it must have been the
night of September 20. I don’t remember what kind of
machine did they get us. I remind the interned gathered around us, greeting with tears in their eyes. We
gave somebody one thing the other one another and so
on, everything we had. We tool only our heart and this
last one broken by the sufferings.
They greeted us with handkerchiefs in the air, and
the automobile started the road to Durres. We were four
on the wide seat, me, Mario Verde from Naples, Nino
Tagliani from Ferrara, Luigi Maucerri from Sicily, and
near the driver “an angel custodian” that was all the
time with us, day and night during the three days we
wait the ship in Durres.
So kind with us, he accompanied in post office to
send telegrams the familiars, he offered us coffee, raki,
and he show us on the town discussing everything but
taking care in what we said. There were other people in
the town interested for us that surely were not occasionally there.
On the afternoon of January 24 we saw the ship in
the harbor. I saw an Italian flag on it, and my heart beat
fast. We found there waiting us even nine other Italians
that I had never met before. They were all professionals
and they all had worked even before in Albania.
When the system was changed they were all accused of being guilty of things they had not done but
really had continued to do their profession. It was a big
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happiness even this appointment.
A bit later an officer began reading the names he
had on a list, calling one by one, and the person entered
the ship. It was my turn, and with my trembling feet I
climbed on the steps that got me on the ship. I whispered, “Thank you God.”
The ship captain that waited us in the end of the steps,
shook my hand and told me
“Courage Padre! The commander here is me”
It was 24th of September my 50 years old birthday
day…
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Fatbardha Saraci (Mulleti)
She was born in Tirana in
1939. Her family was politically
persecuted with imprisonment
and internment from communist
dictatorship since 1945.
She graduated from university
with a chemistry and biology degree, which she earned through
the correspondence system. She
then worked as a teacher in
Lezha.
She was fired many times because of the class war,
moving to work as a simple laborer. She was able to only
go back to teaching in 1990, after which she was decorated with the title “Merited Teacher.”
Currently she works in women’s movements and is
author of many publications.
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Two persecuted women portraits
Nafie Stërmasi (1920-1983)
As many women that were born and educated with
country love, Nafie Stërmasi too, challenged communism
with her life.
She was born in Shkodra and then married in Tirana
in a family that had contributed in the proclamation of
Albania Independence. Her husband was graduated in
Military Academy and served in Albanian military until
1939.
After the fascist invasion, their house became a very
important nationalist base (especially for Balli Kombëtar
organization to create relation with all the other cities).
He was the Head of the Youth of that capital organization. During the National War was threaded for assassination attempt by communists three times. And he was
looked for everywhere. When the others mentioned emigration, he said: “I will not leave because I have done
nothing.”
She was only 24 years old when she hid her three little
son’s father. It was alone to face the psychological tortures made from dictatorship organs. The youngest child
was only 6 months. She demands to go home to lactate
it. “Your milk is an enemy one” –the investigator said to
her. This was bestiality. After two months, she and her
three children were interned to Berati where surviving and
live was real difficult. During this time her husband was
arrested and executed. Poor woman! She took permission for some days and with a villager help found her
husband’s tomb. She dig around there and found the
cadaver face down. She turned him and cut some of her
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hair (this is the most precious memory for her family today). Then she swore: “I will keep my promise, in honor
to your and my family. I will raise up our children alone.”
It was confiscated everything after she came back from
internment. But she was strong and courageous: she worked
where she could in such hard jobs such as in construction
enterprise as a slush worker, in trees sow, digging a new
land. She had to feed four persons, three children and her
mother in law. She worked as a real man until she retired.
She was 55 years old and she had worked for 30 years in
very hard jobs.
The most shocking story for her and her family was a
March night, 1963. The same villager that told her years
ago in 1946 about her husband’s tomb, noticed her about
a tractor that was working over there, where was her
husband’s tomb. She and her sons went to the place and
gathered the bones, came back home and buried the
bones in the yard. “Don’t tell nobody-she advised her sonsbecause you will be dead” Her last request was: “When I
will be dead, you have to bury me in the same tomb with
my husband”
She was dead in 1983. Her sons kept the promise. They
put together secretly theirs father bones in her coffin. Now
in their tomb is written:
Nafie and Reshat Stërmasi challenged the revolutionary
vigilance of dictatorship.
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Marie Gjoka
There is a popular phrase: “Oh
God, how much the man bears”
and concretized this meaning can
not better be found than in the life
of a noble and suffering woman
named Marie Gjoka (Mazreku).
Her problems in her life and her
heart increased day after day.
It was a poor family as many
other families in our poor Albania.
Her father died when she was too young and her mother
did what she could to raise up her six children. One of the
sisters got married, the other one was adopted by a
couple. One of her brothers became priest, the other,
Rroku became master carpenter. Don Nikolli was as the
head of the family. It was that man Nikë Barcolla {in fact
this is his nickname}that would made that famous polemic with Father Fulvio Cordignano, which even that had
worked hard for Albanian culture, was expressed very
badly for Albanian people in a newspaper publication.
After some times Don Nikolli (the parson) was transferred
from Tirana to Kryezi of Puka. His mother, Rroku and his
sister Maria joined him. It was a very cold and rainy winter
day in a very far place…
It was the begging of the tragedy. It was a citizen
Shkodra family in a far way mountainous area, where there
was no electricity, no water, in a poor village of Puka, the
same scene as described in Migjeni books. It was the
year 1944…the dictatorship has just began to feel even
in those high mountains. The news was terrible. The first
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man executed was Dom Ndre Zadeja. But he would not
be the last one…and Dom Nikolla knew this very well.
“God helps us”-said his sister and his mother. The fight
was not predicted to begin from the priest, but from his
brother Rroku. The “beasts” would find a cause even fabricated. And while Rroku, according to Dom Nikolla request, was going to fix some doors and windows of the
Fleti Church, he came across some State Security people.
They had a sentenced to death person with them. So the
accusation was ready for Dom Nikolla. According to this
he wanted to meet the partisans. At once he was arrested.
Some days later they arrested Dom Nikolla too. The two
brothers couldn’t see any more each other. Maria and her
mother were shocked. After five years Rroku came out
of the prison and began his life near his family in village.
He began to work as a sawmill worker. One day an old
booth got caught on fire. Rroku and three other men,
tried to quell the fire but they couldn’t. For that reason he
was arrested again, this time as saboteur.
Once again began for him horrors and tortures. He
was sentence to death. It was 25th of December, Christmas day. He was only 28 when they put him tied hands
over a wood clusters.
“Tell us what you have to say”- the executioner
asked. He answered” Long live Albania and a real freedom to it!” He wanted to add something else but they
shoot him. The villagers left terrorized. His mother was
pouring water on the village spring. A villager looked
at her and taking off his hat from his head said to her: “I
am sorry priest mother, but your son was executed”.
She couldn’t became again as she was because of her
wounded heart, until she died. So Maria was alone. She
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was only 18 when for her began the long way of deportation camps and prisons in good or bad weather and
not for less but for about 37 years.
Long years of torments that even Mandela have not
tried. At the beginning taking care of her brother and
then for her husband, that was put in prison, just because he had married her , a political punishment person. So when she remained alone she married Bibe
Gjoka, born in that village. He was a good man but very
poor. One day they left from Puka to Shkodra.
They had many children, males and females. Altogether
they had 6 children. Maria, the mother, was a little happier that time. But she was not as lucky as to be glad for all
her life. She was only in the half of her suffering road….
It was July, her son was soldier, when his two friends
told her that Andri, her darling son, was drowned in
the Drin River because of his superior imprudence. He
was only 20. She ran as crazy after the river to find his
dead body, but Drin has brought his body somewhere
else. They found him only after five days and she buried him herself. Another road she began to go in now
day after day, it was that of graveyard.
So ten years gone. Was thought that she had no more
to suffer but… it was not true. Next son, married with
two children, sickened very hard to death…They did
impossible to give him life, even going abroad in Rome
hospitals. His mother was all the time with him, but he
died in her hands, there in Rome…far away from his
country.
This is the end of the story for mother Maria. Now
she have no reason to live is like a phantasm. It seems to
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have lived a long horrible dream for about two centuries. There are two reasons that keep her alive: for her
grandson and granddaughters, and the flowers she
sends in the church. She prays and prays in God… not
to have more death in her home. She prays in God for
people she loved and for the others that made her suffer (she knew even their names).But she forgives because
she has a mother’s heart. And a mother’s heart is always
a sea of hope, faith and mercy.
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MAKENSEN BUNGO
Born in the Elbasan in 1927,
he finished the Normal High
School of Elbasan, and the High
Institute of Pedagogic Studies
at the Faculty of Language and
Literature. He then worked for
many years as a teacher.
In 1946 was arrested and
sentenced to a prison term of
five years for anticommunist activity.
His published books include “The death swamp,” a novel,
1996, “Abaz Kupi” 2000, and “Kosova,” poems, 2002.
Fragments from “DEATH SWAMP”
The sky was still with stars and the dawn was still far
away when the whistles of the policemen in the camp were
heard. It was time to get up. Then the policemen came in
every booth, where they hit the doors shouting:
-Get up! Get up! Get out! In line for two!
The prisoners tired from the long road had not slept enough.
The oldest that were used with this kind of waking hours, got
up, wear their clothes and got out. These 5 persons got out with
the others too.
-Will we bear to live in this kind of camp? –Hasan asked
me.
-These are dictatorship camps, Sopot said
-We are in a military state- Ahmet deflated
There was Daut Burra after them.
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-Do you know guys, why they got us up so early
today?-he asked ironically and without waiting for an
answer he added:
- Because sleep makes you fat!
- Sluggishness is paid with your death, Sopot said
sadly.
The prisoners of Korça and Durres, when they got out
from the booths, put in line for two, in the places appointed
by the command of the camp. The prisoners of Elbasan gathered in one side of the camp, near the booth and were waiting the order. The commander went near them, with corporal Zeneli and two policemen. The commander formed with
the prisoners of Elbasan a brigade, called the third one. The
commander of it was appointed an ordinary prisoner, which
had killed a young guy, beating with him first. The brigade
was divided in two groups. In each of them there was a
commandant recommended by the prison command. In one
of them commandant was Myqerem Kola, that was sentenced for economic deficit, he was about 30 years old. After some times in the ordinary prison he was transferred to
the political prison, or named in that time, the enemy of
people prison. In the beginning he was friendly with Vullnet
and his friends. But later these last ones kept a cold position
and didn’t speak to him at all. They had understood he was
now a “tool” in commando service. One day Vullnet had a
quarrel with him and after two days he beat him because
Myqerem had offended him. The prison command condemned with a month in the cell. But he was not content, he
wanted to revenge by himself.
At the end the commandant introduced the prisoners two policemen appointed to direct the two groups.
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After this organization, commandant, appoint the place
where they would be ranked.
Corporal Zeneli in front of the prisoners shaking
the stick that kept in one hand shout loudly:
-Hurry up! In straight line! Alignment!
The prisoners try to be in one line but could not
align. The row was long and they didn’t keep the right
direction. So, Corporal Zeneli, shaking his stick in the
air, screamed with a hoot voice:
Did you not know how to stay in one line? I
will teach you how…
He began to hit the prisoners with the stick with
punches as much as he could. One of the prisoners not
to fall down on the slush moved a little, but Corporal
saw him and hit so hard until the prisoner fall in the
slush. Then he put one of his feet in the body and continued to hit wildly with stick and kicks .When he was
content said:
-Stay here, piece of dirt!
And he went to the head of the line. The prisoner
could get up. His head was full of slush and one cheek
was bleeding and damaged….
All the prisoners took a ration of black d slice of bread
and some soup. Then the prisoners spread on the camp
and began to eat the breakfast.
The five of them stayed together. Close to them, sat
down Qamil Daja and Vasil Lashi. A little further were
Shaban Flaka with Daut Burra and Sopoti’s cousin. The
two Peqin guys stayed always together.
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Sala divided the bread in two parts and saw it was
as gravel shook his hand and said:
-Why, this bread will we eat?
But Ahmet Kurti interrupted:
-Do you think we are here to eat bukvale soup?
While the prisoners ate the breakfast the policemen
with sticks in their hands try to hear any word around
in the camp.
In the village Vloçisht, that was on the hill, a little far
from the camp, the first lights switched on. The camp
took the name of this village. An unknown name before, but that would terrify all the prisoners for all the
life when they would remind it. The history of dictatorship, would mention it as one of the first camps, where
people worked hard and were treated worse than slaves.
Exterminator camp…
The camp was great and in front of it was the main
gate made of two iron panes.
Near the door was a bodyguard where an armed
with a gun police stayed. Inside the camp on the left of
the door there was the kitchen, from its chimney came
out the fume continually. Near there was the water depot that was furnished by a tank that came from a far
away village. Then there where on line one by one, four
booths long and high, built from irons and covered on
sides and up with waterproof. In the middle of them,
there was a little booth, which was used as nursery,
where two wood beds and a table, and an old stool. In
the right side of the door there was a little building the
in the door of which an untrained hand had written
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the word “Library.” In the middle of it was an old table
covered with cloth and two stools were on the sides.
Out of the camp on the right was a high
building with two separations. One of them served for
the commando offices of camp and the other as the meeting place. Close to it was the building where the policemen slept.
All the camp was circled with a five rows prickly
hedge, three meters high. Near this hedge, in every five
meters were some bodyguards’ places five meters high,
in which days and nights stayed policemen with head
helmets, with guns and revolvers and bombs on the belt.
They had a machine gun at the feet and some cartridges.
In the camp on the most dark night, was looked fine,
because everywhere were put electrical lamps, in every
door, in every corner of the booths, as inside and outside, through the prickly hedges , in every bodyguard
place. Also, there was in the middle of the camp a big
pole, where were put four big electrical lamps.
***
The dawn came slowly after the silence of the night
even in the swamp of Maliq. From the Mali i Thate began to spread lightly and slowly a silver light on the
tops of the mountains, and on the hills around. The big
stars on the sky lightly began to pale. The moon not
troubling, as always did, stayed on the sky looking all
that group of people near the swamp of Maliq? Did it
mercy them? It looks everything but don’t speak of nothing. The prisoners ate the breakfast and were put in line
by two. The prisoners of Elbasan, wait in the line, anxious to go, wondering what the matter was. They were
cold and had put their hands in the pockets and picked
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up coat collars to prevent as they can the wind of that
frozen morning. No body in the line spoke. It was not
permitted. They understand it quickly and nobody said
a word. The guardians with sticks in the hands turned
around the prisoners as wolves ready to hit everyone
that would move or speak a word.
In this time, one of the prisoners of the first group
that was old, staying for a long time got up, fainted and
felt down. The other prisoners around, between them
Vullnet and Sala, tried to help him but the policemen
attacked them and hit with sticks and kicks shouting:
-Go way! Don’t help him!
The prisoners, first shocked than when they saw the
policemen they went way.
And what is this?-Asked Sala
-This is proletariat dictatorship-answered Vullnet.
One of the policemen laughing went near the prisoner, moved him with his foot but he didn’t move. The
others went to work while he remained there and lied
on the land, without conscience, in the middle of the
camp. He transformed into a black mark for the others
that looked now by far, leaving that place.
