By Keze Kozeta Zylo
Memorie.al / Mimoza Lesko, originally from the village of Tatzat in Delvina, daughter of one of the most popular nationalist families of that province, which the communist regime of the dictator Enver Hoxha and his successor, Ramiz Alia, had declared “enemies of the people” and had exiled her to the most lost villages of Albania, in a confession about her family, she shows the crimes that regime committed against that family as well as the Shaska tribe from her mother, two of the nationalist tribes, very well-known and with great history in the South of Albania. For more about this, etc., we know the interview that Mrs. Mimoza Lesko gave it to the well-known journalist, Këze Kozeta Zylo, which we are publishing in this article.
Mrs. Mimoza, let’s start this interview with you, in the period of your childhood years, what was it like and how did you experience it as a child?
They were difficult years! My family is represented by both surnames; Lesko from the father and Shaska from the mother, so the surnames themselves speak volumes! After many expulsions from different places, where I even wrote my last name from Lesko to Leskaj, my father finally settled in an old hut, on the outskirts of a small town called Shijak!
After many struggles, he manages to build a house. I was born there, and as I grew up, I began to understand the great vicissitudes of the family. A silent childhood of mine, like many others who came from a family with a “bad biography”, this kind of “brand” followed you everywhere, and at any age. I have lived every day of my life, with the fear that from moment to moment, I might lose her, and this has been the greatest torture of my life.
The persecutions on the father and the family were also diverse and this greatly influenced my growth and formation as a child. The place where we lived, there were generous and good people, who made our way of life in Shijak a little easier, so that when we passed by on the street, no one cursed and insulted us, with the dirty word “stinking balliste”, as they often did in the areas where my relatives lived.
I say with great respect that the Shijakas themselves were good, generous and hospitable people. My father, a very honest and hard-working man, managed to win the respect and love of these good people. They looked at us with respect, and appreciated the culture of our family. The most painful part of my childhood was my mother’s family, that is, my grandparents and uncles exiled to a mountain top, called ‘Skotull’ (from the area of the city of Vlora), where there were only savages. I used to climb that mountain for hours, to see the relatives who lived there. I was only five years old and the image of that life there still lingers in my eyes.
I have in front of my eyes today my grandfather, Filo Shaska, who became very ill from the brutal tortures of the prisons. An educated man, a good economist and an honest man, who knew the most macabre torture and poverty of that times. The countless days of poverty that accompanied the mother and her sisters and brothers after the arrest of the grandfather, is harrowing. From not eating, she got so sick that she still suffers the consequences today. These events and many others, I have experienced very badly as a child. I have shed countless tears, in the face of their suffering, where mine was nothing.
Who is your family and why were you persecuted by Enver Hoxha’s dictatorial communist regime?
My family was against the communist regime. She never conformed to the wrong ideas of that system. My father, he was the son of a very well-known nationalist, in the entire area of the South, a man with great influence, named Ahmet Lesko, from Tatzati i Delvina! With his injury and physical elimination in the Tirana hospital, events changed. Immediately after the victory of communism, the other brothers; Qaniu, Karafili and Ismet Lesko escaped and lived outside Albania, until they died in the United States of America, where their remains still rest today. Through escape, they escaped the brutal communist barbarism.
While the younger brother, Namik Lesko, thinking about the minor children, left with their mothers at a very young age, decides to stay and take care of them. It doesn’t take much time and they catch him, physically eliminating him in a barbaric way, dismembering his body, to throw it into the river of Lana, where of course he remains without a grave! So it is clear the ongoing persecution of the children who started to grow up, where the oldest was my father, Enver Lesko!
What will you remember from your life of persecution, how did you experience the differentiation in the society at that time, can you bring us any episode that you can remember?
I have a lot to remember. The sufferings are great and endless, but I will bring you only three episodes…!
The first episode, when I was eight years old, I shot myself in the lip with the spring of a school bag, and the blood was pouring out. Bloodied like that, I entered the house and the worried parents started screaming. This is done so that my father, reacting and being irritated would speak or curse and thus find a reason to imprison him. The events followed with a denunciation, where a bitter lightning sheet was prepared, as they were then used to unmask opponents of the regime!
