Memorie.al / Loni Adami, one of the Albanian employees of the American Embassy in Albania, in the years 1929-1939, was arrested as an agent of the Anglo-Americans when the communists took power. An interview a few years ago by his son, Viktor Adami, shows the serious condition in which he had ended up due to torture, the former excellent student of “Harry Fultz”, connoisseur of several foreign languages, Lon Adami, in whose body had broken limbs and open wounds. A painful memory forever etched in the mind of Victor, then 5 years old, which saw his father one day in June 1947, the day before eternity.
Thracian Trak…! On June 9, 1947, in the prison of Tirana, among the various noises, the timid taps of the shoes of a five-year-old boy, who was scared to death, supported and clung to his mother’s body, were recorded in the memory of the time. Once, inside, two heavy doors had been opened one after the other, and then, when their eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, they had discerned in the corner the motionless silhouette of a man, who gave no signs of life. The mother had approached speaking to the other on behalf.
Only then did the five-year-old boy realize that the figure of the man lying at the foot of the wall must be his father. But the other had taken a long time to react, to manage to get some words out of his mouth. To be precise, he had forcibly squeezed out of his throat some hoarse sounds, like those of a man with a severed tongue that in their totality had managed to formulate only one phrase with meaning, a promise: “Take care of the children”! Then the 5-year-old boy saw with horror how his mother’s hand was filled with worms when she touched her husband’s shoulder. So the child had lost consciousness. He had begun to cry so hard that a short time later, upon arriving home, his mother was horrified to find a rapid rise in temperature.
The man who tells this part of his life story, the scariest of scaries, is called Viktor Adami and he is the son of Loni Adami, the former secretary of the American embassy in Tirana, in the years 1929-1939, since a few years ago, was honored with a memorial by the ambassador, John Withers. Fortunately, Victor did not die from the fever that had kept him confined to bed for five days, he did not die 24 hours later, when from the window, he observed a soldier on a motorcycle, who stopped in front of the gate of their house, given aloud to his mother, Andromache, the news of her husband’s death. He lived to see the sudden overthrow of the Albanian dictatorship and dictators; he lived to see the respect of his mother and the honor of his father.
The Secretary of the US Embassy in Tirana and fascism
“My father, Loni Adami, originally from Progri i Korça, was one of the best students of the American Technical School, here in Tirana, which today is known as the ‘Harry Fultz’ school. In 1929, immediately after he had finished school, he was recommended by Harry Fultz to the American ambassador, Charles Hart, as the best student and connoisseur of several other foreign languages besides English”, begins his account of him father, Viktor Adami. After this recommendation, Loni Adami had served in this embassy for 10 years in a row, until its closure, in the role of secretary. So, there were moments when, in the absence of the ambassador and the consul, he remained the highest authority.
Meanwhile, Kol Kuqali, Loni Adami’s brother-in-law, or sister’s husband, had also returned from the United States of America, where he had worked for a while as an immigrant. Viktori does not know how to clarify the circumstances, but also Col. Kuqali, (who was honored in the same way by the American ambassador, John Withers), had found work in the same embassy, as a translator, in 1929. With the invasion of Albania, the American embassy had closed its doors and Loni Adami and Kol Kuqali were forced to find other jobs. The first, Loni Adami, had opened a small printing press, while Kol Kuqali, together with Jovan Adami, Loni’s brother, had obtained a concession for the coal mine in Krrabë, Tirana.
“Father quickly connected with the Anti-Fascist Movement and consequently with the communists. It is known that in his printing house, the first issue of “Voice of the People” was printed, but also a number of other propaganda materials. The father told us a detail, when two German soldiers entered the printing house. “When he saw the two soldiers, the worker, Kristo Trajani, who was only 16 years old, stopped working, his face turned white, as he was printing communist tracts. But at this time the father appeared there, who had started to communicate in German. The soldiers, surprised by their mother’s language, had politely asked what they were printing and the father, completely calm, had told them that it was an announcement of the Ministry of World Affairs.
He further explained to the Germans that the printing press was very small and as such, it could not make more than blocks and sheets, so it could not make newspapers. This reasoning was done because the Germans, meanwhile, were looking to find a place to print the newspaper “Voice of the People”, which they thought could be done in a more modern printing press. Ah, this was also confessed by the artist Violeta Manushi, who worked in her father’s printing house”, Viktori narrates his father’s history with the communists. A story that would thicken even more, when the Anglo-American missions would land in Albania.
Arrest by communists
According to Victor, his father Loni had quickly engaged with the Anglo-Americans. This is because Harry Fultz himself, at this time, was stationed in Cairo, Egypt, where the Anglo-Americans had their war headquarters, which was also responsible for the missions in Albania. “So it was Harry Fultz, the one who recommended to the missionaries exactly him, as a man of faith and as a man with contact opportunities. So all the members of the Anglo-American military missions, when they arrived in Albania, were oriented by my father”, Viktori confesses.
In January 1945, Harry Fultz himself had arrived in Albania at the head of a mission. He had called Loni Adami, in the buildings of the former American embassy. The mission was tasked with testing the situation in Albania and establishing contacts mainly with intellectuals. “At this time Col. Kuqali, my father’s brother-in-law, was elected deputy by the people. His house but also the area of Krraba, where he had the mine, had been centers of anti-fascist resistance. In his book “When the foundations of the new Albania were laid”, Enver Hoxha writes: “I met at the house of Col. Kuqal, with Col. Tromara…”!