The policemen carried to supervise the company of
Elbasan, came out before the groups and began the roll
call. All the prisoners answered at once. One old man,
prisoner, that didn’t hear very well, didn’t answer
quickly. Policeman interrupted the roll call and cried.
The prisoner was pale. He came out of the row and said
to the policeman:
-Sorry Mr. Policeman- I don’t hear very well.
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-I don’t care of your ears –said the policeman and
hit with two hard slaps, one by one
He spit on the face and angrily said:
- Piece of dirt! – next time open your ears well!
After the roll call was finished, the policemen according to the companies, reported corporal Zeneli that the
prisoners were all ready to work.
Zeneli ordered to go. First went the prisoners of
Korça and Durres then the Elbasan one. The company
where those five participated, was on the end. They
started the road almost running to be as soon as possible at the place of work. Poor one that didn’t get the
rhythm or didn’t keep the line! The policemen hit them.
One of the Tirana’s prisoner could not run. The policeman went near him and hit with his stick. But he didn’t
run again.
-Run-said the policeman-Run! Go after your friends
or I will kill you!
-I can’t-said the prisoner-I have told you I can’t.
-Run-shout the policeman again hitting him so hardYou do the same every day.
And he didn’t stop to hit him cruelly.
The prisoner didn’t try to protect himself but while
the policeman hit him he said:
-Don’t hit me! I can’t run, in the invest gory office
have cut my feet fingers and I have no meat on the last
part of the feet, only bones.
Later on, after they beat him, sometimes they let
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him stay in the end of the row.
At the beginning the prisoners walked on the arid
land, then on a soft one. They were just near the swamp
where the land became softer, wetter and more silt. The
prisoners that had been other times on this road were
not impressed the other of the Elbasan prison frightened, but when they saw impossible to walk made as
the others. The shoes were full of silt. The socks got wet.
The trousers until near the knees became full of mud.
The prisoners walked now running in the swamp.
The guardians cried, threaded and beat them. What to
care these people first from?
- Who knows how long will the road be?-said Sala.
-It could be a long one but I can’t see yet the place of
work-Vullnet answered.
The prisoners of Elbasan were given the tools such
as picks, spades, carriages, etc. At the begging was not
difficult to push them but walking in the swamp they
were full of silt and became too heavy. Some began to
carry them on the back the other to shuffle.
Walking the prisoners something pinched the legs.
They could not stop but when they arrived at the place
of work they saw that on the legs they had leeches of
different sizes, that thirsty drink that blood remained.
Sopoti catch one and try to move it but was not possible. A prisoner said:
-Don’t try! It doesn’t move! It falls down when it’s
glutted to blood!
The prisoners of Korça and Durres began immediately their work just when arrive in their place work.
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They had many days working in the middle of the
swamp and had opened a long and very wide channel.
It deepness was high as a man. When they entered inside they didn’t look. In the two parts of the channel
were build some very high crushed rock layers.
The prisoners began to work to make the channel
deep. They dig the land and transported the soil in the
crushed rock area. Making deeper the channel was filled
full of water. Here the prisoners, worked without shoes,
with rolled up trousers, and on parts full of water, even
only in underwear.
Just near this place was the sector appointed to work
even us.
Working the channel made deeper and so the land
made softer and wetter. The water came out and the
work did more difficult, the place was full of mud and
silt. When the lunch time came, the policemen whistled.
The prisoners left their job. Before the Elbasan brigade
was the corporal Zeneli that ordered that no carriage to
remain without unloaded. The prisoners climbed in the
dam and were set in line of twos. Some couldn’t stand.
They sat on the ground until the cook brought the boiler
with meals.
The policeman ordered the prisoners to the line. They
screamed:
-Keep the direction! I want to see you in one line! I
want to see one head.
-Corporal Zeneli saw a prisoner of them of Durres,
which was not in the line. He captured the man from
the collar, and beat with stick, before the other prison-
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ers and ordered the commander of the brigade:
-Don’t give him meal. He is condemned for today,
not to eat.
The prisoner went away and sat down eating silent
the piece of bread.
The cooks gave the meal. First the soup was given to
the brigade commander and groups. In their bowls there
were some beans and some oil. The others meal was
without no beans, only hot liquid. The five ones went
far of the others and began to eat. They save a part of
the bread for dinner. Sala ate it all.
- What will you eat for dinner? - said Ahmet.
-
I have the meal-Sala smile.
Don’t do any more this! Tonight you will feel
hungry all the time.
While the other prisoners were eating as usually the
policemen pass through on the dam to hear what they
said. There was between them a geology graduate. He
went near Qamil Daja
-Bon appetite, advocate!- Said to him
The work re began with the same rhythm. When the
evening came the policemen whistled again, and screaming wildly and threading with their sticks and ordered
the prisoners to leave their work and to be put in line.
Every policeman did the roll call of his group. Everybody was there so Corporal Zeneli ordered to go. The
policemen hit the prisoners to run in order that they arrived before dawn. The oldest and the sickest, after that
hard work, tried as they could not to be at the end but
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was impossible for them to walk as fast as the others. So
the policemen hit them. An old man could not walk so
fast. The policeman hit him many times with his stick.
He tried to hurry up but was impossible., saw the policeman something wanted to say but he couldn’t, so the
policeman hit him hardly. He fainted. With the policeman order two prisoners took him keeping by his arms.
- Take the dog!- said corporal Zeneli and after he hit
me a few times – We are going in the camp, but if we
were going to work I would kill him and let he and his
friend see how much worthwhile he is.
The road for the camp was long. The sun was hidden after the hills on the horizon. The darkness began
to come slowly. No movement, only the run of the prisoners. Sometimes trembled by the prisoner’s noise, any
birds flied. And the monotonous song of the frogs was
heard from somewhere far away.
While the other prisoners walked to go in the camp,
two lines of policemen armed and with shot guns, followed them in silence ready to shoot without no warm,
everybody that lived in the row.
When they arrived to the camp gate, they were
stopped, numbered, and then entered. The Elbasan prisoners were the last to enter.
According to the groups they were put in the line
for two.
After roll call made again, they took a cup of tea. The
five ones tired and hungry, ate the piece of bread that
had saved, while Sala drunk only the tea.
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Ahmet said
-I will get another ration in the morning –said Sala
to justify. Shaban Plaka heard the conversation and gave
Sala a piece of bread.
-Get it-said-It’s village bread. My familiar brought
me before we came here
Sala saw him doubtful, but Shaban left the bread on
his knees. Ashamed he took and ate the bread very hungry. It was so good.
After the dinner they smoked a cigarette. Almost all
smoked it. Even the persons had never smoked before,
had began to smoke. It was their best friend in the tortures, cells, and prisons.
The prisoners tried to get up. The five ones did as
the others too. Corporal Zeneli that even knew them
very well asked them:
-What prison are you from?
-We are from Elbasan prison, Hasan said.
Corporal Zeneli screamed:
-Do you answer me while siting, dirty pig?
And hit him. The five ones stand up. Corporal Zeneli
threaded angrily:
-Your time is over, dirty bourgeoisie! Until now we
have stayed standing up , now its your turn, pieces of
dirty !
They didn’t speak. Corporal Zeneli went way quietly.
-These are the people of the dictatorship-said Sopoti
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They went to wash their bowls at the only tap near
the water depot, but there were many people there.
They went to the booth. The other prisoners were
there. Somebody was laid. Any other was smoking.
They smoked too, thinking of sad things, with hate, in
silence. It was a long , hard, great, silence that add in every
moment the hate for the dictatorship that was just put in our
country.
Ahmet that didn’t smoke was laid and was thinking
about the terrible things they were suffering in the camp.
Sopoti asked:
- Why do you think? Do you think about the suffering
we will have here?
Ahmet said:
-Will we survive? We have to deal a great battle.
- Sopoti shook his head and said:
- It will be difficult one…
- And a hard one- added Hasan
- And a long one-Vullnet said.
When they finished smoking they tried to sleep. But
even though tired they could not sleep at once.
The booth was not shut well.
The air was heavy, from the smell of sweat, the dirty
clothes and the bad smell of feet.
A prisoner that suffered by asthma began to breath with
difficulty. The man near him said to go out and to breathe.
-I am afraid that guardian will hit me.
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-Yes he can-said the man.
Another prisoner began to snore. The men near him
wake up and moved him a little.
Am I snoring? - said the prisoner that just wake up.
-No problem.
-I sleep like this now. I got used to when I was in the
investigation lockup.
Another prisoner from the middle of the booth got up
and began to smoke in silence.
What do you have?-asked him the friend near him.
- I can’t sleep.
- Why?
- I learned that my family was told they would be interned.
- It’s our destiny- the other said-but try to sleep.
Have not passed many time when from the end of the
booth , was heard a terrible scream. A prisoner screamed
while was sleeping:
- No no, he is not guilty! Don’t do that! No! You can get
me instead of him!
The friends wake up him because he was having a
nightmare. He moved shocked. He got up, looked around
and as he was fine he said:
-Please God, save my son’s life.
Did you see any dream?-the friend close to him asked.
What did you said?-asked he.
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The prisoners near him woke up. He looked at them
ashamed that he woke them up.
- Sorry, he said, asking the friend close to him for a
cigarette.
Smoking he said:
- It was a nightmare
- It’s only a dream, said the man who gave the cigarette. - Don’t worry.
The man that dreamed said:
-I dreamed as if them of the Defense Department came
with a car, entered home…Arrested my only son, put the
chains and beating with kicks and punches and took him
with them….
He breathed deeply and said:
-Oh my God! Please save my life’s son! Please God!
The prisoners around said:
- It’s a dream from the exhaustion, it is the first day at
this cursed camp .
- We will get used to it. We will.
The oldest among them said:
-It’s OK. Sleep now, because we have to work tomorrow!
-Sleep now! Sleep! – said the old man
We all lied on our beds.
The booth was invaded by silence. The guardian
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came time after time near the door of the booth, silent
as the night. It was a gloomy silence at the camp. The
lights around made a big light. Outside in the bodyguard places, there were guardians with shot-guns in
their arms that accompanied the moon that looked indifferent and silent. In front of the camp lived in peace
the Vloçisht village. Could the villagers that looked this
camp from far away imagine that under this lights that
shined hundreds of people suffered terrible tortures?
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AHMET BUSHATI
He was born in Shkodra in
1929, being among the first to join
the Antifascist Movement of
Shkodra Students. He was arrested in 1948 and sentenced to
seven years in prison.
Following his release, he
worked as a laborer and later as a
technical expert in Kruja.
He finished university through
the correspondence system in the Faculty of Language
and Literature, studying several foreign languages, such
as Italian, French, and English.
In 1991 he returned to Shkodra, where from 19921996, was the chairman of the city’s Municipal Council.
He is also one of the main leaders of the Society of
the Formerly Politically Persecuted. He has published
many of his articles in the daily newspapers.
Eight men executed
Eight men were executed in front of city hall in the
presence of the people.
Even though the communist barbarism was increased day after day and was became wilder, in the
roads of Shkodra especially in the center of the town
had continually people movements. The schools where
still closed and the students even these students that
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cause of the war. So, since two years ago they were the
regular customers of Shkodra’s piazza.
There were even some former employees of the administration, that would be changed, and also the other
employees, between them participants in the war, that
wished to be present in every event, and the partisans
came from south that in general had nothing to do.
A part of this mass of mixed people would participate in a meeting in the morning of January 21, 1945
notified since a day first, as “important.” The weather
was cold even though the sun shined. The people in the
square in front the municipality didn’t wait for long and
in one moment in the balcony an officer with colonel
grade that looked older than the others came out on it,
smiling. Arif Gjyli was next to him. He introduced the
person to the people, his name was Shefqet Peci. Shefqet
spoke in a regular oratory, alternating according to the
occasion, even the voices tunes, not lacking also inspiration, accompanied with demonstrative gestures,
which the random speeches of the ignorant and inexperienced orators needed.
He shortly told the Shkodra people of the national
liberation war and the liberty gained by it, for the relation of the Albanian partisans and Yugoslav one, for their
common ideals and for the blood they have not spared
in the same entrenchment and then praising the Marshal Tito, and later ironically and with pomposity he
would continue in more loud voice: “We have brought
here some spies and traitors, that have served the foreigners and have counted their hands with the blood of
the son’s people, and we will kill them here before you”
He began to read the unlucky names of these persons,
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that had brought to the square, hiding from the people.
In the list he suddenly read a man name and somewhere in the middle of the crowd, a little girl about 1012 years old that was next to me, that was so kind and
tidy and was wearing in a good way with a new red
coat, when she listened that name began to cry in such
a way that all the people around felt bad.
He cried saying: “Oh my daddy, daddy, daddy” and
the automatics that shoot toward the persons, made that
the terrified crowd of people, shouting , try to leave the
piazza without seeing the eight men linked with each
other, dead and lied in their blood. I could see just moving from that place a person with a pistol in his arm
shooting toward one of the victims, in order to retaliate
for the brother killed last summer, and in the same time
I could see Qamil Gavoçi, that was shooting behind the
ear of the killed persons, as ”colpo di grazia”.
This macabre scene projected by the communists in
the governing, in order to terrorize the Shkodra people,
it would be unforgettable for them. The Shkodra citizen
since that time and now whisper to each other “God
killed them, for what are they doing to the people”, not
mentioning the names of the people of the communism
regime, just saying “them”, on a strong detesting semantics.
Killed that day I remember Shaban Elezi, Elez Hoti,
Ademi, nephew of Hasan Isufi, wounded in the war of
Kolaj Mountain a few days ago, and Dedë Shabani,
through the eight person.
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Three months between life and death
My new investigator, was a pompous man named
Ali Xhunga that had come to Shkodra from one of the
Permet villages, with the grade of aspirant, that meant
he had not participate in the war in the appropriate time,
even though he had the appropriate age. He was so short
and when he came near me and shouted and threatened me, I got angry because he was a palm shorter than
I was.
The dwarf as he was sitting on the chair swollen as a
rooster to give himself more importance doing artificially serious poses. This investigation careerist was not
the most ignorant and most brutal and even not the most
criminal but he was surrounded and coward toward his
chiefs. If during the investigation a chief entered the
room when he was, the color of his face changed in
white. He had no personality according to me; even he
had no negative personality of the criminal. I think he
was the type of the bad mercenary chosen to service in
order to profit. A. Xhunga would be the investigator
that would keep me for about three months hanged as
Christ and would torture me in order to progress. Process for life or death was his criminal motto of his work
with me. Since the first day of investigation until the
last he did with me terrible and extreme tortures that
for many times would me my last hope and if I had no
died this was an unexplainable miracle of my fault.
The first time he called me, he was sat on the chair
with an imposed posture, maybe just thought since before. “Sit down” said to me coldly, and continued to stay
even for some time in the same position as thinking and
in silence
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I as usually did, looked up on the calendar. It was on
the wall and the date was 28 of July 1948.
Then he shaking his hand toward me said with authority “I am the last investigator that will deal with
you. Sure you will speak, the problem is not to get in
that point, because you are young and you have a family, but at least we don’t care of anything even for your
life. This place has seen a lot of men, and what men! So
think before to be too late”
The next day he called me again and my silence and
calmness made him angry. He came near me and said
“I know you wait to come here, your Anglo-Americans
but I let you know that even they come we first will stab
you one by one, in the cells where you are.
A month ago Enver Hoxha had broken the relations
with Yugoslavia and the political situation could be frozen, but I didn’t know anything what happened outside.
