Grabjani on Hills' Edge

A Few Words about Lekë Tasi’s Novel: Grabjani on Hills’ Edge

by Petro Zheji

While there are other literary testimonies written about the suffering of our people under communism, the novel Grabjani on Hills' Edge, a long narration in the form of a diary, offers something different.

The author himself is one of the characters described in the diary who suffers along with many others under unjust punishment at an inhuman internment camp that goes beyond any boundaries imaginable. The novel is a series of spine chilling episodes and scenes narrated with astonishing clarity and accuracy with every dreary color of Dante’s inferno. The author is not satisfied with an evidential description of events; he searches for and discovers in his long, deep and detailed political, philosophical and psychological analysis, the hidden roots driving the events he describes.

The author’s flowing, tranquil style, resembling the way a scientist in a lab patiently observes, bent over his microscope studying the viruses of a disease, enables the reader to understand, observe, touch, and join spiritually in everything.

The writer is practiced in the art of painting which, in my opinion, allows him to easily interpret in a picturesque, symmetric, prospective and colorful language all he focuses on with painful, heart wrenching descriptions, almost a “sick” curiosity, and with tireless awareness and a keen eye.

No one convicted thinks himself guilty, especially when entirely innocent in relation to Justice and God, but not according to the Injustice misgoverning the country, not according to the devil, “la bestia trionfante,” to whom is given (and still unknown for how long) an unlimited power.

The novel is full of poetic passages, evidence of a rare poetic virtuoso. The pain described wrenches inconsolable groans out of the Weltschmerz, not only on the social level, but on celestial and metaphysical levels as well.

A gallery of masterfully sculpted characters is shown to us in a frightening phantasmagoria. These characters interact day and night in an unequal duel with the devil while trying to save their own lives, moreover their eternal spirit. In the Bible, Christ says, “What value does winning even the entire world hold, if one must lose his spirit?”

It was difficult, almost impossible, to not let the heavenly spark be extinguished in that chaotic Hell where Evil and his over-zealous agents (security spies, provocateurs—in short, an entire army of human manure of this sort) weave a never-ending, wily, and unpredictable net, tirelessly setting cunning traps. This, especially, is one of the central themes of the novel on which the author concentrates.

His use of language, like a magic wand, changes mere words to poetic gold. His character’s presence and participation in all sufferings, conceivable and inconceivable, that his unfortunate internment friends are put through is almost superhuman, like that of a saint. It is so real and vivid, so deeply felt, so communicative, that after reading this novel, which reveals unheard of evidence of crimes committed under the guise of the law upon the defenseless victims and even of its catastrophic psychological consequences, you can no longer be indifferent or passive toward the Evil in the world, which Leopard calls with poetic terms, “il brutto Poter che ascoso, a comun danno impera…” You feel like something has moved or changed for the better in the depth of your soul. So great is the power of the spell bound through writing which is both convincing and purifying.


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

A Day to Remember: Death of the Dictator

Mussolini was hanged by an outraged crowd. Hitler’s final choice was to kill himself. Stalin’s death was the fulfillment of the wish of millions of people for this cruel dictator to suffer…suffer…suffer. Despite the fact that he escaped all legal and moral retribution, he suffered a major stroke on March 1, 1953 and was found lying on the floor in a pool of urine, powerless and incapable of speech. As a consequence of his earlier cruelty, medical care was delayed. When doctors did arrive, they found him partly paralyzed, breathing with difficulty and vomiting blood. Stalin struggled on for a number of days, dying on March 5.
“The death agony was terrible,” said his daughter. “He literally choked to death as we watched.”

Man who Laughs
by Fritz Radovani

The movie theater, Republika, in Shkodra, Albania, featured the film, The Man who Laughs. To this day, that film reminds me of events as joyful for the citizens of Shkodra as they are shameful and disturbing to its youth.
On the fifth of March, 1953, the nonpareil dictator of the twentieth century, Joseph V. Stalin, died. His name is spine chilling for all Europeans who endured any of the communist dictatorships. This cruel dictator was the worst human rights and freedom violator, not only for the peoples of the USSR, but for all the Eastern European countries, including our ill-fated tiny Albania, oppressed under the hoof of Stalin’s replica, Enver Hoxha.
“The deep mourning” following the death of the “father” of communists across the world would sadden even the children of the Albanian Communist Party who would be born twenty years later. His monuments and sculptures molded out of cement were dressed in soviet flags, surrounded with military honorary guards on all sides, with children and youth reciting poems about this “great loss” nearby. Albanian flags hung half mast on utility poles. Stores were closed. Funeral marches were led by the city band. Military personnel with all sorts of medals upon their breasts were seen. Communist martyrs’ mothers were in tears while masses of distraught people gathered. One could hear the calls over the loudspeakers for the further heightening of “revolutionary vigilance.” The combination gave the city of Shkodra a truly depressing image.
In schools, factories, businesses, streets and plazas, the signal was given at a certain time to hold five minutes of silence in “mourning.” We, the students of the pedagogical school, were in the same building as the students of high school “November 29.” As the signal was given by the school bells we stood up in military position. The five minutes seemed never-ending.
Students were ordered to avoid the courtyard during the break time. Pedagogues were called to an urgent pedagogical council meeting. After forty minutes, all students went down to the gym. No one knew what had happened. The boarders were making signs to one another but no one understood the situation. The gloomy weather made the atmosphere and the happenings in the school corridors even murkier, where “the observers” stood at every corner.
The first to descend the stairs was the headsman of the school, Skender Villa. He had been a member of the communist interrogation commissions in Korça since 1945 and a state security spy from the time he was member of the Fascist Party of that city. He was followed by the secretary of the Communist Youth Organization Committee, the primary lever of the secret works, Jani Çomo.
With his very first words Skender Villa spoke of the “shameful” act of student Leonard Ljarja. “He laughed… do you understand… he laughed when the entire world is crying… this villain, not only has laughed but he has also left the school… The pedagogical council unanimously has banished him from all the schools… forever… He is no longer part of our revolutionary new life!”
“The man who laughed,” student Leonard Ljarja, was arrested two to three days afterword and convicted and sentenced to many years in prison, twelve of which he served in communist extermination camps. After he was released from prison he continued doing hard labor jobs in construction and on farms.
Leonard Ljarja was from an honorable anticommunist family from Shkodra. Gjoni, Ndoci, Luigji, and Engineer Gasper Ljarja, were within the close circle of this young man, who, together with most of the Shkodra’s youth, spent the prime of their lives aging in communist prisons and concentration camps, nailed by the class struggle.
This true story is a lesson to those who risk “laughing” in the communist system!

Last Farewell
by Ismail Kadare

Wreaths and wreaths never-ending,
Wreaths all stars, flowers all;

And eyes in tears heartbreaking

And poignant sighs that mourn.

O comrades!

For the last time today,

The father, crowds escort unbounded

With bitter tears and throbbing pain,

With broken hearts, badly wounded.

And now, amidst silence, in ether,

A known voice, is heard serenely.

Today for us, comrade Enver,

A loyal oath takes solemnly.