Furthermore, according to Viktor Adam’s explanations, the Communist Party delegation that went to Mukje stayed for three days in a row at his father’s house. It was about high personalities, such as: Ymer Dishnica, Abaz Kupi, Gogo Nushi, Nako Spiru, Omer Nishani, and others. So in Loni Adami’s house and that of his brother-in-law, Col. Kuqali, there were many conversations, moreover, Anglo-Americans also participated in these conversations. Enver Hoxha did not like exactly these, but also the tendency of both of them in supporting a democratic political system, with the participation of all political forces.
“Thus, once the father’s printing press is nationalized and secretly, he is about to be arrested. Col. Kuqali, in the meantime, signals him to leave the village, in Korça, telling him that the situation is turbulent”, Loni Adam’s son confesses. But the communists reach Loni Adam in Korça as well. They arrested him on October 10, 1946, and even accused him of trying to escape.
The tortures
“I was very young, only 5 years old, when my mother took me and my slightly older brother to go to prison, to my father. We missed him for more than 8 months. I later learned how my mother managed to get into prison. The father was respected by a large number of communists, on whose doors the mother had knocked. But without being able to change anything, in his fate. A fate decided somewhere high up, by a man whose decisions could only be reversed by some very great force”, Viktori says, accompanying this with a negative shake of the head.
Loni Adami was initially tortured for three months in Korça. According to his son, Victor, his father was accused of being an agent of the Americans, recruited to the Technical School and asked to sign, that; the American mission, who came to Albania in the years 1945-1946, came with the purpose of overthrowing the popular power. “But the father, as an idealist that he was, could not get out of his convictions. He did not sign even though the torture had become more severe, after he had been brought to Tirana. They told me that they beat him until his flesh fell to pieces that they broke his shoulder and one of his legs, that they hung him from the ceiling and put his body in cold water up to his throat, that they pierced him with rods fried iron.
We were allowed to meet him only one day before he died in the cell. My mother took me and my brother, who was a year older, with her. I remember that two pairs of doors were opened. The room where the father was was dark, without windows. The mother approached him and tried to move him. There he noticed that his shoulder and one of his legs had been broken and that they were filled with maggots. I came out crying loudly, screaming…”, Viktori recounts, perhaps the most terrible event of his life.
Surprisingly, on the same day that Loni Adami died, in another cell, Col. Kuqali, who had only been arrested for 10 days, also hanged him. He was the father of two sons, martyrs of the Anti-Fascist War, one died in the Mathausen extermination camp in Germany, the other in the Pristina camp. After the liberation, Col. Kuqali had fulfilled the function of the deputy director of the Albanian Bank, but had clashed with Enver Hoxha, as he had been against the equalization of the lek with the Yugoslav dinar, an action that in 1946, converted the Albanians, from rich, in the poor, for only a few months.
However, after the arrest, Col. Kuqali, the brother-in-law of Loni Adami, the deputy elected by the people, did not give the communists more time to torture him. Through the documents that the communists left behind, it is said that; Col. Kuqali, Loni Adami, journalist Sabri Dajlani and Drita Kosturi, Qemal Stafa’s fiancee, were accused of being agents of American imperialism. The bodies of Kol Kuqal and Loni Adam, according to some eyewitness accounts, were put in a mass grave, in the place called Bregu i Lumit in Tirana, and the family members have not been able to find them to this day. They have even lost hope, after many searches.
REPRICING
Communism hits Loni Adami’s family hard, after his death in prison. Internment in the swamp of Durrës and not allowing the lady of the house to practice the profession of teaching. However, thanks to various interventions, Andromaqi Adami manages to find herself in her beloved profession, after 1956, which culminated in the Tirana Conference. The rest of the years, until 1991, can be summed up in one phrase, for the Adami family: Struggle for survival.
In the same year, i.e. in 1991, without telling his mother, Viktor Adami, upon learning that the first ambassador of the United States in Tirana, Ryerson, had arrived at the “Dajti” Hotel in Tirana, secretly set out to meet him . And it succeeds. He manages to sit him down for coffee and tell him in broken English, like a worthy son of Loni Adam, the history of his family. After this meeting, which leaves him shocked, the American ambassador, a well-known anti-communist, visits and feels at home in the modest apartment of the Adams in Tirana.
Through many conversations, Andromaqi, Loni Adam’s wife and Victor’s mother, confesses a secret to Ambassador Ryerson. He tells how in 1939, when the Italian troops were entering Tirana, he had taken and hid in the basement of the embassy, its coat of arms. “They go to the embassy in twos, search in a warehouse and find it there, where the mother said she had hidden it. The American ambassador couldn’t hold back his tears”, Viktori confesses. But there is another part. Another story happened in July 1991, on the anniversary of the holiday of the United States of America.
“Ambassador Ryerson gave a reception at the “Dajti” Hotel. He invited us too, me and my mother, of course. In the middle of the hall were four armchairs facing each other? President Ramiz Alia came, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muhamet Kapllani, and they sat down. One place remained empty. At this time, Ambassador Ryerson rose and called to my mother: Lady Andromaqi, come here. And addressed to Ramiz: This lady is the representative of the United States in Albania.
Ramizi is surprised and asks which one it is. The mother replies: ‘Don’t you know who I am?! You were kalama when you came to my house and met Omer Nishan, Nako Spiru, Ymer Dishnica…”! Narrates Viktori, the moment when his mother felt prouder than ever, that she was the wife of Loni Adami, the former secretary of the American Embassy in Albania, in the years 1929-1939. Memorie.al