The third day Ali Xhunga, told me at once, “Did you
think?” and I answered as always did: I had no what to
think about. So mechanically he got up and military
dressed and seriously, came out on the hall and entered
a policeman to guard me.
He came back with a military I had never seen and I
would never see again. He kept in his hand generator
of electric. Do you look this? - Ali Xhunga ironically
asked me and continued: Do you know what is it? And
I answered- “Yes” .”Let’s try it again today”- Said he
nervously. The officer put in my ears the strands of electric current, while Ali Xhunga, with generator in his
hands, made me slammed many times in the floor. It
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came out foam from my mouth as the other time happened and the one ear began to bleed, and make me
suffer more than last time. This session even difficult
didn’t last for long.
In the afternoon of the same day, Ali Xhunga and
Ismail Lulo entered my cell and after them Shurdha that
kept in his hand a rope and a stool. I thought they would
beat me with rope. I didn’t know that excited even the
hang as a torture. Shurdha according to Ismail Lulo order, got out the sleeping stuffs and began the procedure
of hanging. Nobody spoke. Ismail Lulo put the chains
on my hands grasping on the pulses and he adhered to
the wall corner toward a window and he climb on the
stool and after he crossed under the chains the rope,
two stranded of it joined together on the windows iron’s
until it stretched completely.
Ali Xhunga that had not spoken a word until that
moment looking the people seriously spoke only when
he was ready to leave: You will see now! After him Ismail
Lulo left, and they left me on underwear and a silk summer light shirt, that missed the buttons since that day in
investigation. So Ali Xhunga was thinking to with me
what he said since the first day. I will not get for long
with you.”
Hanged with the head on one side, with open mouth,
in order to breathe and with pains in pulses where all
the body aggravated, and that from the miss of the good
circulation in them where swelled and had began to be
cut from the chains , continuously with shut eyes because of long lack of sleep and tiredness, it would be
my general view those days.
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It would be only death, which I hoped to come as
soon as possible, to over all my sufferings that had no
end even in the days in continuous. I heard as a second
voice inside of me that said “As much as you suffer as
soon you will be near the death that u are waiting forward to rest”
At noon they unchained me to eat a piece of bread
and a tomato and sometimes some figs, which I couldn’t
eat or eat a little. Some times to tease me they at the
home and ate any season fruit. He came near the door
of my cell so when I went to investigation or for my
needs, to see them greedily.
When I was unchained in the noon, It was a great problem for me to sat down, because my legs where so swelled
until near the thighs , they where in gray color thick as
woods, and didn’t bend on knees. So to sit down I would
go slowly stroking on the wall, until I felt down on the
floor. I didn’t want to eat but I was thirsty, and not taking
account the pains I need to sleep. And I slept as I finished
three or four nibbles. But 20 minutes later Ismail Lulo
came and hanged me again. The first three four days
when hanged I saw the floor and said to my self “Hope
not to die before sleeping once in that floor again”
First they hanged me from the hands but when the
chains penetrated on the pulses they changed the place,
hanging me by shoulders, and so on, creating wounds
with blood and pus in the entire the body, beginning
the same circle when the first wounds recovered.
Only the belief in a secure death made me strong to
endure. From the lack of sleep and pains I passed all
the time in an hallucinogenic condition, not knowing
for days and hours where I was. But I was awake only
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when Ali Xhunga came, and wanted to profit by my
conditions. Some times I couldn’t breathe and I had some
spasm , and my mouth was full of foam and I was near
the death, especially in three cases I have been very sure
for my death even the medical help was not given to
me. I remember two cases, even not perfectly, a man
with a white blouse that came near me with a long
needle.
During this period of time Ali Xhunga not content
only by my hang, would beat me sometimes even
though my body was full of wounds and had a bad
smell, as a died animal. When they would let me go to
the bathroom, I had to lean on the walls, I couldn’t keep
my body straight. Even more tortures followed, and I
walked like a baby on hands and knees
It would continue for a long time especially in the
investigation office, where two policemen kept me from
my arms and some times they kept me up like dead
weight.
The new prison
The new prison was the second from its space from
the big prison. It was a big building two floors. We would
learn that this building in the past had been of Ceka
family and some others, but I don’t know for what reason it was named sometimes even the Suma Prison.
After the gate was the hall 3 meters wide, inside of it
was created a room for the guardian policeman, using
the two walls of the corridor, two other sides where two
panels that went up until the ceiling. The first night they
unchained our hands that had two doors on the side
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and another in the front. There were written the names,
one on the right, two on the left, three were the first one.
While the two rooms at the side so one and second had
a step with wood, the one with number three was on
the low quota of the corridor covered with cement
maybe a beech that lasted all over the building, so as
the length of the two rooms one and two, plus the width
of the corridor.
Ruzhdi Çoba, Thabit Rusi, Qazim Dervishi, Lec
Barbullushi, Ruzhdi Baja and e Refik Bushati, were in
the Cell Number 1, Ernest Përdoda and Xhelë Baci in
the Number 2, while in the third Remzi and Xhevat
Quku, Tomë Sheldinë and I.
We greeted each other and then silence. This happened as we learned later, when in a cell entered a new
prisoner. The old prisoners stayed on their places looking carefully us. We could see in their faces disgrace
and curiosity for us.
When a new person entered the new cell it was a
new event for the other prisoners. There were some rules
turned in traditions or customs in prison. It happened
the new prisoner met there his relatives or known persons, and are these persons that will meet him first. They
asked him for the prison, if had suffered during investigation, for his familiars, if he have had contact them, so
the information spread all over the cell and the curiosity didn’t exist any more.
…
I found some of my friends there at the room, even
Ramadan Sokoli, my friend’s brother, Hodo Sokoli, that
stayed near me and directed me in that room full of
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people, maybe more than a hundred. He was reading
“Rilka” and gathering folklore, a job in which he was
passionate. That prison was a golden mine to be explored! I had a lot to learn from Ramadan Sokoli, that
was 10 years older, and that had read so many books.
…
In that place except the villagers of Shkodra field and
the highlanders of Malesi e Madhe and Dukagjin, there
were a lot of people from Mirdita, Puka, Tropoja, and
Luma. Ramadan that had studied in Florence for flout
and composition, as the artist he was there in the prison
would produce in miniature from the peaches’ nucleus,
objects such as pashmangas, baskets, etc that were as
presents from the prison for the familiars, and relatives.
But Ramadan embroidered too.
He communicated with his prisoner friends as Drita
Kosturi and Terezina Pali through the books, they were
in another cell called the women room. Ramadan accomplished his correspondence with a code for example
if he wanted to write Patience, he will sign with a pen
the first letter P in the page, and then he found A, T and
so on until the word was accomplished, continuing like
this with all the words that he wanted to include in his
letter.
In the end of the room was a place for bathroom, when
me and some of my friends, one year and a half without
taking a shower would wash up for the first time after so
long. In the evening a man nearly 30, served there as physician, he pulled me elastic band of the underwear without saying anything and in the others’ eyes and put inside
some DDT and left laughing. DDT was used for lice. The
person who did that was Elez Troshani, pharmacist, I had
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known him before but that night his short hair had
changed his face that was different when he was free.
The prisoners we found were old in general, sick or
not capable for physical work, the others were in the work
camp of Orman of Pojan, Korça area, and would come back
during November, in that time we would move to the New
Prison to join them.
This prison cell with so light and so good people
would give me health and spiritual good conditions and
soon I felt like in paradise.
In the evening we had an appointed time for the
obligatory Zeri i Popullit newspaper, that usually was
read by Andro Petroviç, a wise and very polite man,
but I don’t know why he was so sad all the time.
Two times a day for one hour we stayed in the garden, with the youngest playing basketball, in two teams,
1+2 and our room 3, for one hour
…
The Room Number 3 had a rectangle shape. The head
of it was busy while near the bathroom stayed the oldest,
that had physical problems, ex military, Luigj Mikeli,
Hamza Kuçi, Zef Martini, Paulin Prendushi, and after them
Teufik Bekteshi that suffered from joint pain, and later on
Hamid Nurja, Malo Kraja, Malo Cani, Smajl Elezi etc.
Since the first night of my coming in this prison, I was
put near Ramadan Sokoli and Pjeter Saraçi, an older brother
of my former history teacher, Angjelin Saraci. Pjeter Saraçi
since the second day to give me pleasure began some of
his jokes.
…
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Simon Harapi would be one of the prisoners I had
more frienship since in the begging. The prison as a
place of the common destine disappeared many of the
differences that exist between people as age, culture and
education, origin etc
Simon was a quiet man, very regular, in every thing,
but he stayed lonely most of the time, and I thought
that except his family he thought of the past, a longing
youth in the past, for the secrets of its clean platonic
love, he had confided in me.
There was in that room even Ragip Lohja, younger
brother of Hysen Lohja prisoner too, but that time he
was in the working camp. Ragip time ago had represented Albania in the race of the 100 meters speed in
Paris
And Shaqir Omari was in that room; he was so generous and could speak with everyone. As he had lived on
the mountain, the highlanders enjoy his talks very much.
There were also some old Postribas, such as Isuf Hasan
from Urea e Shtrenjte, which was short and healthy, brave
and loyal
One of those Postribas that liked to tease Isuf Hasan was
the old man that was put in one corner of the room. Cela
that was slim and tall, was smart and friendly and funny,
together with Isuf Hasan they told stories of their youth.
Myrto Dani was another man, a Drishti Chieftain, a real
noble man that talked only smiling. There was in that room
Abdullah Saiti, the son of the Raseku Chieftain, Sait Duli
the hero of Postriba insurgency, generous, that helped a
Kosovar man, from Gjakova, named Xheme Sadria, brave
person as the person inside told. There were there Nuz Halili,
Dervish Nuzi and another Postribas, while Hajdar Tafa,
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Muho Fetahu, Emin Zyberi, Selim Rraci, Shaban Hyseni
and others must have been in the other rooms of the prison
but there were other ones in the camp of Orman of Pojan.
Next to them was Abdulla Salihi, also of Puka.
A good person or not good, was another man, named
Gjush Pistuli, that spoke a lot, only in his heart fascism
had left a big mark. With gestures and with his big teeth
opened his mouth and called us the youngest “ei, ei voi
giovanni” and some other times with fist up he called
us with enthusiasm “Gioventú, gioventú”! In some other
cases he declared some verses from the hymn of fascist
youth, “Giovinezza, giovinezza’ Primavera di bellezza”
I said, “Fascism is over everywhere in the world and
we have had occasion to fight it and if necessary we will
fight it again,” but did Gjush hear? No way. He acted as
if he didn’t hear, and not to offend went smiling.
…
One day there in the room brought two prisoners
same age we had, we let they stay in the entrance of the
room. They were from Mirdita. We went to meet them.
One of them was named Ndue Fusha he seemed like a
real man, noble and attractive, but a bit pale because of
the TB he had. He was courageous and from a good
family of Mirdita. The same way was his friend, who he
considered as his brother, Gjon Marka Ndoj, sympathetic
and talkative. He was so skilful and stayed every moment with Ndoja, day and night and was for him not
only as a brother but as a sister too for what he needed.
When Ndoj had been 16, in 1945, he was put in prison
for 1 year. When Bardhok Biba was arrested and sentenced to death and have saved only with the interfer206
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ence of father of Bardhok Biba. And would not pass a
long time when Ndoj, would die from TB in the Room
Number 3.
Somebody had said that I had broken the regulatory
and so sent me to the directory. As a fault repeated another time, they changed me the room from three to two,
which even better and high I would prefer more the first
one, maybe I was used with the people there.
In this room my best friend would be Ernest Perdoda
that smoked all the day long and night and since that
time his face was green.
During some days I had some other good friends
too, Hilmi Kamata, with whom i was close and forever.
I was in the middle of the Bajram Xhemaliu that had a
face with little holes, he was from Kala e Dodes, and
some time ago learned at the madrasa of Tirana, and
spoke a little English. My friend was even Preng Biba
from Mirdita, a good man, but serious and talented in
the producing of the mini objects and celluloid. Once I
suggested to him and he made me an eagle ready to fly,
while tried to break the chains on the legs. For memory,
I send the eagle and the symbolic it had, to Sime.
We would eat together with Bajram and Prenga for
two months I stood in that room.
In the summer 1951, when I was in the work camp near
Peqin, I heard that Preka and Prele Toma from Nikiç of
Malesi e Madhe, and another friend of them escaped from
the big prison to Yugoslavia. After spending a lot of time at
the notorious camps of Yugoslavia, Preka left for America,
and was recruited later in the military forces of American
military. One day he was killed in Vietnam.
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I was not quite in since the moment I would find the
person that had spied me to move from the room, he could
do this with the others too; this was the more important
thing. So I decided to pass in the Room Number 3 where
I had first been and to stay there with my friend Tome
Sheldia. While we talked I observed around in the room.
At one moment I saw a person moving, he thought of Toma
and I, so he left from the door. Not to create doubt to the
others he turned back very soon at the room and sat up as
an angle in his place near the door. Toma told me to go
way because we had discovered the person, but I waited
the police to come, to prove the spy was in the room, and
I wanted to disrobe before all the people’s room. So after a
little time the police came in the room and suddenly said
astonished, “What are you doing here? Come with me!”
And he took me with him to the prison director that would
punish me for three days in the prison cell.
…
We, the youngest were surprised from the place full of
old people, with other interests, and formation, their behavior, and their gracious attitude for each other, their collective feeling and a nobleness that was manifested in most
of them. We had often had the object of our conversation
fact that many people there were so kind, that we had no
known before.
In the small Room Number 2 I met old men respected
by all, such as Mr. Shevqet Muka, Shyqyri beg and some
others younger.
Xhele Baci was in that room too, and in that time he
was reading ”Chefs d’Oeuvres” from French literature, and when he liked so much any of the stories he
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ture, although Fultz School had finished excellently in
agronomy.
In that room was former revolutionary, and Communist Gjeto Kuqi, who was always in good mood, he
read French and as we have told, continued to manifest
a poetic tendon. The friendship with me considered old
since the time of the neighbor prison cells we had had
in Security, when he was in solidarity with me (knocking the wall with fist many times) when I contradict my
investigators.
In that room was responsible Pretash Nika.
I had another friend, Todi Ruho that was a wise and
sincere man. In a meeting organized in Tirana, where
were many officers, and he too, he had asked in a moment “Now that we are so linked with Yugoslavia, what
will happen with Kosova? And Enver Hoxha that formally didn’t directed that meeting, was replied, “Who
wants the good of Kosova must wish it be part of Yugoslavia, for the better conditions it will have, in construction of the socialism in its country.”
In this room I had friends from Mirdita too, three
persons, that If I remember well, once upon a time, had
been students of the Shkodra high school and dorms of
the “Our Mountains” their names were Kolë Skana,
Preng Bajraktari and Ndue Zef Ndoci.
Ali Taipi from Dudas neighborhood was in prison
because he had hosted his Ballist friend from south, Bilbil
Hajni. He was a good man and very kind person and
not taking account his age he always smiled and was
funny.
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Kolë Ndou, Shala Chieftain, was a quite and smart
man. He was not artificial; he imposed a presence and
stayed in his place. He was like a person that wants to
keep the dignity and his importance even in the disgrace. He had big mustache, and he never moved from
his place. And there were in the room two middle age
men from Dukagjini, one of them tall, called Nike, they
stayed near Kole respecting him, without letting him
do anything, but helping for everything.