Red flags, half mast the wind sways,

The thundering cannons fill the air;

To Stalin the unbounded crowd waves,

Last farewell.

Therefore, farewell great friend, father!

Our hearts bid you farewell today.

With Lenin alongside, together

You will be laid.

Rests now

In silence he,

For no,

He has not died!

He lives

Eternally!

His words

Forever guide!

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

The Church in the Garden of Gethsemane

By Zef Pllumi


November 1944

The national holiday, 28 November 1944, was a cold, sombre day, perhaps the most sombre one since the declaration of independence. Since childhood, we had celebrated that day with lights, colour, songs, lots of noise and the waving of flags. The flags still fluttered on the bell towers of the churches, but they looked lonesome up there and no one paid any attention to them that day. The Germans had all left their barracks, offices and guard posts, and departed for Montenegro. Shkodra was expecting the arrival of the partisans who had been waiting on Bardhaj Hill, in Postriba and on the other side of the Bahçallëk Bridge for the Germans to leave.
That night, we heard several explosions that were so strong, they shattered the windows of many homes. A German motorcyclist had returned from the border crossing at Hani i Hotit to set off the mines placed under the bridges connecting the town to the plains. After these explosions, which marked the definitive departure of the Germans, no one slept a wink all night. There was a sense in the Franciscan Monastery where we were living that the West had taken an historic step at that moment and was abandoning us, and that in Albania, war would be declared on the Catholic Church, a struggle that would probably jeopardise the very survival of the Catholic population in the country. This was not unexpected by the Catholic clergy; one might even say they saw it coming. We had begun many years ago to prepare the young people, in lessons and lectures, on how to come to terms with the savage persecution that might climax in our extinction.
During morning prayers, at five to six o'clock, the whole Franciscan community gathered around its leader, Father Mati Prendushi, and in fervent prayer, we sought salvation from the Almighty. The Catholic Church in Albania was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" This was our prayer, but it was the will of God.
At about 10:30-11:00 on that cold and sombre morning of 29 November, partisan brigades led by Major Gjin Marku were seen coming down the main roads into town. A red star had been added to the Albanian flag they were bearing. We observed them through the bars of the windows. It must be said truthfully that, with the exception of a few individuals known for being pro-communists, the Catholic population of the town did not participate in any celebrating, whereas most of the Muslim population, decked out in their finest clothes, gave the impression of taking part in a joyful occasion. The partisan army, garbed in various and sundry types of foreign army dress, was a very motley force - hungry, raggedy, and wearing sandals. All the greater impression was made, not by the clothing, but by the partisans themselves. What mothers could have given birth to such children with rifles slung over their shoulders?
There was no way they could be accommodated in the barracks. They had no other clothing or even food with them. So the partisans were billeted with local families, three to a house, sometimes six or seven. The population took them in, fed them and became infested with vermin. They were not good people. They snooped around the houses, looking for Germans or for "reactionaries" in hiding. The first thing they did was to get the prisons back into working order and fill them to the hilt with innocent people. They gave the prisoners no food, so their families had to come and feed them, otherwise they would have starved to death. And the food brought by the family members went more to feed the hungry partisans than to keep their poor, tortured victims alive. Rumours soon began to fly that they killed X or Y, or that others had disappeared without a trace.
Who was the head of this new government? The name of Enver Hoxha started to circulate, a figure completely unknown in northern Albania up to then. The new Albanian Government was constituted in the month of December. No one knew if it was a military or a civilian government. Its officials had high positions, but no real power. Power was in the hands of a wide variety of local partisan commanders now installed in other people's homes.
The brigades in Shkodra were reorganised. Major Gjin Marku and the first wave of men were crossing over the border to provide "fraternal assistance" to the peoples of Yugoslavia. Shkodra was filled with partisan brigades. Everyone was surprised at where all the soldiers had come from, more men than even the foreign armies had had! The partisans said that they had come to chase the Germans right to Berlin, but they did not even have proper shoes on their feet. In general, they were not people one could discuss things with. Their behaviour was appalling. They gobbled down the food and broke the drinking glasses. Albania had witnessed many a foreign army, but never one like this.
Right after 29 November 1944, there began an incomparable movement on the road from Shkodra to Podgorica, and this at a time when communication with Tirana was extremely difficult because the bridges were down. The rivers could only be forded on rafts with armed partisan guards. Albanians and Montenegrins crossed over the border freely and mingled as if there were no border at all. Where was the real power in Albania? It was the trobojnica (Montenegrin flag) that ruled the land. Masses of three-coloured Yugoslav flags were to be seen in the streets, on all government buildings, and on every house. How did they manage to find so many of those flags so quickly, flags that the population, fearing a new period of enslavement for the Albanian nation, looked at with disapproval?
As soon as the schools were opened, all of them, without exception, began to sing the national anthem of that foreign flag: "Ej slovenski još živi," "co bajrak ne vije," "živi, živi jugoslovenski" and "ide druže Tito preko Albanije…, preko Albanije…" I do not know what that means or how to write it properly, but this is how I remember it from the time, with the melodies). Our national songs were no longer sung.
Several days passed. It was only on the bell tower of the Franciscan church dominating the centre of town that no trobojnica had been raised. A sad-looking Albanian flag, but the real one without a star or pickaxe, still waved in the breeze all by itself. No one regarded it as their flag anymore. It struggled to survive the storms of that communist winter and, though torn and faded, it continued to fly.
One day in December, two partisans knocked on the gate of the Franciscan Monastery. "We want to go up to the bell tower."
The doorman called me because I was the one who went up the tower every day to fix the hands of the clock, from which all of Shkodra got the time. In actual fact, this was the duty of Father Filip Mazreku. He had put the Albanian flag up there on 27 November 1944, but because I was young and willing, he entrusted the keys to me. I ran to get Father Filip and informed him that two partisans were at the gate and wanted the keys to the bell tower. "Listen," he said, "I cannot stand the look of them. You know, they murdered my brother in Tirana without leaving a trace. We don't even know where he is buried, so that we could say a prayer for him or lay some flowers. You go with them. You've got the keys. But listen to me, don't leave them alone for a second. God only knows what they're up to."
"We have been sent by the command to take down that rag flying from the tower. It's a disgrace," they stated, "for that rag without the partisan star on it to be flying over the main square in town!"
"But we don't have any other one."
"We have brought one with us, brand new! Look at it, it's the flag of our Yugoslav brothers and has a partisan star on it."
"Two flags?" I inquired. "But we've only got one flagpole. We've never had two flags."
"Well, you people put up the Italian flag, didn't you?"
"Never."
"What about the Vatican flag?"
"No, never."
"Well, what shall we do then?"
"Whatever you think."
"We'll go back and get another flagpole. You wait right here for us."
When they came back with another flagpole, they asked me for the keys to the bell tower once more. I climbed up to the top of the tower with them, above the clock, to where the flag was hanging. They were amazed at the view of the town below them.
"Wow. Look how beautiful it is from here!"
From that vantage point you could see all of Shkodra. When they had had their fill of the town, they took the flagpole off the holder and put the new flag out with the partisan star.
Goosebumps covered my whole body. That heroic flag of the Albanian highlands, worn and torn, and now lay there like a corpse. When they tried to raise the Yugoslav flag, the pole would not fit into the holder.
"Where can we put up the flagpole? It doesn't fit. Damn!" they said, and asked: "Do you have any wire so that we can attach it to the railing?"
"No, I don't. But listen, even if there were wire, it wouldn't hold because it is stormy up here. You need a proper holder."
"Damn it all," they muttered, "we really do need a holder. Why didn't you say that in the first place?"
"I didn't know, I never thought of it."
"Wait here, and we will go and get a mason."
They climbed back down and departed, returning with the mason. He affixed two new holders on the tower. On the side opposite to the Albanian flag now flew the Yugoslav flag. We had two flags."
The new power base, the Committee of the Party, was down in the city centre, in the recently constructed house of the businessman, Zef Koka. The two hooded partisans shouted down to someone on the ground. This person, standing out on the street, was giving instructions with his hands. They removed the flags once again and changed their positions. Where the Albanian flag had flown was now the Yugoslav flag. On the other side was the partisan flag, but it could hardly be seen because of the apse of the church.
That evening, in the mess hall of the Franciscan Monastery, there was silence, as if some close family member had died. No one spoke a word. After dinner, Father Mati Prendushi called me aside and asked:
"Have you got the keys of the bell tower?"
"Yes, Father Filip gave them to me to regulate the hands of the clock."
"Were you the one who hoisted the Yugoslav flag?"
"No, not at all. Two partisans came and put it up."
"Did you not know," he continued, "that the flag of Scanderbeg was first hoisted on that spot on 12 June 1913 and that the brothers defended it with rifle in hand? Did you not know that Father Gjergj Fishta was condemned to death because of that flag? Did you not know that even the Montenegrins, when they entered Shkodra in 1915, did not dare to remove the flag? And did you not know…"
"Father," I interrupted, "I know all that. The men who put the Yugoslav flag up were two partisans who came with rifles, sent from the command. What could I have done? Fight with them over it?"
"No, no, I'm not saying you are to blame. But it's a disgrace! If it had only not come to this! How can the Yugoslav flag be flying from our church steeples? Oh Lord, behold and judge!... Non-believers only think of their own personal gain. And what did the partisans say? Were they impressed when they saw the Yugoslav flag flying?"
"They said they were just carrying out orders from the command. In fact, I heard them say they wanted to install a machine gun up on the bell tower."
"A machine gun?"
"Yes, a machine gun, because you can control the whole town from the tower."
"We have always known what kind of freedom the Serbs have given us! But what kind of Albanians are these partisans working for the Slavs? They have sent our sons off to be killed there. Poor Albania, that's fallen into their clutches!"
Normal life in town was paralysed. There was no more travel or telephone, no shops or businesses opened, no government offices or official records. On rare occasions, a piece of paper stamped with a partisan seal could open doors. Albania was petrified and had fallen into a coma. Educated people did not know what to do. The uneducated had taken power, and this was only the start.
Several days later, military operations began in town with identity checks and searches. All the houses in town, without exception, were searched by armed partisans, every nook and cranny, every chimney and basement. On the pretext that they were looking for 'criminals' and 'reactionaries,' they strove to spread terror throughout the population. In almost all cases, the searches resulted in imprisonments and executions.
To escape the terror, many people fled into the mountains and joined the illegal opposition, or hid in the home of a trusted friend. Punishment for anyone sheltering 'reactionaries' was terrible torture and execution. This sometimes even occurred in cases where one person's name was the same as the person being sought. Most of the men, soldiers and civilians, who carried out these searches were virtually illiterate.
In early December 1944, a group of 7-8 important figures arrived at the Franciscan Monastery in Gjuhadol. Among them was Kolë Jakova and it was said that their leader was Nako Spiru. They brought orders with them for the closing down of our religious periodical Hylli i Dritës (The Day-Star), and of all other religious periodicals, Zani i Shna Ndout (The Voice of St Anthony), Zgjimi i djelmnisë (The Awakening of Youth), Bijat e Zojës (The Girls of Our Lady), etc. They shut down the printing house and all religious organizations. The men paid a 'visit' to the library and museum of Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi. Kolë asked for Gjeçovi's ring. It was said to be from ancient times, probably from the first century, and was made of gold, crafted with great mastery. On it was a large gem, far too large for the ring itself. They say that a representative of the British Museum had once offered to buy it for 14,000 pounds sterling. Kolë confiscated it, leaving us with an official receipt.