The second episode was when I was 14 years old and I wasn’t allowed to continue high school and why I was so good at my studies! Tremendous efforts were made by people who loved and respected us, who called it inappropriate that I should not be educated.
The third episode was in 1987, when I took courage and secretly wrote a letter to my uncle in the USA. It was simply a greeting letter, written very carefully, but I wanted to show them that we were alive and well, and we were thinking and remembering them. Their answer comes after a year and is not given to us, but they call the father to the Department of Internal Affairs, where they threaten him, saying that; should have “collected” me, for the courage I took, because in a second case, they would think about me!
What were your unrealized dreams in Albania and how do you feel today, when you remember the many obstacles and vicissitudes that brought you during the communist regime?
The only primary dream I had was Freedom! I wanted to be free and not in a cage like I was living! I never failed at any moment of my life, without dreaming, because everything depends on it. I eagerly wrote and read every book, I dreamed of becoming a famous writer, where I could only write the truth! And with these two dreams I grew up as the years passed. Both of which I could not achieve in Albania, and this is the reason why I write and publish in the Albanian language.
Did you happen to meet the persecutors of your family during the post-communist period?
I wrote a story about it. I witnessed when my father met his persecutor! I can never forget it. As for the regular spies, who were the ongoing persecutors, we almost lived with them. It was the same “compromise” I call it….! So I’m silent, and you can’t do anything to me. The absurdity of that life lived differently and being different, I would say.
When did you leave your homeland and what was the main reason for leaving for Italy?
I left my homeland in 1995, but that was because I got married and started a family in Italy, so a personal life choice!
What is the difference between your homeland Albania and the Italy that hosted you? In conversations with Italian friends, when you have told your painful family history, what has been their attitude?
The changes are big, because a family life started all over again. The country, the culture and the way of life, were the opposite of what I left and lived. I often joke that I’ve lived in two worlds, but it’s true. In conversations with friends, I have told many events, often and they did not believe me, this is due to the fact that there are truly unimaginable events, and I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for them to understand us, we have to live!
Today, unfortunately, there are politicians, pseudo-journalists, where I have to say that there are also from your persecuted class, who instead of bringing the names of their persecutors, witnesses, accusers who put them in prison or exiled them, deal with their opponents in comments, which are hidden in anonymous addresses or in various writings, accusing them as criminals, traitors, murderers without facts, without documents, without ever knowing them, in a word they do the same thing, as the dictatorship condemned them, with slander, anger, discrimination…!
What is your opinion about this mess that is happening in Albania and among Albanians everywhere in the world?
Character is personal! As life flows quickly, man also seeks to quickly recover lost time, and this is where everyone’s personal character comes to the fore. Regarding the mess happening in Albania, I feel pain. I often turn my mind and eyes there with great regret. That suffering people deserve a lot, that country is really very beautiful, but as it seems among us Albanians, there is a kind of selfishness, which we use in our evil.
You have published poetry books, where many of your poems have been welcomed by readers, what are the main motives that have inspired you to put them on paper?
Everything inspires me! I try to fulfill my childhood dream; it’s never too late for that. After the strong lack that I felt after the loss of my appetite, which was the trigger for the realization of this dream, I find inspiration everywhere. From morning to evening, life gives you the most varied emotions. I take them from the past; bring back to the new readers that part they don’t know. I practically write every real emotion, and this has made readers turn their eyes to what I write.
What are your dreams that you predict you will realize in the future?
Dreaming is beautiful, because life everywhere has its own difficulties, and I think I will still continue to write. I finished the third book of poetry, “Pyeta Retë”, which is being published these days, after the first two such as: “I talk to the silence” and “Love with autumn colors”. I’m finishing a book of stories based on true events and some manuscripts, and I’m also working on my first novel, which is titled “Return to the Past”! I hope for their realization and prosperity! Memorie.al