Kolë stayed sat all the time cross-legged, with straight
body and light cigarette all the time. If you went “to
visit” him, he was so glad and he honored you so much
when you left. Ndue Lala had suffered all his long life.
He was smart and human and he spoke so skillfully
and clearly that the events looked nice when he spoke
about them. I liked them and I was so interested and
curious about every thing he told and I felt content.
That time I think Ndoj was about 50 years old. He
had a pink face and some brown marks on it. When
Bardhok Biba was arrested and he was sentenced to
death and for three months he had suffered that punishment masse.
Being so poor and according to its concept, he and
his friends had gone with rifles on the arm to mug livestock, in Kosova and Chameria, in order to make possible the surveillance of the children and women, and
old persons they had home. With this motive they justify every mug case and felt brave and proud for their
actions, more far they were the places more, honored
the men were when they came back .Who was killed in
these cases was remind as some others that were killed
in the war for the country.
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In the room nr.1 when I secretly had entered once or
twice, the most interesting and honored including two
in the other room that were shehs (heads of a Muslim
religious group) Ali Bogdani from Bicaj of Luma. I personally had no occasion to meet him. He was covered
with a brown overcoat, he had in the had a small hat
used from Muslim believers in the praying time, he had
a beard soft as silk and white like snow, long until the
chest, and over all he had a grace similar with a mystery in a nice face and noble features, making think that
he was Muhammad climbed on the land.
As the other prisoners that were in the same cell he
was would tell that all the time he meditated and prayed
to God. Religion Culture and especially the devotion
toward God and also his prestige and smartness that
altogether made him the most respected man.
The most preferred or the friendliest person without
any rival was Elez Troshani, for his religious vocation
and adoration-as for a saint person-he had for the Sheh
Ali. Elez accompanied by a policeman worked all the
day out of the prison as a pharmacist and the time when
he turned back he stayed on knees sat before Sheh Ali,
as before the God.
Religious Studies Sheh Ali had done in Istanbul. Two
guys from Shishtavec, with Ndergjuti surname, one of
them called Ragip, stayed near him to serve and help
him
In Room Number 1, we had the friends Ruzhdi Coba
and the students Thabit Rusi and Rrok Pali and Refik
Bushati, Gjon Ljarje, Lec Bruçajnets and prestigious old
man Ramadan Aga, Dan Hasani, that was always proud
and in good health, even though he was nearly 80 years
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old. There was there sir Haxhia, and Riza Hoti my
friend’s brother, Burhan Hoti, in the face of which I read
the gratitude for me that I had no mention the name of
his son on the Security office. Brave and respected Muezzin Qemal Dibra was there, the dentist, Xhabir Dibra,
Gani Ymeri, Paulin Kel Pali, and the poorest that suffered from TB, brave and faithful, our friend that time
and later, Mark Lleshi.
The priests were separated. We saw them only when
we went to the bathroom. The unable or sick persons
had not gone in camp or somebody else that justified
his staying there making any specialized work to serve
the directory. Between the priests one of them was Leon
Kabashi, with whom he communicated in a way not understandable only Ramadan Sokoli, sure interested in
picture, that he made. As I remember were there monsignor Koliqi, Padre Frano Kiri, Padre Mark Harapi and
Padre Gegë Lumaj, and Padre Rrok Gurashi the priest
with whom the communist govern, through Tuk Jakova,
continue-as was told – without resistance trying to separate the church from Vatican.
On another side of that building was the women
room, where were Mrs. Adile Boletini, and the youngest Drita Kosturi, Agime Pipa, Terezina Pali, Vitore
Kuka, Ana Daja, Bedrije Ashiku, and a Mirdita woman
named Prendë, we citizen prisoners called her Beautiful Prenda because she was really beautiful and she had
been brave and faithful when she had been fighting. We
felt very bad when heard than she died in prison from
TB.
As I have told other times, when Bardhok Biba was
killed many Mirdita person were arrested, that was put
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in our prison after a very short sentence. Elez Troshani,
which was the physician inside the prison, had the duty
to disinfect the person that came to the prison. Once
one of them asked Elezi, “What’s this sir?”
“To kill lice,” he answered loudly and the Mirdita
man as if he were speaking to himself said, “I have had
lice like this since King Zogu’s time.”
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URAN BUTKA
Uran Butka was born in a patriotic family. His father committed suicide during the Second
World War, because of the desperation and pain he received from
the war among Albanians. He
appealed for the interruption of the
civil war (between the communist
and nationalist forces).
After graduation in language
and literature, Uran worked as a teacher for several years.
He was fired from his job for political reasons and to survive he was forced to work hard physical jobs. In 1975,
the Interment Commission deported him and his family
from Tirana to Tropoja and then to Martanesh.
He was one of the first involved in the democratic
movements of 1990, aiming to overthrow the Communist
dictatorship.
He is one of the leaders and founders of the National
Association of the Formerly Politically Persecuted of Albania. He has also been elected to serve as a member
of parliament, also severing as the chairman of the commission of valuation of the national figures and rehabilitation of the dictatorship communist victims, and has directed the movement for national reconciliation and the
integration of the politically persecuted.
There are several historic and literary books published
by him, of which we can mention “Nation Genie,” “Mukja
- unity chance,” “The return of Mit’hat Frasheri,” “Safet
Butka” and “The White Death.”
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FAR FROM PEOPLE
-This is our last evening in Tirana, said Ema.
We wanted to buy something and also we walked a
little. We could see the emptiness in the roads. It was
unusual for Tirana, where the evening was so special
and different from the other cities. The evening walking was a collective ritual. People that went through
the boulevard in the both sides from Scanderbeg Square
until the University Square and returned back again.
Here pulsed the city life, its citizenship, environment,
and vanity, beauty and ugliness, the new and the old
clothes. The dark colors predominated, even though was
summer. The people seemed as a mourning line. The
light colors were not preferred because they were mushy
and didn’t match to the new mentality of the new men.
They were preferred better, dark colors, especially the
red.
In the evening promenade people didn’t think of the
pressure of their days and felt better spiritually. They
met each other and talked especially for the weather,
sport (other subjects were dangerous), they talked about
the news, gossips and their problems…It was the only
amusement they had. All, even the intellectuals, were
part of this circle. A daily permitted vicious circle…
It was Sunday. Usually that day the square was full
of people. But there were no people that day…
I had a long time since I had not walked, she said.
It’s really sad.
From the time the circulation began the evening
promenade has ended.
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- All are afraid as if they are attacked from panic.
- As if the falcon has attacked the chickens-I answered.
-We will go tomorrow. Do you think we will ever
turn back?
Her voice was insecure, and I could catch the endless pain on it.
-We were born here. So we will return in any way.
Better times will come.
I said all these words not to leave her loose completely her hope. But nothing was good and the bad was
intruding everything and deepest. Even inside the man.
What about the mother? Will she cope this? If I didn’t
feed Ela with my milk I would leave her with her. It
would have been different for both, although difficult
for me. She is a baby…
-…The mother has suffered and she can face the difficulties and she will wait until we return back. She
wants to stay and guard the house for us, hoping that
we will return one day. Hope will keep her alive….
Ema was from a Berati citizen’s family. Her mother
was mufti daughter and Margarita Tutulani had been
her best friend. She had helped the national war but she
became disillusioned by its metamorphosis and abuse
of power. Her father an idealist man with courage was
not seen in a good eye. But his brother was skillful and
arrived to give him the right to study medicine. He was
an excellent student so they kept him at the university
clinic, and he specialized for kidneys. But our marriage
caused familiar and social problems. She was called to
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the Party office and was pressured to leave him .She
didn’t accepted and she called all this interference in
the family. But the party was worried for the purity of
the family! So she was declared heretic and was pointed
with a red circle. She was the first in the circulation lists
of cadres, compiled from the Party Committee. But there
was another list too, composed from the Interment –
Deportation Commission. I was the object of this list,
too. As a couple we were under the observation of the
two commissions, behind them was the State Security.
It was decided for us to be deported from Tirana and
to go in northern most place of the country.
-I have heard they are deporting even their people,
even important-said Ema
-They don’t even believe themselves. They are afraid.
So they kill two birds with the same stone. First the
people with “old marks”, and then them with “new
marks” and last the doubtful persons, that are the majority of the intelligence, which they call, even servant
and the undertakers of
- I don’t know anything of such things. It’s absurd. I
don’t know why this is done…
-This is done that nobody feels secure and calm and
immune. Except the head all the others must be feeling
as in siege in the war. The people must be even gracious. Everything is done not to facilitate people’s life
but to toughen theirs life. Now another slogan is around,
“Against the personal comfort”. Look it written here!
Shkodra people answered with they ironic humor, “We
took of the bicycles saddle and we sat on the peg. So
wonderful!”
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We laugh at this phrase even though laughing was
not in fashion that time.
Meanwhile we were near home where Ela and the
mother waited.
The mother was sat on her place near the sofa. Ela was
sleeping in her arms. Her little head was on her mother’s
chest and her brown hair flopped on her head until to the
eyebrow and the black long eyelash. Her face her lips were
cramped to the mother’s black blouse, her hands buckled
up on her arms. As if she had felt they had to separate.
The mother followed with her black sad eyes as asking us, “Do you have any good news?
- Very worried and under pressure, she said, for Ela:
- She didn’t like to lie on the bed, she got in after me
and slept like an angel.
We sat near her. I softly touched her white hand, with
blue veins and long and slim fingers.
-These hands raised us-I thought. She is like Saint
Maria, with the head in one side, timid and noble that
transmitted only love. In her face as a saint she smiled
softly and warmly.
-God is great!-said she-Be hopeful. I don’t care for
anything else except Ela.
Her voice was trembled.
Don’t worry - said Ela - when she will be one year old
we will bring her here. Let’s stay with her grandma as now
she is….
We didn’t sleep that night.
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The oldest brother bruised his eyes. The second one
said, “Let it be, don’t go!” The mother that was taciturn
kept the conversation open. The sister was crying and
with a low voice talked to Ema.
When the hooter rang, we all shocked. It was dark
and quietness. The brothers come to help to carry the
stuffs. We were after them. The mother came with Ela
until the gate. It was a black truck there, similar to a
sphinx. Ela was sleeping. Ema took from mother’s hand
Ela, and the woman adhered to the gate not to fall down.
On the other side two plain-clothes agents as shadows,
waited for us.
-Get in and sat down on the middle of the stuff - the
driver said.
-Why in the trailer? -said Ema, trembling- We can’t
breathe there because of the dust. There are 300 km of
road. Do you want our baby to die?
At the gate the mother moaned.
-The places before are occupied –said the driver and
saw the agents - I only do the driving, my sister!
The first to climb was me. I wanted to help Ema but
she didn’t come. The agents came near us and I saw
their frozen faces.
Ema gave me the baby and then got inside. We sat
down on a bundle and we had no time even to greet the
familiars because the black waterproof fall down as it
was a curtain in the end of the show. And the truck closed
all over, started the road.
***
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- I don’t know anything for your coming- said the
locality secretary of Tropoja. He was a tall man and had
two big drunken eyes – But even the chairman is not
here, but he will come, if he doesn’t come today, he will
be here tomorrow. Wait me outside to talk with the Comrades of the district.
He entered office and talked for a long time in phone
We waited at the wasteland before the building. We
were terribly tired.
Ema was sat on a wooden suitcase and kept the baby
on her arms. She cried and cried. The driver insisted to
unload the stuffs from the truck because he wanted to
return. But he continued to stay at his office. At the end
he got out.
- You are appointed as a physician, he said to Ema as
if I didn’t exist.
- Where do we have to live, she asked.
- I don’t know yet, he said. The committee chairman
said to send you the Culture Center. When Asllan comes,
we will decide.
-And if he doesn’t come, asked she.
-We didn’t know you will come, evaded he.
-I have an order to return, said the driver.
- Is there a hotel here, I asked.
- No
-We have to unload the stuff. There is no place for
you here, not even for me-said the driver.
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They had climbed down to Bajram Curri.
I helped the driver. There were a lot of used stuffs on
the land now.
The baby cried.
Some children came near us. A little slim girl, about
four, with straight yellow hair came near Ela, and kissed
her. She stopped crying. Her beautiful and innocent eyes
smiled now. Ela touched the little Tropoja girl’s hair.
- How are you, a 7 or 8-year-old child asked. It
seemed to me he asked, “Are you alive or not, are you
strong?”
- How are you man, another child greeted me.
- Hi…Do you need anything, another asked.
- Thank you, thanks.
The big children world brought us happiness.
Maybe the graciousness and the humanity had not lost
only on the children…
The evening came, and we were there. The sky was
full of stars and they seemed sad. On the offices entered
and came out people that looked at us like we were
UFOs.
At the end the secretary came.
-It’s decided to live in the cultural center. It is that
building there. The chief will help you to carry the stuffs
too…Have a good night!
The tower was a building with one floor, with little
windows, no ceiling, and no floor. Up there were the
black bars and down the mud premises. It smelled mold
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and old things. It was a bookshelf with no door, some
two-chord musical instrument that didn’t work and
some old national suits. There was a Canterbury full of
books and especially with Enver works. Two tables, two
chairs with no legs, and a long wood stool. All full of
dust.
-I will not put the baby inside without moving the
dust-Ema said. Please give me a bucket of water and a
stick as long as you can-she said the chief, an old man
with white hair and deep eyes.
She cleaned a part of the dust and the spiders’ nets.
The other part impossible to get was on the walls, on
the bars. Décor of middle Ages…
We put the bed in the middle of that terrible place.
I have not preferred to get from Tirana but it was so
necessary because otherwise we would sleep on the
floor.
We put Ela between us. We were afraid to leave her
alone. We didn’t dare to put it in her bed; we were afraid
of mice and reptiles. Even tired, we could not sleep from
the noises of mice, barks of dogs and bats. Maybe something else we could not specify yet.
-Do you know?-I said to Ema
She lifted her shoulders.
-Look around.
-Enver eyes - she answered - Even here he follows
us. Oh my God!
His portrait was on the wall in front of me. The picture was made that time, when he had done the great-
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est crimes. Although he had a beautiful face, a sweet
look and a warm smile….
So strong to give such a look, and this kind of smile!
He has the devil force to represent as an angel. What a
hypocrisy!
-Don’t speak with loud voice-she said- even the walls
have ears.
-I can’t tolerate this look.
I got up and I put a table near the wall over it I put a
chair and I climbed. I took the portrait and pulled it. I
thought for a moment as if I threw him from his throne.
-You pulled it but there is a trace on the wall. Look
the shadow of it.
It was a deep one.
- They will see it –she said- And what if they put you
in prison? Don’t you think of me and the daughter?
I stayed a little thinking. She was following me with
her eyes. At the end, I decided, I put the portrait on the
wall again. I climbed down, took a sheet and I covered
Ela, even though his look seemed to go even through
the sheet.
***
The next day was Sunday.
I asked to find a painter but they told me he was in
Fierza. So I found a bucket and whitewash and a brush
and I painted with white paint the inner walls of the tower.
I put Ela on her stroller on the shadow of a pomegranate tree, in front of the door. Ema washed the floor
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with the water I brought with buckets from a far tape
and then she went time after time to see the girl.