The Year 1945
The grim measures introduced to terrorize the population got worse and worse in the months of January and February 1945: identity checks increased, more people were imprisoned, there was more torture, more executions. Almost every evening after dark, organized groups would parade down the streets howling with fury and singing songs to terrorize the population, such as "Vengeance for the Youth!"
The same fate awaited the villages in the surrounding area. No foreign occupation had ever caused more suffering to the Albanians than this group. We received news that Dom Lazër Shantoja had been caught while in hiding with Dom Ndre Zadeja in Sheldi. Dom Ndre Zadeja was then shot, the only reason being given was that he had sheltered a colleague in his home. Both of them were Catholic clergymen and writers. Dom Ndre Zadeja had studied in Austria. He was much admired by young people in Shkodra for his plays on legendary and historical subjects. Dom Lazër, a priest from Shkodra, was a man of learning and of rare talent as a public speaker. He had been politically active and was one of the main editors of the opposition newspaper Ora e Maleve. When Zog took power in 1924, he was forced into exile. He found asylum in Switzerland from where he returned to Albania in 1939, working thereafter for cultural institutions. The communists regarded him as a fascist and so he fled to Sheldi. After they arrested him, they tortured him barbarically and finally shot him.
In the early months of the year they also arrested Father Gregor Lumaj who at the time was parish priest in Berisha, and accused him of being a sworn enemy of communism and of having prevented its spread in the Puka region. This humble father had spent all of his life in the mountains of Dukagjin and Puka, and enjoyed unquestioned respect among the people in the mountains because of his sincere devotion to them. He was also an expert in their customs and in customary law.
One morning, the Franciscan Monastery in Gjuhadol found itself surrounded by partisans. This was the first search to be conducted. We were all assembled in the main reception room and our papers were checked as other partisans rushed through the corridors, searching the rooms. When the search was over four or five hours later, and we were permitted to return to our rooms, we discovered that everything had been turned upside down. They had taken all the typewriters, cyclostyles, radios, field glasses and photography equipment. From the Shtjefën Gjeçovi Museum they took all the old filigree weapons and the rifle that Gjeçovi had carved and fashioned of his own hand. Of course, many of the smaller pieces of fine furniture were missing, too. This type of 'search " became standard for all of the city of Shkodra, and every raid resulted in many arrests. It happened to the monastery many times. The city was living days of fear and trepidation.
One day, our Franciscan Superior, Father Mati Prendushi, mustered his courage and asked for a meeting with the commander, Shefqet Peçi. He spoke to him normally as would a prophet to a king, informing him candidly that the behaviour and actions of the partisans were uncouth and unacceptable. He reminded him of the inviolability of ancient monuments of culture and art because they were part of the national heritage of the Albanian people and must not be touched by anyone, and asked for the objects taken to be returned to the museum as quickly as possible. Shefqet Peçi listen to the brother attentively. He then explained to him that information had come in, alleging that the Franciscan Monastery was sheltering the war criminals who headed the former government, such as Father Anton Harapi, Mehdi Frashëri and his son, Ibrahim Biçaku, and Lef Nosi, etc. Father Mati made it clear that these figures had been at the Franciscan Monastery while they were in power, but had departed either before or during the withdrawal of the German Army. Shefqet Peçi then promised Father Mati that he would issue an order for the partisans to behave properly.
There was much tension at the time because Kelmendi territory would not submit and was putting up so much resistance that the survival of the new government in Tirana was in jeopardy. He stated that he would be serving as commander of the "Comrade Mehmet Shehu" Operation and would convey to it his positive recommendations for them and the Franciscan Monastery.
Another, even more savage wave of terror was brought to Shkodra by Mehmet Shehu himself. Early one morning, he appeared at the Franciscan Monastery accompanied only by his partisan driver. Over his shoulder was the rifle of Gjeçovi that they had stolen. Visiting the museum, he removed the rifle from his shoulder and put it back where it had been originally. When he got to the library, which at that time was the best one in Albania, he expressed his admiration for the cultural activities of the Franciscans. After a short visit to the classrooms of the Illyricum secondary school, he met with the members of the Franciscan Order. During the talk, he took the Catholic clergy to task, and in particular criticised the periodical Hylli i Dritës for its oppositional stance on "Bolshevism," claiming that the latter guaranteed "genuine brotherhood among all peoples under the flag with the proletarian star." Then he turned to the young people and asked them:
"What do you young people think about these matters?"
I replied that real internationalism could not be brought about by oppressing nationalism."
"Where are you from?" he asked me.
"From Shkreli."
"That's the most reactionary part of the country," he replied.
Everyone's attention was concentrated on Shkreli at that time. Llesh Marashi, commander of the one-time gendarmerie in Shkodra, came from that region and had organised regular units to fight against the communists. One incident, much spoken of, took place in the village of Bajza near Shkreli. The communists gave orders for the whole population to assembly in the church and then began their terrorist action. But, at the same time, Gjon Martin Lulati and Mirot Paloka from Bajza, who had organised many men in underground units, surrounded the church, the population and the partisan commander with his men. An order was given for all those who were for the communists to step aside, including the partisans. The partisan officers in the church prepared for the inevitable conflict. At this critical moment, Father Ciril Cani intervened. He was one of the great patriotic figures of the nation and was serving as parish priest in Bajza at the time. He took the mighty cross from the main altar and placed himself between the two sides, shouting loudly:
"God be with you! Stop, do not spill one another's blood. Oh, Gjon Martin Lulati, I order you in the name of Christ to lift the siege! And you, partisans, go away and leave the people here in peace and quiet. Consider well what I have said for we are all Albanians and brothers!"


