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

Revival

POET SURVIVOR
AND
REVIVAL OF THE SONNET

Uran Kostreci

Uran Kostreci, after nine years living in America, went to Albania to promote his new book Sonnets. There are sixty-six sonnets, a genre nearly forgotten, which remind readers of the genuine nature of writing in verse.


by Oliverta Lila

The burning desire to travel through stanzas of poetry began for Uran Kostreci, dissident poet, when he was behind bars in the notorious Burreli communist prison in Albania. The intellectual spent twenty years in jail because of his strong anti-communist beliefs.
To “make use of time,” Kostreci mastered the Italian language, which made it possible for him to understand the bona fide art of Francesco Petrarca, Giosue Carducci and other famous Italian masters of poetry. He began to translate the poems. From the very first poems, Kostreci would marvel at the splendor of their beauty, a sacred feeling that the communist guards could not imprison.

“I read enough of the famous Italian poets to understand where the limit of beauty in art lies. Therefore, it is essential to read great poets in their own language,” says the poet. He recounts how he spent much of his restricted time translating the inspiring sonnets, which later would be confiscated by communist prison guards.

“I did not write sonnets while in prison, but I did translate from Petrarca and Carducci. All of my translations disappeared without a trace; if they had been spared, they would form a large volume today. The act of translating made the sonnet diagram be absorbed into my bloodstream. Every time something stirs within me, I write it down, almost without knowing that it will take shape as a sonnet,” he relates. Kostreci realizes that writing a sonnet is challenging, but he says, “If you succeed in expressing everything within the fourteen required lines, the sonnet converts into music.”

The poet still has vivid memories of the unspeakable prison cell. “The most evil thing was, though you were allowed to translate, at the end of the month, prison guards would come, seize, and destroy everything you had done. We tried in vain to hide our work in coal sacks or hiding places. Three months was the greatest extent of time you could hide something. They searched everywhere, and you could say nothing to stop them. Even when the sonnet simply expressed a love sentiment, you were not able to save it; guards cast doubts on everything, though they never took the time to read one line. Thanks to my photographic memory, I was able to remember my satirical poem, ‘The Epopee of the Grasshopper,’ which I could publish in 1995, when I was out of prison,” recalls the poet.

“My sonnets are my life story, not always told in a chronological order. They are my impressions, an accumulated love,” says the poet. His sonnets contain lyric, nostalgia, agony and sometimes rebellion. They were composed in moments of inspiration, and later he gave the needed refining touches. “I never let the moment slip away. Everyone has euphoric moments; they do not last long, and they are very few in life. But there are also moments of depression and melancholy. I put my feelings in writing the way they come to me, through the moment. Later, I get into details.”

However, after all these years there is still bitterness that stirs his spirit. “I spent most of my life in prison. I was not able to create a relationship and have a family. A marriage in old age for the sake of marriage was unacceptable for me,” says the poet.

Sonnets is composed of sixty-six poems, crafted by Kostreci during a period of fifteen years. Most of the sonnets were written after his arrival to America in 1997, when he was granted political asylum.


Last Will to Ancient Plain Tree

Someday olden plain tree, away I’ll fade
Whereas in centuries you will be in sight;
Twice a year the outfit you will trade:
In summertime green, and in winter white.

The dark blue sky, and green whispering plain
Sparkling under the sunbeam golden light,
The flying birds and breezy wooded lane
I will no more admire, once I have died.

You will remain after I depart this life
Beside you buried I desire to be,
My bones over your roots I want to lie;

My death you will mourn with sighs olden tree,
Each dawn falling leaves my grave beautify
For no one flowers will place there for me.

——Uran Kostreci


Vloçishti Swamp

By slave labor were you sullen marsh drained
Alive too many were digged into!
Morass to graveyard reduced, and chained,
By blood and human bones, stiffened were you.

What charm and magic this morning you gained
Rich soil, where healthy sugar beets grew,
Although in clods, birds peck at bones, remained!
But when tourists come, are they let known, too?