-Is it guy or a girl, asked a woman.
-She is a girl-Ema answered.
-Wish she will have a long life! She is so cute!
- Wow, Teuta!
- How are you doctor?
They hugged each other.
-This is my husband Bajram. Do you remember him?
-…Hmmm…I don’t
-I used to come often in Tirana hospital when Teuta
was hospitalized-he said.
-Oh I see. You waited a long time after the door,
during every dialyses treatment. Even embraced me
when I said you she was save and alive.
-We are grateful for her life.
-Come on enter inside, although, it is a real mess
here…
-Oh no. We are here to take you to our home. We
have a big space there. You have no reason to stay hereTeuta said.
-Thank you very much but they appointed us to stay
in this place and we are not going to change it-Ema answered- We will try to accommodate as well as we can.
- No doctor, we have to come even yesterday. But
we heard that some interred person from Tirana had
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come and nobody dared to go out. Today Gani, my
neighbor told me that a kidney doctor has come. I asked
for the name. And she replied me-Ema. So I came here
at once here.
Teuta looked 30-32 years old. She was tall, brunette
and blue eyes like Valbona. One year first she was
blocked from both the kidneys. Ten days without urinated. She was urgently brought to Tirana and that afternoon Ema was guard doctor . She ordered to make
the test of her and then made the dialysis. For seven
days she lived with an artificial kidney. The hope was
almost all lost. But by the eighth day the kidneys began
functioning again. Ema stayed near her all the time until
she saved her life.
-How are you now?-she asked her
-Oh I am fine now; I don’t take any more my medicines now.
-You look like an apple- Ema said hugging her.
- Lets now go in our home with your daughter and
your husband- Bajrami will find any carriage and brings
the stuffs.
We can’t come - Ema said.
- Do you want your baby died? There are no conditions here, even no water. No body lives here since half
a century before, since the war. All the males died and
the tribe doesn’t exist any more. There are only snakes
now.
There was a hard silence.
- Teuta!- Ema spoke- We don’t want to create prob-
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lems for you and Bajram. We are…circled in red.
- Let it be. We are not afraid of this-Teuta said
- I am a worker-Bajram said-if they don’t keep me in
Fierza I will work somewhere else. Teuta is home. It’s a
great honor for us not shame.
I had no spoken until now. I was touched by their
graceful and I was glad that excited again the brave
people.
- I thank you from the bottom of my heart but I can’t
come, Ema let do what is better for her.
-I will stay with you-Ema said
- We will not be divided but if is better for the baby
health….
The dangerous for the baby life make her not resist
any more.
***
On Monday she went from Teuta home to the district
hospital, they said they were uninformed for her appointment there. She went to Commune office and the chairman waited her coldly and he didn’t even shake her hand.
-It’s not decided yet where you are going to workYou will wait.
-Who will decide?-she asked but didn’t get any answer He started to talk to somebody else, making clear
that he had no more to add.
When she came to the tower she was sad and nervous.
-Don’t worry, it’s a game of nerves. We have to face
it calmly.
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-I am not interested that disregard is so great until
humiliation but this situation on suspense…
- No body is sure in his workplace and not about the
place where lives, even for death. Everything is suspended. All are neither in the earth nor in the sky. Only
this way they can’t direct their spirits as they like, and
as they want.
- I don’t ask anything only to work everywhere. You
know I love my profession. Do you think they will let
me work as a doctor any more?
- They can even get off the right to live. We must be
prepared for everything…For you-I added-have no reason to do that-I only wanted to calm her- Then we are
together, we have even Ela…What did you say when
both the families were gathered, “I will come with you
even in the end of the world.”
She hugged me and I felt her tears on my shoulder.
-Forgive me; I am egoist, what about you, what will
happen with you?
We were in suspense for one week then in the end of
it they notified to go to Fierza. We had to stay there…
As I heard later, some people were complained about
the government, “Why did u sent us such people?
Tropoja is a pure border district. They can pass the border in any moment. Who keeps then the responsibility? So the commissions in Tirana had decided to find a
more appropriate place on the inner side of the district
far of the border.
Fierza was the most interior place.
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Once again we put our stuffs in a truck and the only
person that came to say us goodbye was Teuta. Bajram
was at work. She kept Ana on her hand that loved her
much for the days they had been together. She had
hugged her with her little hands.
- Ku-ku, ku-ku. . ! - murmured Teuta.
-Don’t get sad, Ema said. We are near to each other.
We will invite you to come as soon as to accommodate.
- We surely will come.
In Fierza we accommodated in one of the workers
flat, Area B. In a room in the front of the building that
served as guard place. . . Our room was opposite to the
bathrooms. The bed could not enter the room. The cupboards or the other stuffs not surely. We put inside a single
bed and a little table and the baby stroller. We build a
doorstep not to let urine and the smell of bathrooms penetrate. They had no water and we couldn’t much about
the continuos workers’ noises.
But the man can be adapted with everything. He
finds the reason to live in every condition, even when
life is terrible.
Every day Ema was interested for the job. As if she
began…We had even no more money. And we could no
wait for longer.
- The day after tomorrow I will begin to work in hospital she said happy- The committee of district people informed me…Tomorrow there is an important meeting.
They ordered me to go both. I told about the daughter,
that we have no where to leave her, but he told me that
this is an indisputable order.
***
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The great auditorium of the Red Angle was full of
workers of Area B, hospital’s physicians and teachers of
the school. We could find a place on the end of it. We
have even the daughter with us. The meeting began on
time. In the presidium were the district authorities and
a delegated man, the secretary of the Committee of Party
for the personnel, a small-body man, but capable, as all
said.
He was from Vlora, and cousin of Hysni. In the background there was a big portrait of Enver Hoxha just finished from a well-known artist that was brought to
Fierza for re upbringing. Around there were Enver
Hoxha quotes.
The delegated man talked with pathos about the situation. All the people there felt electrified.
-May I speak - said a worker siting in the first row- I
have a question. You have spoken for the vigilance and
the classes war but you bring in our new socialist country, enemies of party. Even you give good jobs and let
them live in the workers flat…
I understand all this meeting was devised for us. So,
after the public shaming was done, usually, then came
the public arrest. This time I would be the sacrificed
object.
- If they arrest me, - I said to Ema in low voice, keep yourself. Go back in Tirana.
She felt bad.
-This is vigilance-said to the worker the chairman of
the committee of party of region. - This is the way the
class war is done.
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-Please, may I speak? - another worker got up and
said –I want to ask that woman there-and he looked at
Ema- Why did you come here?
She gave me the daughter and got up.
-Just to work.
- Tell the worker class why are you fired of Tirana?
- The government knows this. I don’t know anything.
I know that I am circulated as some others are.
- What kind of familiar relations do you have with
Beqir Balluku’s wife? What kind of relations does your
husband have with Petrit Dume? Why don’t you tell
this?
- Uuuuuu, the masse of people reacted as in an ensemble.
- No relations, - she answered. – On the contrary…
She wanted to explain and to contradict but she
couldn’t speak. She wanted to cry loudly that all to hear.
It was sadness gathered for a long time and wanted to
get out. But it was not possible.
-And what about his father that has been with National Front, why don’t you tell this-the worker with
cap insisted. He was brushed on face and his eyes
flashed. His point finger was directed toward Ema.
I gave her the daughter that began to cry.
-Here I am-don’t ask her- I said.
- Answer the question! – Some voices in the same
time said. – This is the class court.
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- It’s true, my father has been Balli exponent, but he
has been patriot too, antifascist, and interned in Italy.
He committed to stop to stop the killing among brothers.
- Uuuu…u!
- That’s it, Comrade secretary! This man says that
the entire Ballists are patriots and antifascist fighters.
According to him they have had liberate Albania! This
is in contradiction with Enver Hoxha books and with
the Party way - said with indignation the head of school,
a short man, with yellow eyelashes and eyebrows and
with scars on his face.
- Ballist calf, - screamed the chief of Fierza region. –
Your place is not here but in the Spac to extract copper.
- Enemy of the party! Enemy of the people- some
people said.
The baby cried. Ema didn’t try to calm her. She was
not fine. She was sat up and looked up terrified what
suddenly was happening. The screaming all over and
the hotness and the smell of cigarettes gave her difficulties to breathe.
- Are we in the meeting or in the nursery? –The same
worker said – Go out with your crying baby-he said
- Give to drink a little, - I said
- I tried but I have no milk –she said.
She was so tired.
-Please, I have a proposal, the man with cap said. He looked terrible with that kind of the look his face
had got. - Lets make an example for all these persons.
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Let them burn alive on the stake…
A deep silence came after these words.
I couldn’t believe to my ears. They wanted to kill
us. Oh it was terrible! Where were we? In the Middle
ages? The person that I imagine in that moment was
my mother…Their big eyes that looked me in quietness.
It was not the first time. Some months before the same
thing was asked for Beqir Haci the capitalist that teaches
foreign western languages to our youth. I felt the insanity to touch me.
-Hey what are you doing?- said a man middle aged
from white hear- I am from Kolonja and I know this
family. The party and Comrade Enver Hoxha has estimated it. His grandfather and his uncles had given the
life for Albania.
- Uuu…!
- Wait, wait! – The delegated said. –The Party doesn’t
burn people but their illnesses.
- And what do you think –said the worker to the
Kolonja worker-to keep them here in Fierza? And as if
they sabotage, or put in fire the hydroelectric power
plant branch, what will happen?
- He is right,- the region chief said. – They have no
reason to accept them in Fierza. This is the voice of the
masses. The government let find another place for them,
but not here.
- Ok the secretary said getting up. As you think like
this –we will do this. The worker class decides. She is
in the governing. Who agrees with this decision?
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All got up their hands.
That moment I saw Ema. She kept the daughter that
didn’t cry any more on the chest instinctively. Ema’s fingers was trembling, all the anxiety was discharged to
her hands. She was pale, as a brown leaf, on the tree
that was trembling from the winter frozen wind.
***
This time we didn’t need a truck. With some stuffs
on the hand and the daughter on the arms, we took the
bus for Bajram Curri, where will stay temporarily , as
the government to decide. We were accommodated at
the old hotel of the city. To live Ema worked for some
time in the policlinic. Temporally, every time in suspense. This did not last, It was not so easy. The instruction of the central committee after didn’t accept in Fierza
was, “To accommodate far of borders and far of people.”
This second one was difficult. The commission of the
deportation and interments worked intensively with
maps and data. Comrade Manush had find a place at
the end, in Martanesh a formerly sacred place turned
now to hospital. Far of villages, near a rock, so lonely
and around tombs without no names
Very far, far of borders…
And far of people too…
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MARIJE GJOKA (MAZREKU) and DOM NIKOLL
MAZREKU
As brother and sister that were
close to each other, and had such
great trust in God, and because of
the long suffering caused from the
political persecution to both of
them, we are representing them
together in this anthology.
This because they dedicate
much of their letters we have chosen to each other.
Marie Gjoka, faced the political persecution at an early
age, because at the end of 1946, Dom Nikolle Mazreku
was arrested, imprisoned and interned during the Communist dictatorship.
The other brother, Rroku, was killed during the first
years of the Enver Hoxha regime. Maria passed her life
going from one prison to the next.
She helped her brother Dom Nikolla, and her husband, who was arrested shortly after their marriage.
She has written her memories in the book “Pieces of
bitter memories,” and has also published a poetic volume called “Mother’s tears.”
Dom Nikoll Mazreku was greed following the fall of
the Communist regime and restarted to work in the service of the church.
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Fragment from the book “Pieces of Bitter Memories”
Dom Nikoll Mazreku’s arrest
In November 1946, while eating dinner, the door
knocked and happened what we waited. Eight militaries entered home and shackled Dom Nikolla and took
him with them. It was 9 p.m. They left on the darkness
and we remained alone. I went after my shackled
brother. The Security Forces ordered me to turn back
but I continued to go after them. I was afraid they would
kill him during the road. After half an hour walking
Dom Nikolli turned back his head and said:
- Marie turn back and tell the Council of the Church
I am arrested! If you like come tomorrow in Puka
It was almost the midnight. From the greatest problem I got, I was not afraid even from the darkness. I had
in mind my brother’s request. I choose a short road and
so walking through the bushes and scrubs I arrived at
of the councilor’s home. A dog, as big as a wolf, near
the door, had bitten me hard on my leg. The people of
the home got out; one of the women offered me to enter.
My shoe was full of blood. I said what Dom Nikolli had
asked me to say and then I went home. My mother
learned that what have happened to me was much sadder. She was sad for her son and when she saw even me
in that state she got despaired.
The next day even that I had temperature, I went to
Puka. From Kryezi to Puka needed two hours with car. I
walked until there. I was looking forward to see my
brother s destination. When I arrived in those
extermination’s offices I found my brother in Franc Jakova
office, he had just began to ask him for his curiosity.
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My brother arrest was directed by operative Zydi
Çoba.
How years of prison and interment my brother has
done is difficult even to think! Even Mandela would be
ashamed before him. 37 years of interment and, two
arrests and two investigations and two courts and so
many law séances. So many interment places he had
been. He has almost tried all the prisons and interments
camps of Albania. Even tragic to mention those are hours
of fear, psychological and physical sufferings, abuses
and maltreatment that the Communist State Security
exerted to him and to us as his family members.
I have explained in the little book with poems titled
“Mother Tears” how and why I get married in that
mountainous Puka village with a very poor man, only
to have a shoulder in difficulties, to help my mother
that had only me. Both brothers were in prison (I will
tell later for Rroku)
But unfortunately my sufferings had no end. Eight
month after marriage they arrested even my husband. I
had to care even of him now. After some days, I and
Biba’s (my husband name) cousin walked to Puka to
send him some food in prison. In a place called “Pal
Gjergji Mill” we met two men that carried a stretcher.
After them walked a mountaineer woman. The
stretcher was not covered and the dead man on it was
Leke Berisha. The cadaver had black marks on the face
and neck. The woman that was his mother said to me:
- Mana, my dear, they have drown him so badly!
I have heard that Leka was killed tortured with a
handkerchief in the mouth or with nails in the neck. It
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was whispered with facts even the author of this cruelty… Some years later in the same place we met these
people; the only son of that criminal was thrown. The
people whispered about it as a God’s punishment he
received. Only God punished him, because people didn’t
do anything to him. When the system was changed in a
democratic one he lived for some years in Rome…maybe
near the “Caritas” organization.
As according the slanders was doubt I lived on the
mountain to get with politics I decided and I asked to
have another house in the center, near the popular council offices and political party’s. I sheltered at a shack with
willow rods… very near were the livestock place. This
cost me not less. I had little space. My child was only 4
months and the other one a little older.
My story is long. On December 1950, 9 days after
my brother was killed, one of my children only 13
months died. He was so beautiful and so kind as the
sunshine. This child the day I heard the guns of the persons that killed my brother, since my mother was not
home I put on the garden on a circle not to fall down.
But outside was so cold. Who have tried Puka Climate
know it is very hard. The child got sick in the throat and
after three days he died. After one year my mother died
too. She couldn’t bear the Rrok death. Then I went to
live in the qela (home church). I did this because Vincent
Prendushi (died later in the communist prisons) asked
me as the priest sister to keep open the church, and to
serve there. Except this, the church and the house in
Kryezi had a big pasture, a garden full of trees, apples,
pies, masts etc. These all helped our poor economy. I
kept there a cow for dairy, too. The fruits I get I helped
my brothers in the prisons. But what happened?!