Translated from The Albanian by Robert Elsie

The Proud Spy

by Teuta Mema


Making public the Communist Secret Police archives is a moral necessity. The documentation of anti-human activity which took the lives of thousands of innocent Albanians must be entirely exposed. It is the right of all the people persecuted by the Communist Regime to learn the truth. The same significance is in the political realm; to consolidate a new democracy it is absolutely necessary to expose the identities of the spies of the Communist State Security – who, easily blackmailed, can work against the interests of the country.

In an interview with the Voice of America, Remzi Lani, Executive Director of the Albanian Media Institute said, “We came to Washington, invited by the State Department, for a visit organized by the American Embassy in Tirana for meetings with American institutions: the Department of State and the National Security Council, about… the image of Albania in the world.”

The question arises to any decent Albanian: What could Remzi Lani have said to the State Department or the National Security Council that they did not already know? Might he have said that his Communist State Security bosses had sent him to convince the American high officials to ignore communist crimes? Or did he confess that he, himself, as a Communist State Security spy, soils the image of Albania in the world?It is unknown what Remzi Lani said in Washington, but we now know what the former political prisoner, anti-communist writer, Dode Bajraktari, had said during an interview with the journalist, Anila Dodaj.

“I have had a terrible life in the communist prison; it cannot be put into words. Even now, I still cannot believe what a life it was. I was sentenced on the 20th of March in 1979, charged with ‘agitation and propaganda against the Peoples’ Power.’ I was then 39 years old. Three people testified against me, one of whom was Remzi Lani. When I was released from prison, the other two accusers asked for my forgiveness, whereas Remzi Lani remains proud of his actions. He falsely testified against me and put me in prison for ten years.

Remzi Lani accused me of reciting verses of poet Gjergj Fishta, that I had made propaganda for Faik Konica, and that I kept the Bible in my home. These three accusations which he fabricated were enough to condemn me to rot in prison.

I had seen Remzi Lani on the street, but I was never acquainted with him. I had never had a coffee with him, or even spoken to him throughout my entire life. To convince the State Security that he knew me, one day he came to my house. On that day, we talked about a novel written by Teodor Laço, who wrote about some teachers who walked on a snowy street, and nothing more. But Remzi Lani had intentions otherwise. He wanted to justify his later accusations.

I learned of the accusations after five months of horrific interrogation. Communist Interrogators continued to torture me inhumanely for five months. When they put me in the interrogation cell I weighed 88 kilograms. After four and a half days, when they took me out of the cell, I weighed 56 kilograms. So, through terrible tortures, they had caused me to lose 32 kilograms - while I did not even know who my accuser was.

During the trial, the terrorist communist jury based its decision on the recorded testimony that Remzi Lani had made at the State Security Operative as he did not accept the normal practice, to come face-to-face with me during the interrogation. At the State Security office in which Remzi Lani served, he had crafted a long testimony. During the trial, he was brought in to read it in the presence of 1100 people.

Remzi Lani felt proud, very proud, about what he had fabricated. He held his head up high. In contrast, the two other accusers felt very ashamed and discredited, so much so that they could hardly find the door to exit.

Remzi Lani had good reason to falsely testify against me. He wanted to get a scholarship to university, which he could not achieve in an honest way because he was a degenerated student in high school. The State Security rewarded spies for what they did, a fact he knew very well. Remzi Lani received the scholarship he longed for because of his service while I was locked up in a terrible prison cell.

The Communist Secret Police Archives must be opened. He who has gotten lice cannot remove them using his fingers. Either he has to disinfect them or burn his coat. Communist spies are very heavy burdens on the shoulders of the Albanian people. Today all of the communist spies have created the most powerful businesses. They need to be removed from the government and institutions because a communist spy is not suited to be the director of an institution and moreover institutions like the media.”