By slaves of free word was gloomy swamp dried
With hands, famished and scantily dressed;
On knees crawling, in mud entirely tied

Into marsh sunk, they slush out the ditch cast;
Bleeding by canebrake and sore leeches bite,
Under guards’ cudgel severely repressed!...

——Uran Kostreci


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
Edited by Elizabeth B. Coffey

Red Holocaust

Dead among the living

by Afrim Imaj

Though shocking, this is true: A resident from Vlora discovers his brother’s body after thirty years, bearing the same visage as he did the day they parted.

The central character of this extraordinary narration is seventy-year-old Lavdosh Mersini, from Çeprat of Laberia in Albania. Lavdosh, after many painful attempts to find the remains of his brother, who was executed by a phony communist court, was able to locate them in the anatomy room of Tirana Medical Facility. Just as Lavdosh began to lose hope of ever finding his brother’s remains, when every effort seemed wasted, pure chance would grant him unexpected success. His legs took him to where Luan’s body resided, appearing as he did when he was twenty-five years old.

“At first I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Lavdosh. “It seemed like a dream; like something from those ancient ballads. I had to restrain myself. It was not easy. I stretched my neck and looked him straight in the eye. It was him. Yes, Luan! His eyes longed to tell me something; they were the only things that could talk; everything else, from his head to his feet, was frozen and ice-like. Only his eyesight offered life, warmth, and memories. They were weary and looked far into the horizon, reminiscent of the days when he was in jail, asking about his mother, Hairie. I took my first steps toward him. Was I drawing close to my brother, or close to a ghost? I stretched out to embrace and kiss him, a brother yearning to embrace a brother. He looked young, very young, identical to the day we parted 30 years ago. It was Luan, just the way he had looked that very day, with the same eyes, dark eyebrows, forehead, and full-sized, straight body. Only his hair had been trimmed. A bullet hole on the edge of his nose was mute testimony of the brutal actions of those who had decided his tragic end. He was in formalin, a lot of formalin, which kept his well-built body intact.”

Lavdosh had to restrain himself, to rise above his painful shock. He had to bring Luan back home, to remote Çeprat, to be among his brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, friends, and acquaintances, who would rejoice. But first there would be the journey: long, tiring, and deeply moving...

After you have knocked on the door of her apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Durrës city, Lavdosh’s sister, Burbuqe, relates an account that sends chills down the spine. She says: “Luan, like Kostandin (1), came back after thirty years. Have you heard the legend of Kostandin? Indeed you have, and I too, though I don’t think you have experienced it. I don’t know who else had that destiny. Luan’s return after thirty years was like that of Kostandin. Yes, yes! While I kissed him, cold though he was, I recalled the ancient legend. The legend of the long wait for the knight leaping over whole mountains to fulfill a promise he had made to his mother. Though Luan had died, he had not perished, and did not have a grave - just like Kostandin! But Luan was not really like Kostandin, because he did not meet his mournful mother, and did not see her fade away, grief-stricken over him...”

She has to force herself to hold back her grief, to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her husband, familiar with the situation, continues the conversation to give her time to compose herself. He begins, “The communists arrested Luan for refusing to collaborate with State Security. They trumped up a case against him - abuse of public funds - during the construction of social and cultural works in the agriculture cooperative. They fixed a shortfall of public funds amounting to 50,000 leks so they could execute him at night with a firearm.” The husband falls silent, allowing Burbuqe to resume the conversation. He takes out a pile of papers, discolored by the long, somber passage of time. The papers feature the court’s verdict.