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The house where I lived after my mother’s death
became a village school, as it had four rooms. Two teachers requested this and the Education Section applied it.
At the begging I had only the kitchen then with the request of two sisters (teachers) Diana and Aida Dani (both
single) they fired me of my home. They didn’t like me
there. They wanted to be the owner of the house and
the economy I had to leave me and my children without anything.
I was obliged to leave the house but not the garden
with trees. It was very necessary for me. I went to leave
in villager house, 300m far way. I walked every day with
my two children, one 4 years old and the other 4
months…My husband worked far of me in the saw enterprise… In the evening he walked for about one hour
to his parents’ home because I had no place for him to
sleep. In the villager house I had really little space and
no conditions. I slept with my children on the floor. I
went every morning with my children on the nursery
church. …I let my children under the shadow of trees.
And I don’t know if these women now old, reading these
true facts would feel a little bad in their conscience.
But my problems have no end….
Ten years after marriage as I first wrote, my husband
was arrested. It was 10th of August 1947. We were married on October 10, 1946. When our first child was born
(November 4, 1947) my husband was in prison. I was so
sad that I had no natural milk for him. But it was difficult because it was wintertime. And in Puka this season
is very hard. It’s even impossible to describe it…Who
has tried know it…I went to leave to my husband’s
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tains and in the depth of the forest…There were 30 of
them. All had only two liters of milk on the day from
one cow. And what my baby drunk was a lot for them,
because there were other children too. There were terrible conditions to feed the child. To heat the milk I got
up in the night on the snow and I went to the fire that
was a little far from the place we slept. I had to heat the
baby bottle of milk in the embers remained. My sleeping place was far way 15 meters. I had to go out of the
house to wash my baby’s clothes and to walk until the
source. So I suffered from the cold every day for going
there passing through the snow more than one meter
high.
They created a false accusation for my husband to
make my life darker than it was. He worked on the
saw enterprise and they accused him that he had caused
troubles in the railway work delaying the materials
needed to build the railway.
…My husband was at work the arrest day, second
shift. It was afternoon. I was at the source where the
village road was too. My husband arrested! He was
between two policemen. In the middle was the spy M.L.
I got very angry when that dirty person said my husband, “Bib God helped you.”
- Oh my God! What an irony! I cursed him and he
bothered to answer me.
- In the honor of our Party I will do the same with
you
Other people that occasionally were there heard this.
Oh my God! This was a big arrow in my heart for me! I
had to take care now of 3 persons in the prison, my broth239
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ers, and my husband. But the State Security wanted
more from us. The spy M L as I stressed before wanted to
keep the promise and arrested me too. Some days later
there in the mountain a great fight happened between
The Security Forces and Illegal Fighters. It was a big
battle. There were dead persons from the two pairs. It
was killed from the illegal fighters Mark Bajraktari, Ndue
Bajraktari son. It is well known that according to Kanun
(Ancient Albanian Law code) the dead person can’t infringed. The communists didn’t respect even this. They
pulled of the dead person half undressed until the big
road. No body learned how the body disappeared. A
corporal, with indignation from what he saw said to his
friends:
-You can pull him off the road as much as you want,
but he was very brave!
We don’t know anything about the Corporal fate but
we didn’t see him any more in that area when he served.
I can tell another case of a maltreatment of a dead
person.
An old man from Kryezi, Preng Llesh Pjetri, had
familiar relations with the mountain people. He had
told me that one day when occasionally he was passing
the road to Kryezi he faced the Security Forces that
had put on the saddle of an animal a man half undresses.
The old man had known the killed person. He has always had a mark on the chest. The killed person was
Ndoc Kolë Biba (Mirakaj). So the communist laugh even
at dead bodies.
The spy M. L. for whom I wrote, kept for a long
time the killed person watch, Mark, that have theft to
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him when he was dead….
This spy wanted to use this moment even against
me. He slandered that I have had relations and I knew
the place when these people had hidden. The Security
Forces came and checked my house everywhere. They
didn’t find anything but this man sent me a notice to go
urgently in the Branch of Interior Ministry in Puka.
My child was 4 months old. I leave him with my sister
in law. I had to walk for about 5 hours, a mountain
road with snow, and wind. My heart was broken too.
My brother in law came with me. We walked, and then
with any trailer car until arrived here. After a lot of
efforts we arrived in Puka, late in the evening, at 9 p.m.
My brother in law went to Mara of Frrok Caka Family,
while I went to the office of the chief Qemal Xhani.
Four hours of questions, hard accuses to frighten me.
He said to me:
- You are married with a villager only because you
wanted to be including in politics. You have had relations with the escapers and have feed them. You are
Christian democrat, fascist, and have relations with the
Pope of Rome; you are enemies of our governing.
- Chief, I said, I am here only because M.F. has slandered, he has threaded me to put in prison. You say I
married an enemy. Lets my husband go to the court
and let me hear what he has done. (He was kept in
investigation for18 months and then was released with
no court). I don’t know what that word called politics
is. You have no proves that I have fed the escaper people,
and this is only a slander because we don’t have even to
feed ourselves. We are the poorest of the village. You
better know who kept in their family the escapers (fam241
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ily that had relations with M. Bajraktari, the moment
he was killed, left passing the border) I didn’t even know
that M. Bajraktari existed. You are accusing me as a
Ballist, Christian democrat, fascist etc, but I ‘m so young
to be part of so many parties.
The chief didn’t speak a word. His secretary,
Mihallaq Treska, continue to ask me:
- How many years of school have you done?
- As much as I needed, I answered.
- You speak as a lawyer.
- You want to revenge of me. Some times ago you
came to Kryesi and you wanted me to ring the bells but
I didn’t accept because the bells rang only for the religion functions.
After three hours the chief said to me:
-Go now, and take care, because I will put in you in
prison otherwise.
I said:
-I will not change my behavior but it’s not right to
slander and to revenge when people are innocent. I will
walk today four hours on the mountains and snow to
go home where my 4 months child is.
After the curtains a prisoner had been. He had told
my husband that was in Puka prison
-Your wife was so brave, a lot of accuses, questions
and pressure are made to her but she answered with
arguments that the chief accuses, Qemal Xhani, were
all false!
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The man mentioned was one of the first communist
of Puka, named Leke Berisha, From Ikballa of Berisha.
And this bad luck man as I have told would die on
tortures of the red beasts.
A sister that writes the truth…
After so many years I am writing something about
my brother, Rrok Mazreku.
He was born In Shkodra in 1920. He was the deputy
at the Tirana church. Then as we have written he was
transferred to the Kryezi of Puka as parson. He took
with him, his mother, Rroku and me. Rroku was master
carpenter and so he began to repair the church of Kryezi.
But except the Kryezi church he repaired even the windows of the church on another church, Flet. So in that
day he faced a sentenced to death person, accompanied
by Security people. He was masked and was going to
tell the places where Pashuk Bibë Mirakaj with the other
men was hidden.
The council chairman Riza Mustafa to revenge toward Dom Nikolli and his family, use this moment,
helped by his brother in law Islam Pema, to accuse Dom
Nikolli that he have sent his brother in Flet to notify the
escapers, to help them to leave. Some days before this
event Riza and the priest, were judged by the representatives of the church, because they have had some contradictions between them, and the right was given to
the priest. Riza used this case to revenge. So Rroku arrested just coming back from Flet. He was tortured inhumanly and with no facts was sentenced with 5 years
of prison.
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Only few months after this arrest, Dom Nikolli was
arrested too, leaving our mother and me alone in that
distant village. That time I was only 18 years
After released from prison, having no other people
in his home in Shkodra, came to live with the mother
and me. But not for long time… The revenge had no
finished yet, this time was called “people enemy” as
incompatible with the communist ideals and over all,
judged as the brother of the arrested priest. These were
very ominous accuses for us that warned bad things in
the future.
In the 5 January of 1950, in the Saw enterprise (was
only an old building) as had happened other times had
fired again and was all scorched. My brothers and 4 other
worker that were far way 100m from the building run
to quell the fire but was late. The Security forces came
at once. It was with them even the criminal Xhemal
Selimi (Uci). Roku and he had a discussion at the Puka
bar, because he had offended Rroku. The worker asked
for the case said that was impossible to quell the fire;
butt Xhemal didn’t want the truth. He said to the workers that Rrok Mazreku burned the building I will put
his head on the foundations of the new building. The
workers insisted, even their chief Lukë Mark Ndoci, but
Xhemal didn’t hear them. He cried like mad, “We have
a people enemy between us. He is a former political
prisoner and as his brother Dom Nikollë Mazreku, they
are incompatible to us they are Christian-democrat etc.
This merciless person took Rroku for 10 months in
investigation, torturing him in a terrible way. Time after time he went to see him to the hospital if he was
recovered and then again tortures. When Roku was at
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the prison hospital, predicting his death he writes us a
piece of letter and gives it to a sanitary named Leze.
“I will be killed for one not committed crime. Please
send me a silver medallion to find my tomb and come
sometimes”.
He has written other letters too. Some of them are
found under the mattress etc. In one of them he writes,
“I am dying mother, but don’t be sad. God has asked to
pay with my life a crime that I have not committed.”
Then after he asked forgiveness all the others he describes the inhuman tortures of the investigation and
many times made from Xhemali. His letters were copied from his brother Dom Nikolli after he was released
from the first prison. But in our family the arrest, confiscation, and checks never ended we have hidden the
letters and unfortunately they are so much damaged
nowadays, as much as can be read with great difficulty.
Xhemal Selimi kept the promise. And after a formal
court hearing, was decide to kill Rroku. So he invited
all the villagers to come near the Stabiliment and see
the execution at 3:00 p.m. (It was the first time for this
criminal to prove such sadist satisfactions) It was 25th of
December, the Christmas day. When Xhemal came with
the other people that would kill Rrok he said loud voice,
“We have rebuild the Stabiliment and you will be
killed.”
Rroku answered, “Where do you want me to stay?”
They said him to stay near the sawdust jumble and
asked him, “What do you have to say?”
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Rroku answered, “Let’s live the free Albania, with a
real freedom!”
He wanted to add something else but they shot him.
Xhemal not content with this use his revolver to hit
died head person. Then he felt down. As seemed he
couldn’t bear the blood. The innocent blood of Rroku…
I t was a celebration day for the entire Christian
world, but unfortunately not in Albania. I heard the
shoots and I run to the place . I was shocked. I saw my
brother lied and covered with blood. I wanted to go
near him, but they didn’t let me. I wanted to hug him
for the last time.
His body was not moved until the night came. They
wanted to frighten the people and also to wait the night
in order that his tomb could not be found. I found some
believable persons to follow the criminal actions. I did
the impossible so with one villager we went to a place
he had fixed and we saw a soil jumble covered with
pine tree branches. There were used matches too. I
opened a little hole and I put the silver medallion and
the blessed water.
His wish, to find his tomb was fulfilled.
But only 41 years later, in December 1991, his bones
were found linked with chains. He was reburied near his
parent’s tombs, in the catholic cemetery of Ermaj, Shkodra.
Rroku was born and grown up in Shkodra but killed
in Kryezi of Puka. He was kind and well known and
friendly with all. So is remembered by Shkodra friends,
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so is remembered even from Kryezi villagers. They are
also witness of his innocence that have expressed so many
times nevertheless having fear.
Gratitude to my sister Mary
I want to express with this letter my thanks for my
sister Marie that I have said to the other people too, I
stress that taking in consideration her sufferings, “She
was the person that did the great prison.”
I have a broken heart because as a consequence of
my prison she suffered and my brother was killed. She
was persecuted and was detested, and considered as
“political touched”. But the children were good in the
school and had a good behavior. Are wounds or sadness the sufferings we passed during the communist
system?
When I was appointed parson in Kryezi-Pukë, began the fight against me as for the entire for catholic
clerk. First they arrested my brother with slandering
accusations. After him, I was put in prison and interment for 37 years, while innocent Roku was killed in
25. 12. 1950.
My old mother couldn’t keep us, so the sufferings
and the consequences suffered this sister of mine. She
was only 17 but I said her to take care of the church,
mother, and the qela (home priest).
She kept open with Monsignor Vinçens Prendushi
order the church of parson, and rang the bells for 15
years. She had helped the interested person for baptism certificate. .
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The first preoccupation for her was I. She didn’t
care as much as for her children as for me. Really, I
suffered a lot, but now I am free.
In the period when I was in prison she needed her
brothers’ help because this honored sister was too
young but she had to take care of herself. She has suffered a lot that period of time. Unfair things, pressures,
maltreatment, tricks of communists and other things
like those…adding here the travels with trains, trucks
full of woods and other materials,, not forgetting here
many km of road from Puka to Tepelena in the cold and
blizzard. And all this not for a little time but for 37
winters and summers days. Even now my poor sisters
have in mind the noise of the iron doors of the Burrel
prison, opening and closing. Arrogant policemen and
officers… Their threat ions…She came happy to see us
but when she left and turned back leaving them in suffering she felt terribly bad. She cried as a child.
I want to tell that all of this I am describing here
have passed many sisters and mothers that have cried
through the prison roads the same as my sister. They
are massacred and pressured and offended from the
communist genocide. I remind this mother and sisters
with respect and deep love.
So that, we have suffered in prison, but our people
have suffered the same, if not more. My sister have suffered a lot for me, she has been near me in any time. Even
though, she had her familiar life, not a good economy
and six children to rise up. Her husband Bibë M. Gjoka
an wise and gracious man…has not impeded her to come
and visit us but many times he had come with her and
for our fault he has done two years of prison.
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When I finished the 25-year sentence in prison and
12 years of interment, I didn’t feel alone because my
dear sister Maria and the others, with the will and graciousness of all the family came and took me to their
home and organized a party for me
I am continually respected in this family. My sister
is old now and sad because of her sons’ death in a young
age. So Kristina the oldest son’s wife has to deal with
all the works. She helps even me. I thank God for the
light he brought in our country. But the bad memories
could not be forgotten easily; when the prisoners were
treated with no mercy, when they were obligated to do
the norm in the water swamps until the middle of the
body, where the leeches drink our little blood
remained…There were a lot the people died in those
efforts. Ah! They didn’t turn to their relatives but they
had not even a tomb, where the mothers, wives, children to put flowers and to cry…
With a great respect,
Dom Nikollë Mazreku
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MARTIN CAMAJ
He was born in Dukagjin in
1925 and studied in the Jesuit
College of Shkodra. Poet Pano
Taci, a political prisoner, has written that Martin Camaj has participated in the Postriba insurgency
and was imprisoned in Yugoslavia.
When he gained freedom, he
escaped from Yugoslavia, moving to Italy, where he studied and
graduated.
He started his academic career in Germany, where he
was appointed as a professor in the Albanian department
of Munich University.
During the time in political exile, he published poems,
novels and stories, and was one of the most famous authors of the Diaspora and a well-known authority in Albanian literature. He died in 1992 in Munich.
We have chosen for this anthology a part from his
metaphoric Kafka-like prose titled “Dranja” where the
author writes about the anxiety and sufferings that a person feels when far of the country.
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Fragments from “DRANJA”
An unexpected call in the telephone
“We have brought a tortoise from your countrytold me a far voice, as if it was from another continent
to the phone –I wanted to ask what does it eat?