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

Encounter with a Criminals' Nest

by Bedri Blloshmi


I decided to attend a conference hosted by the European University of Tirana, the Albanian Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Communist Torture, and also by the Office of the People’s General Attorney. The theme of the conference was “Albania with no Torture.” My decision was based on my intrigue on the topic that would be presented by the People’s General Attorney, “Activity of the People’s General Attorney in defense of the rights of the persecuted people by the communist regime.” When I arrived at the main hall of the university, the conference had just begun. I hurried, entering the auditorium in which the meeting was taking place, sitting in a chair toward the back so I could follow the development of this conference. Someone recognized me and offered me a seat at the head table. While presenting me before the audience, he said, “It is with great pleasure that we are honored with the participation of Mr. Bedri Blloshmi, brother of Vilson Blloshmi, the poet executed by firing squad by the communist regime.” There was a drone-like noise in the hall due to the movement in the room, especially from the side where the representatives of the People’s General Attorney were seated. One individual, seated in the back of the room in a pressed suit and tie, hair combed communist-style, stood up and sneaked out. It seemed to me that I had known him years ago and I began to wonder where I might have met him. Unexpectedly, somebody seated beside me whispered to me, “The person you are trying to recall was Petrit Azemaj, the communist interrogator who tortured you.” Before my eyes flashed all the memories of the tortures he had inflicted on my brother and me.

I did not come to this conference to meet with Petrit Azemajn (for he was and always will be a servant of communist criminals), but to listen to his superior, the People’s General Attorney, Ermir Dobjani.

When I took the floor, after I expressed my thoughts on the issue being discussed, I denounced the People’s General Attorney, Ermir Dobjani who has changed the institution he directs into a nest for communist criminals and communist persecutors, individuals who have covered their hands with the blood of innocent victims they had arrested, interrogated, tortured, sentenced and executed on behalf of political motives. It is for this reason that this “People’s Attorney General” has neither the moral nor the legal right to care for victims of the most repressive communist regime in Europe. Ermir Dobjani served the communist regime devotedly all of his life and in the same manner continues to do so to this day. Before I had finished my speech, I was cut off by someone facing me, accusing me, saying that by denouncing the communist criminals, I was conducting a class struggle. He was young man and introduced himself as a representative of the Office of Peoples’ General Attorney. In short, he fervently defended his communist criminal bosses, especially the head of the institution, Ermir Dobjani and his henchman, Petrit Azemaj.

Logically, some questions come up. Who works in this institution? Who has chosen these communist criminals? How are they related to the communist dictatorship? How many more criminals are there in this institution? I have spent years writing and publicly denouncing not only the communist sadists who have arrested, interrogated, tried, tortured, sentenced and executed members of my family and me in the cruelest forms, but also the interrogators, prosecutors, and the judges who barbarically massacred thousands of political prisoners like me. This is my mission in life.

After conducting some research, I learned that the young man (the agent of the Office of the Peoples’ General Attorney) who zealously stood up for his superiors was a creation of communism named Ervin Karamuça. He was recruited to the Office of the Peoples’ General Attorney from the start, just after he finished his schooling, because he was the son of a former communist prosecutor during the dictatorship, and the son-in-law of Fehmi Abdiu, the communist judge who sentenced and hung the anticommunist poet Havzi Nela in 1988, who had suffered for many years in a political prison like me.

I feel it is my duty as a citizen to focus in this writing on Petrit Azemaj, whom I could not bear to look at in the recent conference. This Petrit Azemaj, who like a sewer mouse slipped out of the “Albania with no Torture” conference, began work as an interrogator in the Interior Ministry, Investigation Department of Librazhdi in 1976. At that time his superior was Selim Caka, a former military student expelled from school as thief, but because he was from a communist family, and a talented sadist, they accepted him into the Communist Party and made him Head of the Investigation Department of Librazhdi. Petrit Azemaj and Sulo Ymeri, under the orders of the former head of the Interior Department, Merdar Hasaj and the secretary of the Communist Party of the Interior Department, Hekuran Rrezha; and under the guidance of the head of the Investigation Department, Selim Caka, created in record time an interrogation room in the underground crypt of the Interior Department. This room was facing the jail cells of Genci, Vilsoni, and I. In that underground office cell a table and chairs were cemented into the floor where these experienced criminals tortured us barbarically for many nights. The door of this office was covered in sponge and cloth from the inside. No matter how much you would shout and scream from the tortures done to us by Selim Caka and Petrit Azemaj (etc.), nothing was audible in the hallway. Petrit Azemaj knows this office cell very well. For it is there that he and Selim Caka, Pjeter Ndreca, and others, have inhumanely beaten and tortured political prisoners like me. Naturally the question arises: Does Petrit Azemaj have the moral and legal right to lecture in front of jurisprudence students of the European University of Tirana against torture and inhuman treatment of others? Let the students decide.

Not going into more detail, I am addressing to the President of the Republic of Albania, Mr. Bamir Topi, and also the Speaker of the Parliament of Albania, Mrs. Josefina Topalli, to take proper immediate measures to oust the bloodthirsty persecutors from this institution and then the General Attorney’s Office will be able to serve to all citizens, including the victims of the communist regime, who need protection most.

How can my fellow politically persecuted friends and I go to this institution to ask for help when as soon as we arrive to present our complaints and ask to regain our rights that have been denied and stepped upon, we face Petrit Azemaj. The dreadful face of sadist Petrit Azemaj, the loyal persecutor of the communist regime, is shown- as before- on the cover page of one of the flyers given out by the People’s General Attorney. The beauty (irony) of this flyer is the last sentence in which Petrit Azemaj addresses the Albanian people, “I wish you will not need our intervention.” And I, too, pray to God that Albanians will not need to ask help from this nest of criminals, persecutors of the most bloodthirsty regime known to Europe in the twentieth century.

We, a group of politically persecuted people from the communist regime, are creating a group of initiators and soon we will organize democratic protests in front of this institution and ask for the expulsion of our persecutors from all constitutional institutions, starting with the institution of the Peoples’ General Attorney.

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

Generals of the Communist Party

by Genc Sami Koka

Like Father, Like Son: Generals of the Communist Party

Fortuzi…the road that changed names like Spiro changed uniforms… Soldier of the Republic of Albania… Captain of the King of Albania, Major of the King of Italy and, finally, General of the Communist Party.
On this road, slightly before its intersection with Mine Peza Road, on the right, lived the “honorable” family of communist General Spiro Moisiu from Kavaja. The general was a lackey of the dictator Enver Hoxha. He was a man known by many titles but, in the end, was degraded to the humiliating “Supervisor of the Hunter’s Club”.

His servility was visible. The main window that faced the road on the first floor of Spiro’s villa always remained curtain-less: everything inside was able to be seen. The indoor lighting shone night and day as though it were a holy place. Against the backdrop of a gracefully furnished room was a statue of Dictator Enver Hoxha, elevated on a carved wooden pedestal. The pedestal was tall so that even one who happened to be near the window, which was three meters above the road, would notice this statue.