The sister of the young martyr goes on thoughtfully, “All of a sudden, they took him from the village where he worked, unjustly handcuffed, and transported him to the prison cells in Vlora. On the way there he met his brother, and confidently handed him the watch for safekeeping. Afterwards we could see him only with the approval of the interrogator. His courage never let him down. He never begged for mercy. The only thing he asked for was cigarettes. His only concern was Mother, who was his first and final worry. He remained that way until October 24, 1968, the day the communists executed him.” That was all Burbuqe could say. However, she was certain that her older brother, Lavdosh, knew more. He still lived at the same address, the place where Luan became separated from his heartbroken mother so many years before.

Thirty years after his brother’s execution, Lavdosh Mersini still sees the image of Luan making a brave stand against the communist court. “Luan asked the communist judge to look him straight in the eye,” says Lavdosh. Each time he tries to visualize his brother’s image he remembers Luan fearlessly challenging the false accusations of the State Security people. It is this memory that initiates the conversation...

“After the secret investigations, they took him to court and accused him of misuse of public funds,” says Lavdosh. “They rounded up an amount of 50,000 leks in the offices of the State Security. They served it and legalized it in court through the prosecutor, Sotir Spiro, and the judge, Irakli Bozgo. According to them, Luan had inflicted economic damage on the state, an act that would cost him his life. At the time, no one thought it would result in a deadly decision. What's more, witnesses summoned to the court strongly opposed the accusation. The first person who opposed the charge was the key witness, the chairman of the agricultural cooperative of Mavrova, Telo Dana. He disputed all the evidence used by the interrogator and spoke courageously about Luan’s good manners. This backlash enraged the communist judge, who arrogantly ousted the main witness from the courtroom. The same thing happened to the next witness, Maliq Hoxha, controller of the cooperative. They ignored his testimony by forcing him out. At that moment, with a powerful and fiery look, Luan rose to his feet on the podium. ‘Don’t put pressure on innocent people!’ he said. ‘Cut it short! Do what you have decided to do! I will face you to the end; I will boldly prove your lies. You don’t possess valor. You don’t have the courage to look me straight in the eye; you work behind the scenes, in the dark, with lies and false accusations.’ Luan, in shackles, wanted to continue, but his speech was cut short by the voice of the prosecutor. ‘You will get paid for it by bullet, Luan Mersini! You will be rewarded by hanging.”

This is all he can recall from his brother’s trial in Pasha’s house, in the Vlora town center. What would come later was obvious at that time. Luan’s fate was predetermined.

The first to receive the grave news was the eldest brother, Bardhyl. He recalls, “When we took his winter clothes to prison, we were told he had been executed.” It was a cold October day in 1968, when, on his mother’s request, Bardhyl left the house to take food and winter clothing to his brother in the Vlora prison. As he was knocking at the prison door to explain his reason for being there, the officer on duty told him the dreadful news. “Don’t you yet know Luan has been executed?” He heard enough to feel weak in his knees.

“I fell on the floor, out cold, and could not remember who brought me back to my feet,” says Bardhyl. “I remember how they splashed water onto my face and made me regain consciousness, and the kicks of the officer on the bag filled with clothes and food, which were spread everywhere under his small window. At that moment I thought of our mother. How would I tell her? I left for the village in a state of confusion. I had to hold back my tears. It had been Luan’s wish during our last meeting not to shed tears for him. It appeared that he had foreseen his tragedy.”

Beyond this act of communist barbarism, Bardhyl Mersini wants to evoke and to give respect to the virtuous life of his brother. Caught in his memory is impish Luan who graduated high school with first-class honors, but “bad biography.” He was the son of a kulak, and an obstructionist policy was used to prevent him from attending the university. Heart-to-heart talks about movies and sports with Luan are still very vivid memories to Bardhyl.