”Dranja”? This word escaped to me.
He didn’t understand me and laughed at me badly.
It’s in water strike-he explained-and we did not what
to do with it!
“Leave it free! Let walk in the vineyards and drown
streams and on the trees of figs and in bushes and in
walls, cabbages, and make her a house with a ditch of
water before it. ”
But it’s only a tortoise - he said with contempt - why
must we build her a flat? Just tell me what does it eat?
”Salt?”
”I am telling the truth - I said only that one person
that was born on the umbilicus of the ground as it did,
feels as went away from her place that the globe has a
cup shape and the road to turn back is so ramp for it…
What? Do you mean that it misses its country?
The connection was interrupted.
Today for the first time I felt something like a breath
inside the thought over covering of tortoise, and my
heart something bad felt.
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The world of a language
The sun came out from the cloud, lightening, in the
thought over covering of Dranja between the books. The
entire place was fired, all the plants, the door, and the
hearth inside.
Pure spouts, the rays on the corners sounds, and was
born lights, in the walls in the suffocated shapes of the
light, everything in miniature, everything double, heads
of snakes with their many tongues outside ….in one side,
and in the other-medicines all with their curing names,
The thought over covering seemed like a sun.
Looking outside, the entire soul seemed like a
woman, bound with words, as the flies on the tree, and
on the head and the brain, dragon blood in the tongues.
Triumph, triumph of the breath of the soul, triumph!
But through that light looked that inside the lines thought over covering, inside in the inside of the woman,
decayed the meaning of seed of the words on the sleepiness before getting up. That’s why there were no sounds.
Sluggish blood
When the march was over I waited something nice,
like a good omen. But only the clothes were brought
and moved the snow over the top of the mountain.
“Better look outside,” my mother said in her own
way. We do our duty we never retire. The three old
women together said.
I gazed a place when the snow finish and the forest
began and began the high begins. There were goats and
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deer with their ears standing up. Still wool carried with
endurance in their arms, the grief that left in the bunch
snow paths in that winter.
I came around and saw among the carts covering
the lists was the only picture. Was it a game light? It felt
like sluggish blood. To stand between the top of the
shadow and the skinny path, was to move to the other
season – it’s a law.
Outside on the corner of the mountain some wild
goats waited to go to pasture. In their back the diverse
light glimmered, only black and white. All the March
in my eyes they remained frozen in my eyes.
Daze on the dusk
I fondled the Dranja lines, even that I don’t know
what I did with my fingers, with my ideas before and,
the letter mixed dark and unwashed ideas. One two
three, here the difficulties over the fingers…. After the
ruin on the dusk comes, daze.
The lines, flute inside, prepared to be a nest, outsides
time after time keeps the shape of the cat’s head with a
circle of golden in the neck, home animal tied that is
linked to the fireplace not to people. The daze comes
before the sorrow that goes in the rock.
Lines so full reminds the headache, the snake instead
of hair and all blink snakes. Tomorrow we will be free
again.
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Breathing her soul on the books
It’s not the first time that we tell in books about the
turtle. Even the yellow color match to them, like the land
were they lived and died. Her breathe except every spot
in this circle, not only the dust over the soul, but human
forgiveness, as in every good book , but even the fire.
She has her place in the area, here where it is, like an
old man that has cold and stays on the best corner of
the room.
The surface breathes with vigor in the old and new
letters, as the old man does near the fireplace that except the warmed wise word.
To honor it, in the tortoise cover there are no pens or
pencils or other devices to write. The best it can do is to
keep open a big book that the wind does not move. Let
it be only ornament, artwork, only to see it.
To change a bit the monotony of the cupboard with
many books, it may be put close a candle.
New era
I lost the faith on the spirit of Dranja as my father
did, in the shoulder, which after saw it for many years
could predict any more the future. I had it even before,
but I forget it. Sometimes I saw it in the dream, on the
back swimming in the water. The next day even the
dream I couldn’t remember. No stuff that was in snow.
One day a philosopher came and he saw a logic book.
The brochure with no leather or carton cover, had
hidden in Dranja for years. When the man took the book
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seemed as protected by his mother, as she had kept on
the breast.
Philosophy doesn’t take care of the tortoise bur he
took the book and read it. I cursed the fate, Poor Dranja
breath! It has suffered a lot under this writing with this
old letter of a bad quality.
No one- He said – the letter is old as used so much,
time after time!
Strange - I said cleaning with my shirt sleeve the
surface – how is it possible that a book like this and the
cover of tortoise are together
He didn’t speak. I said to myself he doesn’t care of
humans and I tried to see him. Nobody was at room.
After the second discovery
After the second discovery I put the cover on the
window before the people and the sun. I saw some
things I had not seen first, a necklace with little stones,
cut with a knife, on the sides in some parts, somewhere
thick in the part underneath abdomen
Inside in the deepness I observe some small parts
from the yellow word caught the surface of papyrus.
Inside there was even something else, thick of stories, without an content list. People faces I couldn’t feel,
old or young in the long roads from the countries the
Dranja came up endless. Everything had inside everything – as to be happy to express myself in my own language after several years.
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tain shadow that I had no has time to see every evening
looking the top, perpendicular, over the fields and rivers.
Unspoken voices
I had forgotten not only once that in Dranja, smooth
outside move inside corners and places with bumps. I
discovered that changing place according to the day and
the weather come out shadows and other colors. But
that one day I had to hear a voice on it I had never
thought.
It was Autumn. The apple, grape and peach smell
came from the lighten hills. In the inside there was a
voice was heard, a dumping shout! It was not Dranja
breath, but of a type that suddenly had lost over the
hills, on the trees and could not found the road. It was
put as in prison.
It was the same sound of many bees awake. It became so strong near the pass that it moved as the sound
of a bull or the shooting of a gun, or the seagulls singing, moving stronger through the rocks of the North.
The sound was that strong.
If Dranja would have had that shout when it was
alive, who knows how famous it and me have to be
Foreigners
The bad time came for the owner of the area. He, to
save from this horrible time, try to hear on the hallow
cover the cry of sirens stoned on the mountain, when
this last one was a sea. But there was nothing. He could
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hear only the old wind with their ancient name according the direction and sound. Only one of them was
not affected by the type of evil that moved away even
the bird of snow to hit the glass of the closed window
where he left behind the name of the wind, a new one
with the root of it with a word that means blood, because no dictionary had it.
Then the spider came, it moved in the night in the
white surface as if she wanted to protect from the bad
breath. Looking around the owner seemed to have focused his eyes on the sunrise
So, with that he decided to leave the area forever.
Liberation
Wagons on the railway seem to shape first as some
timid turtles walking not to injure the eggs that had on
abdomen and sometimes seem to shape as a snake in
the open field on the snow, toward the tunnel of sun in
the dawn.
The spring was coming and the wild quince with
red flowers frozen in the rays of the sun and the cold
air.
In that time, after the wish expressed was kept the
promise to separate from the life of Dranja forever.
And I put it in the bag. The place doesn’t look similar to place, the man not to man and the feeling of missing had began before the migration. Where to go?
We saw art monuments, quiet islands, foothills on
the greenery and we never said we will remain here!
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The day closed the day and the sheet of paper the other
unfinished book. In the dusk we entered inside an ancient plain.
Everywhere arches looked angry, and in the environment invaded by the Mediterranean vegetation. At
the end of the gothic abutment, in half dark, was mixed
the noisy passage of the stream, a statue of a woman
with baby limbs. I hid the cover of Dranja there in her
head beneath the tiles with mould. Then I went way
with the sounds of the iron gates on my ears that closed
after I left.
In that time of mine, outside I saw around their relief, my Middle Ages ended. Before of me, on my loneliness stays with open arms over the sea, on the sky
sparks, my spirit was out of the line.
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AS WE SAID YESTERDAY…
(UT HERI DICEBAMUS)
MOTHER THERESA IN ALBANIA
Rev. Zef Pllumi
From ‘Anthology of wound under communist terror”, 2nd
volume
… The Albanian origin of mother Theresa remained
almost unknown to us till the last years of her life. For
the first time I heard speaking about her, before the year
1960, from a colleague of mine, Rev. Zef Bici, a priest in
Tirana, as we were visiting his sister. The sister of Rev.
Bici told me about mother Theresa, but I gave no importance to her history, because I was annoyed of hearing glorious sayings from relatives of people living
abroad.
The second time I heard speaking mother Theresa’s
name was in the prison. Some day, talking to Vasil Kati,
which voyaged around the world as an official of the
state, I asked him privately: did the world opinion considered Enver Hoxha really as an important man? He
replied, after scanning carefully the surroundings from
the fear of being heard, and said to me: You know Zef,
that parties and states through their propaganda, will
‘create’ important men of politics and literature, but in
reality the world opinion knows a catholic Albanian sister, called Theresa Bojaxhiu, living in India and having
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all the love and respect of the world for being the greatest benefactor of this century. I’ve heard that she wanted
to come in Tirana and visit her relatives, but she was
prohibited to do so.
After the death of the tyrant, Theresa Bojaxhiu was
given the possibility to visit the Tirana cemetery, where
her mother and sister were buried. At that time I was in
prison.
Some time later the world affairs were reversed, and
for our people as well it was the same – although at the
last – because we tried to be faithful to MarxismLeninism even after the Berlin wall felt down. But the
torn sack couldn’t bear the burden.
On June 13th 1990, next to the ruins of the sanctuary
of Saint Anthon, in Sebaste of Laç, from all over Albania were summoned approx. 60 thousand men, praying God and Saint Anthon. It was the first time after
years and years that the people behaved fearlessly.
Twenty days after, on July 2nd, began the first exodus of
five thousand Albanians entering the foreign embassies
in Tirana. On November 11th, at the catholic cemetery
of Shkodra, a solemn mass was celebrated from Rev.
Simon Jubani, with approx. fifty thousand participants.
From that day on the freedom of faith was regained, in
all villages and mountains of Shkodra.
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The Communist Persecution in Albania: Brief Historical
Overview
For almost half a century, Albania lived under the
more extreme totalitarian communism in the post Second World War Europe. With the end of the 2nd World
War, the Albanian Popular Republic was declared and
its leader, Enver Hoxha stayed in power until his death,
in 1985, sustaining one of the most repressive systems
in the Eastern Europe. Thousands of people were imprisoned or sent to internal exile; entire families were
persecuted even for slight deviations from the “party’s
strategy”. Aversive towards the “Imperialist West” and
the “Revisionist East”, Albania remained the poorest
and most isolated country in Europe.
The definition of Raymond Aaron for totalitarianism1 most precisely covers the real characteristics of totalitarianism in Albania:
1.The totalitarian phenomenon is present in a regime,
which gives to an only party the monopole of the political
activity;
2.The monopolist party is inspired and carries an ideology, to whom attributes an absolute authority and consequently, it succeeds to become the state official truth;
3.For sharing this official truth, the state engages a double
monopole, the monopole of the forced means, and of brain
washing. All media: radio, television, press are under the state
command and direction.
4.The greatest part of economical activities are imposed by
the state in a way, and all these, acquire the colour of the official
truth;
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5.Since the moment that each activity is a state activity and is
imposed to the ideology, a mistake done in an economical or professional activity is at the same time an ideological mistake. As a
conclusion, all these drives to the politisation of the society, at
the ideological colour of all the possible mistakes of the individuals, and at the end, drives to police terror and ideological too.
If according to Lenin, the dictatorship is “a power
that is not limited by any law, it is not conditioned by
any rule and it is based directly on force”2, the totalitarianism is “a dictatorship of the mass’s politic, a total
power over the individual which aims to create the New
Man”3. The totalitarianisms of the XX century started in
Russia in 1917. It continued then in Italy in 1923 and
Germany in 1933, while in the communist countries of
Eastern Europe the totalitarianisms were established
after 1945. There are recognized changes and particularities between the communist and non-communists
totalitarianisms of Europe. These changes consist on the
ways of establishment, duration and the forms of their
break down.
Ways of coming in power. The non-communist dictatorships in Italy and Germany came into power in a
way considered legal, such as “will of majority”. The
communist dictatorships have been respectively established: a) in Russia through the coup d’etat and followed
by a bloody civil war; b) in Yugoslavia and in Albania
from the communists parties, by combining the liberation war with elements of the civil war; c) in the other
communist countries of the Eastern Europe, the totalitarianisms were imposed by force from the Soviet Union.
The fascist and the Nazis totalitarianisms maintained
the institutions (the legal power, the police, the army).
The private small or big enterprises were not en262
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croached. On the other hand, the communist totalitarianism was more radical on reforms towards state institutions, bank-owners and industrials. At the same time,
the reforms were extreme; eliminating private ownership, total monopolization of the society life, limitation
or prohibition of religion, etc.
Duration of the European totalitarianisms
Non-communist totalitarianisms
Fascism in Italy 1923-1944
Nazis in Germany1933-1945
Communist totalitarianisms:
Russia 1917-1989
Eastern Europe1945-1989
Albania 1944-1991
The ways of the totalitarianisms break down. The
Fascist and Nazis totalitarianisms broke down by means
of a World War, while the communist totalitarianisms
naturally failed and passed to democratic states peacefully (except Rumania). Differences are evident as for
the crimes and persecution level, consequences and
post-totalitarian attitudes. The communist totalitarianism brought consequences, which differ from those
caused by other totalitarianisms. The “War of Classes”
has created a considerable level of hostility infringing
unity within the Albanian society. This factor makes the
difference in the deal with consequences from the former
regime.
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At present there are encountered resistances towards punishing the past, difficulties in the transition
from the socialist economy to the free market, etc. It
seems that the differences between the totalitarianisms
are accompanied with differences in the process of dealing with the processes of rehabilitation and integration in the post-totalitarian democratic societies.
Kinds of political persecution
Penal condemnations
- Death condemnations
- Imprisonment until 25 years
- Internal exile (as to complete the condemnation)
Administrative condemnations
- Internal exile
- Forced hard labour
- Violation of the right to exercise the profession (arts
and sports included)
- Uncharged from leading functions
- Pressure to getting divorced
- Exclusion from universities
- Prohibition of pension
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The condemnations were given not only for antiState and anti-Party “activities”, but also for deviations or political-ideological influences or the bourgeoisrevisionist lifestyle. Penal Code foresaw death condemn
even if no action was undertaken or no consequences
derived from it. Death penalty was foreseen also under
the constitution article “Agitation and propaganda”,
escape, sabotage in art and culture, etc. Discrimination
of citizens belonging to the rich class, families with an
intellectual and political background; officers of Monarchy was extensively used in the first years of the dictatorship.
Why communism in Albania was particular
The communist totalitarianism in Albania presents
some particularities compared to the other communist
countries of the Eastern Europe:
1. It was established through a war with elements of
the civil war (like in Yugoslavia).
2. It was one of the cruellest and longest of the
Stalinist kind. The executions, torture and maltreatments, massive political imprisons, internal exiles of
familiars continued until end of ’80-ies.
3. Extreme absurd reforms were undertaken:
Total confiscation of private property.
Prohibition of private profession
Prohibition of religion
A strong “war of classes”.
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The only communist country in Europe, which
applied the Chinese totalitarianism in lifestyle,
art, politics, etc.
A total isolation from the external world.