In front of the house, a military automobile was always positioned—and frequently there would be two, one belonging to the son, the young general, communist Alfred Moisiu, former DEBATIK (United Boys under Communist Ideals) and graduate of a military academy in the Soviet Union. His hat invariably showcased the emblem of the sickle and hammer with the red star. When his father ended up with the hunters and the hounds of a Hunter’s Club, Alfred was sent to the Military Brigade in Burreli. Alfred was not appointed the communist Minister of Defense to fight against imperialism and revisionism, a position to which he had aspired and had been committed. Simply for that, Alfred, the Bolshevik of communist ideals, called himself a “dissident”, changed his uniform as his father had, and became a democrat. He represented Albania as a consultant in the NATO alliance by turning his back on the Warsaw Pact. Was his new outlook genuine? The naïve may believe so while the others, temporarily, will act as if they do.

In 1992, then Alfred Moisiu was sixty-two and still in his home were the communist party medals and on his shoulders communist general’s shoulder straps. How could this sixty-two-year-old man morph from a hardened communist? Was he going to change like Nicola Bombacci? Today, this “honorable” man de jure runs the affairs of Albania or, more precisely, jumbles them.

Albania needs to be cleansed by young leaders with pure blood; it needs knowledgeable leaders with dignity, leaders who are upright and devoted to its blessed people and country. Albanians need to stop, once and for all, electing leaders contaminated by the Communist Party; otherwise there will be no progress. This land will go into a social and moral regress up to the point that it will not be able to survive, thus enabling foreigners to engulf it…

Today, Albania needs a Nicolas Sarkozy and not a communist. It needs to lean first on the United States and then on Western Europe, moreover, on that part of Europe whose leaders do not belong to the communist leftists.

My father had been sentenced for thirty years to the Burreli Prison by the Special Trial of 1945 for being the Assistant Joint Chief of Staff of the King’s Army and General Commander of the border. Two days before he was released from prison, he was given an injection in the infirmary as though it were a vaccine and was left half paralyzed. One day he was returning home, a room 3m by 3m on the second floor of a building with one bathroom for seven families, depressed. I met him on the spiral steps as I, too, was going home.
“What is wrong, father? Why are you so saddened?”
“No, nothing is wrong,” he said. (May he rest in peace! He was direct and stoic in life. He was a man of few words and never complained.)
“There is something you are not telling me. I can see you are not in the right mood…”
After some more steps, we reached the room. Mother had made lunch and we sat around the table which we put away after every meal so it would not take up space. My mother noticed my father’s silence and she, like me, asked him what was wrong. He hesitated to speak, but then he exploded.
“Yesterday I went to the house of Spiro Moisiu. His wife came to the door for he was not there. I went to him so that he might help me find work, any kind of job, because we are in a very poor state with only our son’s pay. As he was not there, I left word so that he would find it when he came home. Today I went again, but his wife came to the door and said that if I wanted to meet Spiro, I should go to the Hunter’s Club, for he would be there. She was his second wife, I did not recall her.”
“And why were you upset about this?”
“How can I tell you… When I was a lieutenant in 1920, Spiro was a soldier in my unit. He kept my horse by the reins and he did me other personal services that I will not talk about. I promoted him to the rank of officer, I sent him to Military Academy. When Italy came, he always took advice from me— you know that. Do you remember? He was like our son and today he will not receive me at his house, but rather leaves word with his wife for me to go and see him at the Hunter’s Club! When I left his house, I said to myself, ‘Away with you, unscrupulous... Forbid my love.’ That is why I am not well,” father ended his explanation.
“You are upset because of this? Father, people have changed. There is no more manhood and honor, pride and friendship. The nameless people are on top; the communist revolution raised them beyond their wildest dreams, but they are falling one after the other, into the same mud they were lifted from. I do not know what to say about Spiro, but when I was a soldier in the labor unit, one day he came for a visit to Rrapi i Trishtit, where we were working, accompanied by engineer Dhimiter Dhespoti (a former officer of the Albanian Royal Army, majored in Torino, Italy, later first captain of the Italian Royal Army, and after the communists took power, kept as infantry Major for two years). When they saw me, Dhimiter stopped, saying to Spiro, ‘Do you know him?’ Spiro looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, ‘Who is he?’ he asked. ‘He is the son of Colonel Sami,’ replied Dhimiter. Spiro, without asking me any questions said, ‘What about Pullumb, the other brother, where is he?’ ‘In Australia,’ I answered cautiously. (During that time my brother had escaped from the country and worked in an atomic base in the Pacific, and later, for the Voice of America). Spiro glanced at me once more and left without saying a word. Dhimiter continued to speak with Spiro. Don’t forget, Father, Spiro is devoted, head to toe, to Dictator Enver Hoxha. His son, Alfred, is a Communist Colonel. Forget that he exists, he and the others. All of them have turned their backs on you.”
“I know, son. I know: if you fall from power no one says ‘hello’ to you anymore. I recall Fejzi on trial. (Fejzi Alizoti was the Secretary of State, the Governor of Kosova, and the brother-in-law of Sami Koka, who was executed by communists in 1945). When Bedri Spahiu, the communist state prosecutor of the Special Trial in 1945, said to Fejzi, ‘Traitor, you have done this and that… how many uniforms have you changed?’ Fejzi replied, ‘Honorable Prosecutor, don’t forget me and remember these words: if you one day will fall from power, what you are saying to me today, someone else will say to you tomorrow.’ Trust and virtue have died, but I hope this country falls into the hands of real Albanians.”

Much time has passed since then. Here and there, I have read in the press about the current “honorable” president of “democratic” Albania, Alfred Moisiu. This individual, who only knows how to mess things up, is a devotee of Bolshevism and such... Subsequently, the question arises, why did people vote for him? Where were the wandering minds of Albanians who elected the 62-year-old devoted communist to be president? His term is ending, but Albanians must think about the next president they will elect in July.


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

Greek Genocide

Open Letter

Reports that Greece is officially registering property including the property of the Albanian Çams without informing them, genuinely disheartened me, as it is an act of an ultimate injustice performed by a state that is democratic in name only, a state whose actions are fascist and inhuman. It was for that reason that I decided to write to the American Ambassador to Tirana, John L. Withers II, as a citizen whose origin is Çameria, to present arguments before the highest diplomat and to ask his standpoint on an act unparalleled by a state that in the most absurd and criminal forms violates the human rights of an entire population.

Honorable Ambassador of the United States of America,

My family and I express our deep admiration for you, personally, and to your country in particular. Meanwhile, I ask for your forgiveness for the inconvenience created by presenting to you this letter. I hope to introduce a problem concerning my family, which also pertains to thousands of Çams in Albania, Greece, United States of America, Turkey, Italy and all other places Albanian Çams have gone. I ask the opinion of a representative of a country whose foundations are built on freedom and human rights, a global example of a truly democratic country.