Bardhyl says, “Unique was Luan’s interest in having his hair western style, dressing nicely, and wearing fashionable ties. Right after graduation he started life in a hurry. He rolled up his sleeves and worked ten to twelve hours a day in construction. ‘We have to be ahead of others,’ he used to say to us. After work he had another personality. He washed, dressed, and went to Vlora, mostly when there was a soccer match. Movies were his passion. He knew almost all famous actors, and tried to make other young people like them. He was lively and active in his social life, open for help to anyone who knew him. In a few years after school, he was admired by all, a fact that caught the eye of the State Security. They wanted to benefit from his sociability, and used his political "defect", son of a kulak, to put pressure on him. They asked for his collaboration to obtain information about groups in Vlora that were interested in fleeing the country. Though he understood the consequences, he strongly opposed collaboration. He told us, State Security would not easily forget his denial. It was for that reason why the fatal drama took its toll...”

Burbuqe’s husband details another aspect of Luan’s life, something he will never forget. He recalls, "Mother Hairie refused to give Luan’s suit to the police. The security men came accompanied by a dozen police officers. They searched every inch of the house to find and take all his belongings, from books, notebooks, papers, clothes, to nightwear. When they got hold of his new suit, custom made that year for his wedding, mother Hairie stormed upon them. ‘You may take my life but not the suit of my son,’ she said, and grabbed it from their hands. The police frowned for a moment; but, convinced she would not let it go, they left. She kept the suit by her bed stand until the day she died.”

Mother Hairie lived for only a couple of days after Luan’s execution. She died at fifty-five years old, with profound agony that she would never know where her son’s remains rested.

According to a former employee of the forensic medical lab, a woman who did not wish to be identified, “They embalmed the body of the young man from Vlora at night.” She had tried since then to deliver the news to Luan’s family. Lavdosh confirms this fact. He got the message from an acquaintance of hers in Vlora, while he was searching for his brother’s remains in Soda Forest, Mezini Well, Olive Plantlet Plantation, Old Beach, and many other places. Her story, connected through work with the cadaver forensic hospital laboratory, does not end here. Something very unusual about this case rooted in her memory. Everything is related to the moment of arrival of Luan’s lifeless body.

She remembers, “It was somewhere in the end of 1968. I remember it well because the anatomy faculty was badly in need of cadavers. Following an order from a high ranking communist authority, a group of experts was created in haste with three to four medical doctors and state investigators to search some local prisons. Their prey was primarily from the contingents of political prisoners. One day, early in the morning, the expedition had just arrived from the city of Vlora. I heard one specialist informing the person in charge that in Vlora they had scented prey, “first-rate material”, for which they had agreed with the Department of the Interior Ministry to make it part of the laboratory. Furthermore, I learned it was about a young man, twenty-five years old. In the evening of the next day, they informed us that the body was brought in. By coincidence, I saw him the moment they took the body out of the truck. He was a handsome young man with a muscular body. The people who processed him said it was one of the rare cases which would last for a long time in the lab. When I saw the paperwork that came with him, I found the way to send, indirectly, word to his family.”

One dead among the living.

The following is what happened to twenty-five-year-old Luan Mersini from Çeprat of Vlora.
They shot him at night, and immediately transported his body to Tirana, the capital. For many hours, and in complete secrecy, medical doctors worked on it. After they embalmed him they placed him in the anatomy lab of Tirana Medical Facility with just basic paperwork. The next day he was placed on the podium of the laboratory, and ever since he had silently ‘argued’ with the lab coats. Generations of physicians would practice on his body. The dead would coexist with the living for thirty years, until the day ‘the silent professor’ would abandon his ‘unwilling profession’ to return home.


Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa



1. In the famous Arbëresh song, Kostandin e Garendina, mother reminds her son, now in his grave, of his besa (besa - is a sacred promise and obligation to keep one's given word). She summons him to arise in order to fulfill his promise - to bring her daughter back from a foreign land:

Kostandin i biri im,
ku ëë besa çë më dhee,
të më sillje Garendinën,
Garendinën t'it motër?
Besa jote ëë nën dhee!

Kostandin, my son,
where is the besa you gave me,
that you would bring Garendina back to me,
Garendina, your sister?
Your besa is under the earth!

Kostandin rises from the dead, fulfills his promise, and returns to the grave.