Periods of the totalitarian communist dictatorship
in Albania
The part dealing with the dictatorship periods tries
to give a comprehensive description of the persecution
history. It is based on the hypothesis that the dynamics
of political persecution in Albania was mainly determined by the (external and internal) political changes.
The key events that settled boundaries in between the
lifespan of dictatorship were present both outside and
inside the State including death of Stalin (1953), moderation era (1956), establishing relations with China
(1960-61), break of relations with China and total isolation (1978).
The National Liberation War: the beginnings of the
communist terror
Since its foundation, the Albanian Communist Party
(ACP) was aiming to come in power. Part of its program
was also use of the national liberation war to take power
and establish the communist regime. With the foundation of ACP, in 1941, the war for eliminating possible
competitors in the head of this party started.
In 1943, with the infringement of “Mukje’s agreement”, a deliberate effort of the Albanian political forces
for being united in the war for liberation, the elements
of a civil war obviously appeared4. As it results from
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the register of the Institute of Integration of Former Political Persecuted, Tirana, there were executed 2386 persons by the ACP and partisan forces during the period
of December 1941 - November 1944.
In “History of Prisons of Albania” facts are included
on massacres of partisan forces in villages of Lushnje
(62 victims), Martanesh (22 victims), Diber (103 victims),
Lume (24 victims), Moker (75 victims) during 1943-44.
Declarations of ocular witnesses have revealed that torture has been used with the main aim of acquiring information.
The establishment of the proletarian dictatorship’s
state: November 1944 - August 1948
During this period, the terror against real and possible opponents of the regime continued. There were
used instruments of massive terror including executions,
internally exile and imprisonments. 2102 persons have
been executed during this period.5 In 01.03.1945 the
military court gave 17 capital condemns; 8 life imprisonments; 10 condemns with 30 years imprisonment; 23
condemns with 2-20 years imprisonments. The capital
condemns given by Nuremberg court were 10, while
by the Albanian court 17.6
Torture has been used for catching the escapees, disarming the population and eliminating any resistance
against the dictatorship establishment. Torture has been
also used for gathering extraordinary taxes, gold and/
or other goods merchants had. Torture was used even
for gathering the taxes of agrarian products.
In order to eliminate the resistance of democratic
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ishments of opponent activities against the dictatorship establishment there have been given many condemnations for intellectuals as a possible risk for the
communist dictatorship consolidation. In 1947 there
happened 4749 imprisonments.7 The majority of the
condemned were nationalists, political activists involved in defence of the Albanian cause; those who did
not contested German occupation.8 A violent persecution was also applied against religious institutions.
Only in 1947 there were given condemns of imprisonment for 16 orthodox clericals; 36 catholic clericals; 44
Muslim clericals and 1 nun.9 In 1947 in Albania 18 prisons (8 for political prisoners, 7 for ordinary criminals
and 3 mixed) were functioning. In this year the firsts
working camps were established.10
During this period the conditions in prisons were
very difficult because of the economical crisis after the
Second World War. The characteristics of this period in
Albanian prisons were: the famine, thieve, and diseases.
Another characteristic was that prisons were filled with
political persecuted. In 1948 the value of forced unpaid
work was 10,780,424,50 lek.
During the first years, a special characteristic is condemnations of over 25 years-imprisonments and execution without trials. A largely used mechanism by the
regime were massive internally exiles of political opponents families. The regime pressed any resistance exerting an extremely high terror over the population. An
example is the Postriba’s movement, in 1946. This is the
period of the hardest terror and of the highest use of
torture.
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The Consolidation of the Stalinist Dictatorship: September 1948 - December 1954
This period represents the political consolidation of
the communist dictatorship, which was marked by an
increase of terror and persecution. In the Integration
Institute there are registered 836 executions. In 1950
there were done 7168 imprisonments; 2000 internal exile condemns; in a total 9168. The “War of Classes” was
exerted more extensively and hardly. There have been
improvements although not evident on the treatments
of the imprisoned. At the beginning of this period the
high level of previous crimes was attributed to the hostile activity of Koçi Xoxe and the influence of Yugoslavians. In this line a number of communists considered
as unfaithfully persecuted were rehabilitated.
The population of Albania in this year was 1.218.900
habitants, thus 1 in 132 persons was in prison: 735 imprisonments in 100.000 habitants. After 1950 there were
established closed prisons of Elbasan, Durres, Berat and
Gjirokastra, and 4 working camps in Tirana and Lushnje.
The prisons map totally changed after the Second World
War. The reasons were that:
1)Due to the penal politics the number of imprisonments increased. The initial capacity of prisons was 3000
persons, but the number of persons placed there was
7000.
2)The use of prisoners work (in all the country were
10 working camps).
The conditions in prisons were indecent. The annual
report 1954 of Prisons and Camps Directory shows that
conditions in prisons improved; that there were no cases
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of escapes; treatment of incarcerated had improved and
human rights were respected. But in the evidences of
the same directory there are signed 77 cases of death in
prison and 53 in camps of internal exile (pg 116). In 1954
there were 5 prisons and 4 camps. The prisons were in
Tirana, Vlora, Korça, Burrel, Shkodër.
The Liberalisation Era in the Socialist Camp: 1955 (December) 1959
Under the influence of the liberalisation changes after death of Stalin, in the so-called “socialist camp”, Albania included, there has been a decrease of political
condemnations and internal exiles, and a reduction of
the “War of Classes” in general. However, within this
period there have been 93 executions. Measures were
taken for the working camps were no more exterminating camps, but treatment of detainees were out of the
international norms and standards: they slept on cement
floors, were beaten systematically as a disciplinary measure, the food was insufficient, etc. In order to keep the
prisoners under a terror climate, because of escape tentative, four prisoners were executed during this period.
“Chinese” Model of Totalitarianism in Albania: 1960
- 1990
This period can be divided in some sub periods:
1) 1960 - (June) 1973
During this period, the war of classes returned to
Stalinist methods. Trials and death penalties restarted.
There have been 139 executions. This period represents
the total isolation of Albania also from Eastern Europe
and embracement of the Chinese model of totalitarianism. According to this model, the most famous music
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and literature international works, elements of the private ownerships, and especially the religion rituals and
faith were prohibited. On behalf of the so- called “New
Man”, a lot of interventions over the scholar education,
the life style, the social relationships, were done. The
human rights violations reached the peak during this
period. In 1961, there were 4345 prisoners divided in 6
work camps and 4 prisons11.
This is the period where the amnesties for prisoners
were reduced. In November 1962, for the 50-years Anniversary of Independence there were given amnesty
to 1211 ordinary prisoners and 144 political prisoners.
Ordered by the Ministry Council in 1966, the prisoners
condemned with forced work began to build 150 apartments. In 1962, the political re-education began to be
applied not only among ordinary prisoners, but also
with political prisoners. In the general amnesty of this
year were forgiven 179 political prisoners. In 1966, in
Kuçova it was established the first working camp only
for women that before were held in Tirana’s camps. The
disgraceful conditions are evidenced as 1 room available for 60 women prisoners12.
2) July) 1973 - (December) 1981
This is the period “against the liberalisation”. The class
war became more powerful over the so-called “ideological front”. This is also the period of superstructure hard
attacks: arts, economy and army. The artists, writers and
composers were attacked. A typical example of these art
attacks was the denunciation of the 11-th Festival of Radio
and Television. At the same time, members of the army
and economy got death penalties and serious condemnations. In 1973, the number of detained increased 28%.
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In this period it is noticed an increase of the administrative condemnations, which in essence was a Chinese model. The number of the executions during this
period is 74. In 1978, 129 prisoners and 48 internal exiled died in prisons. As a result of the foreign politics of
E.Hoxha, after getting closer to the Chinese and the
Americans policies, Albania remained alone in a complete isolation. It was officially declared as “the only
socialist country” in the world. In order to keep his
power, E. Hoxha continued to exert an extreme terror.
3) 1982 - (April) 1985
The period after the break with China was marked
by the elimination of persons who were waiting to be
the successors of Enver Hoxha, which had used the politics of terror and violence and definition of the final
successor, Ramiz Alia.
4) 1985 - (December) 1991
After death of Hoxha, Alia followed the politics of
continuity while the country was facing extraordinary
economical problems. The number of executions during this period is 88.
As a result of the increasing pressure from events of
the other countries of Eastern Europe and the catastrophic economical situation, the regime was obliged
to allow some democratic processes. This brought to
political pluralism and permission of religion in 1990.
Although, Albania was the country which made fewer
reforms compared to the other communist countries and
was the last to allow pluralism.
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Torture and Ill-treatment
In the “socialist” Albania, law forbade the use of torture in investigator’s offices and in prisons. In reality,
torture was used in investigation offices, jails and in
places of condemnation. Since the moment of arrest, the
captured was put on torture. In the majority of cases,
the hands of the arrested person were tied behind his
back and were maximally strained. According to live
testimonies, torture was used since the National Liberation War.
In the National Historical Museum in Tirana, in the
department of the communist genocide, around 20 kinds
of physical torture used in the Enverian dictatorship
prisons are listed. The types of tortures are:
1.the torture’s vest.
2.sexual torture by means of harming the genital organs.
3.beating and flogging.
4.deprivation of sleep, food and staying on their feet
for days.
5.electrical torture
6.hanging the heavy weights chains on sb. neck
7.hanging by arms and feet in a window or in a hook
in some positions, in order that only fingers of the feet
could touch the floor.
8.placing salt in the mouth.
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9.mock execution, shooting and rising over the hanging triangle.
10.submarine: putting the head into the water barrel.
11.burning the skin with a cigarette or with iron heat.
12.putting alcohol in the hands or hair and giving
burn afterwards.
13.breaking bones and hooking the skin out of
sb.with pincers.
14.giving to sb.a very salty food and then leaving
him without water.
15.putting sb. in the cold water and letting him wet
in winter.
16.gradually minimizing the quantity of food.
17.use of chemical substances.
18.putting helmets on the head.
19.tying with shackles, by legs and arms, for an indeterminate period.
20.using the bee’s beehive toward the undressed captured.
Additional methods of torture were mentioned in
the study of Mr. Agim Musta, a former politically prisoner, who has conducted a research on the political persecution and torture during the communist dictatorship.
Clients treated at the Albanian Rehabilitation Centre for
Torture Victims have also reported some of the methods:
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1.the ironed coffin.
2.putting sb.in the hole of excrements (this kind of
torture was used in camps).
3.tying in concrete pillars in places exposed to the
sun, until death.
4.raping family members in front of the captured.
5.those who were trying to escape, using a border
dog for biting them (this kind of torture was largely used
in the border zones).
6.the ironed bed (the prisoner was laying undressed
on the ironed bed that was gradually heating).
7.putting a cat in the trousers of the women; striking
hard with a bar for injuring the sexual organs and other
parts of the body.
8.blowing off the pump through the anus.
9.the dental torture (breaking and pulling out teeth).
10.placing hot oil over the undressed body.
11.placing boiled eggs under the arms and hooking
nails out with pincers.
12.walking barefoot on the fiery coal.
13.putting air through the veins with an injection.
14.the excitement of wounds with the ironed bar of
the riffle, used by the police forces to capture the escapers, wounded in efforts to escape.
The same author mentions that beside physical torture, the psychological torture was used to damage the
victim’s personality. Some kinds of the psychological
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torture commonly used in jails during the dictatorship
are:
1.Deprivation. This torture consists on depriving the
victim from the sensations; sleeping; contact with
people; natural and artificial lighting.
2.Threat. The victim was threatened to torture, execution, and elimination of his family members and relatives.
3.Humiliation. The investigators humiliated the victim by teasing and insulting, directed not only toward
him, but also his relatives. The victims were obliged to
drink the urine and to eat the excrement of the investigators.
During the investigations, the victims were tortured
not for obtaining the needed information, but for hurting them physically and mentally, and for using the victims to terrorize the other part of the Albanian society,
which was living outside the jails. Torture was exerted
in 26 Branches of Intern Affairs, which were Directories
in the cities of Tirana, Korca and Shkodra.
In the Branch of each district, there were a number
of cells, with the dimensions of 2m x 1,20m. But besides
these, there were some “special” cells with dimensions
1m x 0,5m, in which the arrested couldn’t lye himself,
couldn’t stay on his feet, the only thing he could do was
sitting down or cross-legged.
In March of 1993 the newspaper “Revival” of the
former political persecuted of Tirana association, published a 186 names list, accusing them for having used
torture, terror, and violence against the people. The perpetrators of torture were:
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•
Senior servants of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.
• Procurers and judgers, which have judged for political reasons.
• Investigators for political issues, which have used
torture during the investigating process.
• Security chiefs, in the centre and in other districts,
which have used torture and violence.
• Prison’s and obliged working camps commanders
with political prisoners, which have used tortures and
violence during exercising their job.
The torture exertion was a reality, which is confirmed
by the documentation on perpetrators. In the book “The
dossier of dictatorship” of Mr. Pjetër Pepa there published some facsimiles of former leaders of the Albanian Security, taken from the archive of Ministry of Interior Affairs of Albania.
Lefter Lakrori declares: “At the opportunity of Shkodra
movement (it is about the Postriba movement of 9 September
1946) We have been sent in Shkodra for helping Later even
Vaskë Koleci came with us. We had access for torturing and
we have had people dieing in our hands. Every captured has
faced torture”.
Naum Bezhani declares: “Since I have been in the section of Security of Korça, two persons died because of torture.
About them it is said that “they were killed” because they
tried to escape. The used tortures during the years 1945-1947
are too many. K. Xoxe and V. Koleci (respectively the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the director of State Security 1945277
Anthology of Wounds
1948 A.M.) not only didn’t stop us, but they taught us and
inspired us for this kind of job. In spite of the other tortures,
we have used, during this period, even tortures like: hanging
over the neck heavy chains; putting excrement into the mouth,
biting a prisoner by another provoker prisoner, which was
making as a dog, putting dirty socks into the nose and the
mouth”.
Kopi Niku declares: “K. Xoxe told us to kill, to burn
and beat and to do whatever we wanted, the only aim was
destroying the criminals. Torturing and thrashing was our
duty.”
Koçi Xoxe- ex vice prime minister and minister of
Interior Affairs during the period 1945-1948, declares
in front of the court: “I ordered, that to the arrested should
be given less food, less water and should be tortured to death.
In February of 1945, we ordered V. Koleci, for killing in the
North without processes. For the executions I was advised
and they were made as comrade commander ordered. (it is
understood Enver Hoxha). There has been even a bureau
decision about this. (Minute from the Koçi Xoxe sayings
in May 1949. taken from the book “The Dossier of Dictatorship” of Pjetër Pepa).
1
As cited by Lèon Poliakov,
Totalitarizmat e Shekullit të XX
, Botime Përpjekja, 1987, f.7.
2
Stanley Chodorow, Mac Gregory Knox, “ The Mainstream of
Civilization”.
3
Ibid
4
B.Fischer, “
Shqipëria gjatë Luftës, 1939-1945",
Çabej, 1999, f.208
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5
Reference by the data base of the State Institute of Integration
for Former Politically Persecuted
6
F.Sufaj,
“Historia e burgjeve të Shqipërisë gjatë shekullit të XX”,
Albin, 2000,
pg. 110.
7
pg. 106
8
pg. 111
9
pg. 111
10
pg. 116
11
pg. 126
12
pg. 12
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Anthology of Wounds
280