My name is Hyqmet Zane; I am a resident of the city of Elbasani. I was a teacher and subsequently a journalist. It is understandable that until now, there was nothing to be noted.
What I wanted to bring to your attention is the fact that Nuri Emin Zane, my father, from Filati of Çameria (Thesprotia - Western Greece), born in 1913, was exiled to the concentration camps of Mauthausen, Dachau, and Munchen from April 1944 until the summer of 1945. He was captured by Germans in a hotel in Ioanina (Greece) and later, like many others, was sent to the notorious camps as a Greek citizen with Albanian nationality. His survival of internment was fortunate for both he and his family. He returned to Greece to go to his home in Filati. While in Ioanina, he learned that a genocide-like massacre had occurred in Çameria by Greek fascist-chauvinist bands headed by Napoleon Zerva. With Greece’s consent, Zerva had employed false arguments accusing the Albanian Çams to be collaborators with Nazi-fascists. Even though my father tried to go to Filati, he was not allowed. Furthermore, he was threatened to not go. Therefore he, along with five other Albanians, entered Albania to reunite with their families. Even in Albania he landed twice unjustly in prison.
I asked for your help because I wanted to know what I, his son, should do in order to return to the city of my parents’ origin, grandparents and great-grandparents, as part of those families (over 95% of them) that did not collaborate with Nazi-fascists and did not have any reason to be deported by force from their land. This situation has lasted for 64 years and is not resolved yet, though I have addressed the issue to the Greek authorities in Albania so that they may understand my family’s position. The former president of Albania, Alfred Moisiu, awarded my father, Nuri Emin Zane, the “Golden Eagle Medal” for his contribution in the fight against Nazi-fascists, on February 11, 2005.

Honorable Ambassador,

Forgive me for asking you, but how should an Albanian citizen like me, (and thousands of other Albanians from Çameria) find justice and reclaim all human and statehood rights that the Greek government has denied? I am the son of an anticommunist who was unjustly forbidden to go back to his home in Filati, not because of collaboration with the Nazi-fascists, but because he was Albanian and not wanted.

Mister Ambassador,

As a representative of a righteous country that has taken a stand against injustice, genocide and terrorism, it is likely that I know what your thoughts are as you read the truth of this gross violation of essential human rights and freedom from a state that has mistreated me for 64 years.
I am so grateful for the time you have taken to read this letter and to become informed of a vital matter which relates to the focused stance that the American government has taken towards citizens and countries aspiring to democracy. Your help is of great importance, not only for me and my family, but for the entire Çam community residing in Albania. We have been deprived of basic human rights, deprived of going back to our birthplace and dwellings, and deprived of all statehood rights. The minority Greek population of Albania has never been violated (to say nothing of genocide), has never been expelled from the Albanian land it has occupied, and has always enjoyed the rights and freedoms of all Albanians. I have written a lot about these facts; I have a book soon to be published about the victimized Albanian population of Greek-Serb genocide throughout a century.

Hoping for your insight and valuable response,

I express my deepest gratitude to you,

Sincerely,

Hyqmet Zane

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

An angel forbidden to spread her wings

by Teki Gjonzeneli

In this narration I am relating to the reader and to those who are not yet convinced of the ferocity of the communist regime an account of an ordinary day when Albania was under the yoke of the present day socialists’ parents. That machine which created so much suffering spared neither children nor infants of parents declared enemies of the Party and people. The word ‘dictatorship,’ even when you articulate it, grinds your teeth to bits… Without discussing the well-known facts of tortures, internment camps, prisons, executions, and hangings, I will merely recount how a child of the enemy of the Party was treated by the communist state.

At the Shkopeti Hydropower Station

During the time of the ruthless Communist dictatorship, I was serving my last months of compulsory military service in a labor unit where only the sons of families singled out as “enemies of the people,” anticommunists, were sent. Being skilled in operating high cranes, the unit military commander ordered me to work in the hydropower station. There, I was acquainted with many engineers that directed the works: A. Meksi, B. Selenica, N. Muço, and, in the end, the electrical engineer, Fatmir Belishova. Fatmir Belishova’s sister, Liri Belishova was a former Politburo Member of the Communist Party. She and her husband, Maqo Çomo, were declared “enemies” of the Party and people, and had been banished to internment camps.
It was not long until I was released from the army. While I was waiting for a truck to take me home to the city of Vlora, I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Have a safe trip, fellow Vloran!” It was engineer Fatmir Belishova. I was jubilant. I hadn’t expected anyone to wish me farewell. I thanked him and we parted, waving until the truck took a turn and disappeared.

The Encounter in Vlora

More than a month had gone by and no one wanted to employ me. As always, employers continued to give me the evil eye. One Saturday afternoon my old friends and I took a longer stroll to the center of the city, Flag Square. Facing Hotel Sazani, sitting on the sidewalk, I caught sight of Fatmir Belishova accompanied by a little girl. I parted with my friends and headed their way. As I neared them I spoke quietly, “What good thing brought you here to our Vlora, engineer?” The engineer, who seemed to have been eying me from afar, stood up and greeted me cheerfully. “I know that Vlora is yours, but I have not come to take it … One misfortune brought me to this area…” We embraced as I said, “Strangers as you are, we will do whatever we can to help you with your ill fortune…” Without lengthening the conversation, the engineer turned to the direction of the hotel entrance and asked me if I knew the hotelier at the door. “I distantly know him; what do you need?” I asked.
“We need a hotel room just for tonight. But, he will not allow my niece. She is the daughter of my sister, this doll here. ‘Children are not allowed,’ he said. ‘They urinate on the mattresses.’ When I tried to convince him that the girl does not do such things, he replied with hostility, ‘That girl is not yours, but the enemy of the people, Liri Belishova’s.’”
I was thunderstruck, not so much by the employee’s inhumane conduct, but from his promptness in collecting the information in such a short time. It was obvious that I myself was also under the surveillance of the State Security.
“Yes, he is a State Security officer, dear engineer, and it is impossible to speak with him,” I said. The engineer’s face whitened, but he did not show any emotion. He patted his niece’s head, and sweetly said, “My dear niece, do not be upset, it is summer, we will manage…” It was clear, in the tone of those words, not only the sadness, but also the pain that he felt for his pretty niece who had to face, from that very young age, the class struggle.
I felt sorry for both of them, but more so for the little girl. I remembered those years, when I, too, was about her age. The parents of that little girl had my father arrested, accusing him to be an “enemy of the people.” (Even after many years, in my old age, one question still remains: Did the engineer realize that day, that the reason for all their suffering was the proletariat dictatorship that the little girl’s parents had worked and fought for?) I pulled myself together and said to the engineer, “I will take the girl to my house, regardless of the fact that we are not under the best conditions. She will sleep with my little sister.” The engineer, who did not expect the offer, spoke in an undertone, “And who can be concerned with ‘conditions’ right now? Tomorrow morning I will take her to her father on the Island of Zverneci, where he is exiled, so please, bring her back at 8 o’clock in the morning.” I asked the little girl for her name. “They call me Drita,” she answered in a hushed tone, perhaps because she was parting with her dear uncle.
Returning home, a thought occurred to me: Would we be able to provide the friendliness that a girl of such a young age deserved? Like the child she was, she could not understand the situation we were put in because of the class struggle introduced and carried out by her parents.
The sun was pointing in the Otranto direction to set over the Channel. It was huge and fiery and created an arch with magic color over the waters of Sazani Island and Karaburuni Peninsula. This scene, repeated a thousand times before my eyes, had always revived a gentle and inspiring feeling in me. I asked little Drita if she liked the area we lived in. “Very much,” replied my little friend, dazzled by the view. She seemed very emotional while I, as always, thanked God for the gift of this majestic sight. When our feet touched the sand of the old beach, the little girl let my hand go and ran toward the shore where the calm evening waves of the sea, hardly capable of splashing, created an alluring sound… Drita filled the front of her dress with shells and returned, joyfully, to me. “Will you give them to your mother?” I asked amiably, and quickly realized they were not the right words to say in such a situation. I did not pursue the conversation further. “No,” she said, not taking it badly. “I was at my mother’s yesterday, among some high mountains, far away. They do not let my mother come home and I don’t know when I will see her again. We cried a lot when we parted.” Touched by her sincerity, I began to treat her with even more kindness.
We stopped at Aulona to buy an ice cream. While she was naively enjoying her ice cream, I felt sorry for her. Why in the world should that angel pay for the thoughts and actions of her parents? How many enemies did this Party have? In 1945 my family started to suffer from the destructive effect of the Communist dictatorship, and after the never-ending torments, even death seemed like nothing to us. Little Drita interrupted my thoughts with her question,
“How are you related to my uncle?”
“We have worked together.”
“Well, what should I call you?”
“You may call me anything you like.”
Close to my home, one of my friends found out about my little guest and said to me, “You did a good thing by bringing her home. It would have been a shame and a sin to let her spend the night out. But be careful, and on guard, for your father has just gotten out of prison, a year ago one of your brothers fled the country, and another one was sent to jail for political motives. The State Security is watching you, and even for the act of sheltering the little girl, you, too, may land in prison.”

In our House

When we arrived at the front door my little sister, Arrestime, appeared before us. My sister received this challenging and surprising name which means “the Arrest,” from my father, who had been arrested as an anticommunist a few days before she was born, sixteen years ago. Asking no questions, she carried little Drita inside while patting her. Arrestime did not part with the little guest until the next day, when she waved us good bye. My mother, who had suffered so much in life, embraced the little girl even after she found out who she was. My father was not at home and I waited impatiently for his reaction. It wasn’t long before my father came home. When I introduced him to the little girl, he said nothing, and turned toward the kitchen wordlessly. When mother gave him his coffee, we heard them talking:
“You and Teki think you are ‘right’, because you do not fully realize who Liri Belishova and Maqo Çomo truly were,” my father said.
“It is a sin in the eyes of God. She is an innocent child and we could not leave her in the streets of Vlora.”
My father asked, “What about you? Who felt sorry for you in 1945, when you were in the last month of pregnancy, and with a load of children on your back? They imprisoned your innocent husband, confiscated all of your property, drove you out of your house, and left you in the middle of the road. Didn’t Liri Belishova and Maqo Çomo do this to you?”
I did not interfere in their conversation, because I understood my father’s emotional revolt. It was not until the next morning that I was positive that his rebellion was only a momentary outburst. (My father did hard labor work, and the only treat mother gave him was a fried egg for lunch. In the morning, before he left for work, we heard him telling her, “Do not make my egg today; boil it for the little one,” and he patted the little girl’s head. Upon overhearing this, I was filled with a warm feeling of love for my father’s caring spirit.)
For dinner, mother prepared rice pudding with ground rice and powdered milk. My little brother, Murat, who had not said a word until that moment, addressed Mother, saying, “Put my portion and Drita’s in one dish.” Mother, heedless of any wrongdoing of Murat, did so. While eating the pudding, Murat faced Drita and said, “Do not be surprised, little girl, by our eating together, because ‘Uncle’ Enver taught us to do so. All Albanians must eat from one plate...”
Arrestime made room for the little girl to sleep near her divan by the window. She begged the little girl to take off her dress but Drita resisted. After midnight, because of an insect bite, the little girl was frightened in her sleep. Forced to take off her dress and accept the traditional cure of vinegar and cold water, she still clasped the dress tightly in her hands. When Mother asked why she did not let go of the dress, Drita replied, “I have my father’s watch. My grandmother sewed it to my dress, and I will give it to him tomorrow when we meet…” Poor girl… I took her in my arms and petted her with fatherly love while she fell back to sleep. Mother, with tears in her eyes, patted the little girl’s head and said in a soft voice, “God take vengeance upon them - for you and me.”

Departure

In the morning, before we parted, Mother embraced little Drita, smothering her in kisses, and made this wish for her, “May your life shine, my daughter!” Arrestime wished us farewell from the porch, whereas my brother accompanied us up to the center of the city. While waiting for the bus, my brother begged little Drita to tell a tale that her parents had told her. “I know many, but one with partisans is my favorite.” She began to tell it with childish enthusiasm. “The partisans were in a war with the Germans. Between them was a deep creek. The partisans began to hit the Germans with stones. On the German side there were no stones but a sandy soil. Germans began to dig into the sand with their nails. Instead of rocks, they found potatoes. They began to pelt the partisans with potatoes. The hungry partisans ate baked potatoes until they were bursting, whereas the Germans were dying of hunger. Did you like it?” asked the little girl. “Very much,” said my brother, “But be ready, my little Drita, because the same thing will happen to us from the heirs of the partisans.” In fact, the words of my brother, Murat Gjonzeneli, proved to be prophetic. Shortly afterwards, he began suffering 19 years in political prison as an “enemy of the people.”
Drita and I boarded the crowded bus. When a lady I was acquainted with saw the cute little girl, she took Drita on her lap, and while patting her head, lovingly asked whose she was. “Maqo Çomo’s,” replied the little girl without hesitation. The lady, as if a snake had bitten her, jumped up, pushed the little girl away, and faced me viciously. “Take this ‘enemy’ away from me, Teki! She is your kind!” and turned her back with abhorrence.
Because all life in communist hell was inhuman, I recounted this ordinary experience of mine. Had it been the only circumstance, I would not have bothered to tell you of the event.

What became of Drita Çomo?

Little Drita was raised in internment camps, suffering physiological torture. Despite the consequences, verses full of humane love poured out of her beautiful soul. She wrote poetry which, after the 1990s, attracted the attention of many writers. She was an angel forbidden to spread her wings. Cancer took over her delicate being and she died at a very young age, in extreme poverty, deprived of everything- even the presence of her exiled mother in Cerrik and her father imprisoned in the notorious Burreli prison. Decades have passed, but the faraway vision has remained in my memory­ with a special purpose for the present. Let this real life story pay homage to Drita Çomo and to all the children of her generation and mine, to all the unfortunate who had a life worse than Drita’s, to those who died in extermination camps built by the parents of the present day socialists, and to those whose graves were lost forever. Let this story be a call to the conscience of the honorable Ambassador of the United States of America in Tirana, to find out which side he is on: Drita Çomo’s and Teki Gjonzeneli’s or the state security officer’s- a man who threw a young child into the middle of the street.


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa