By Nestor Topencharov
Part seventeen
THE DRAMA OF LIFE
(THE STORY OF A FAMILY)
I dedicate this book to: All fellow sufferers. Their families. And in particular, to people who did not have the opportunity to tell the odyssey of life, during the communist dictatorship.
FOREWORD
Memorie.al / I was born in the city of Korça, on October 22, 1953. I left Albania in October 1990, after we were given the right to repatriate to Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia) ). In June 1992, I emigrated to Italy, where I still live today. Although I have been away for 32 years, I did not cut ties, as Albania was the country of my birth, where I spent 37 years, and that part of my blood is Albanian. Years later, the ties with Albania were strengthened, as I also took my wife from Durrës. We came every year on vacation, but the short time of our stay meant that many contacts were cut off. However, true friends and comrades remained forever in my heart.
In the last three years, I did not have the opportunity to visit Albania. But during 2022, I came several times. My commitment on the one hand and the coincidence on the other, made it possible for me to re-establish connections with friends and colleagues whom I had not seen for decades. Knowing my past, some of them advised me to write down what had happened in my life. At first, this idea seemed like a utopia to me, since even though I had been a good student, I had no inclination towards drafting. Then I reflected. I would just write my story, true events, where not much inspiration was needed. Perhaps a writer would know how to present these events, as a true pen artist knows. While I will write them, without many descriptions: briefly, simply, naked, as they happened.
Something else that pushed me even more to write this book was an interview on TV Klan, which I saw in October of this year, directed by the well-known journalist Blendi Fevziu. I didn’t seek revenge. But I didn’t even have justice. With the help of this book, I will make known to the Albanian public opinion, the role of the individuals who contributed to my suffering and that of my family. And today, I am putting my finger on these “beings”, not for the task they had, but for the way they performed it. I will start my writing with my grandfather, from my mother’s side, to continue with my father, where I will touch on the most important moments of their lives. This will help the reader to know my background.
Then I will also talk about myself. In this book I will also tell some events, one more dramatic than the other, that happened to people I had the honor of knowing. I am glad that many books have been published about the suffering and persecution of “enemies of the people” and their families in internment camps and prisons during the communist dictatorship. I was able to read some of these works. I believe that this book, in a modest way, will contribute to know even more the inhuman methods of the State Security, the way they created accusations and how they destroyed people and families to keep the people under terror.
author
December, 2022
Continues from last issue
CHAPTER FOUR
17 years had passed and he had forgotten me.
I don’t!
– “How! You don’t remember the people you punished”?!
At this moment I noticed that he trembled, and in a weak voice he mentioned the student who had passed through his hand in those dark years of the dictatorship. Then, after collecting himself, he invited me to his office. When we entered he offered me a cigarette, which I refused. I also refused when he invited me to sit down.
During all the sessions of his investigation in those three months, he had always kept me on my toes. He began to continuously inhale his cigarette and exhale a considerable amount of smoke, as if he had to hide behind that fog. Now we had switched roles. He was the accused. I was staring at him and just seeing him. I was waiting for an answer.
The answer came.
But repentance does not.
He began to justify himself in regard to his conduct, as well as to the mounting of the charge; “That’s how they ordered us.”
To my question about what he was doing now, he answered:
– “Lawyer”.
– “Lawyer”! – I said surprised. – You who until yesterday were punishing innocent people, today you came out in defense of rights”?!
I then continued:
– “Go to church and pray for the sins you have committed. Maybe God can forgive you”?!
After these words I left, with the thought that these people do not ask for forgiveness for their past and are capable of taking advantage in all political situations.
I was surprised by these realities.
Sami, an employee of the labor office, an honest man, had been fired!
Former investigator Ligor, a real tool of the dictatorship, was given not only the right to the profession of lawyer, but also the office. And where do you say? Right in the structure of the court!
Somewhere, during the other visits I made to friends, I met a lady, who for many years, had been exiled, family. With the advent of democracy, he held an important position in the city’s governing bodies.
When he heard about the unexpected meeting with the ex-investigator, he suggested that I go to the editor of the newspaper of the branch of the Democratic Party of Korça, Petraq Kita, to write an article about this event.
Petraq and I were in the same class in high school. I remember his writings were among the best and were often read in class. Since we graduated high school, we hadn’t met. He didn’t know how my life had turned out. When he saw me, he hugged me and after I explained the reason, he listened attentively. He told me that he would publish the article in the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike” in Tirana.
I told him, not only about Ligor, but also about the head of the investigation Reshat Leska and the other investigator, Irakli Koçollari. Not only for the stamps, but mainly for the antique weapons and other silver objects that had been taken from us. Where did they end up?
The Medieval Museum in Korça did not have them. Years ago, when I was in prison, the museum was interested in our house, regarding the silver cobras. These objects of great value, not only monetary but also historical, that belonged to the area, were not in the city museum and I wanted to know what end they had…!
Then I returned to Italy. The following year, when I went to Ohrid, my mother showed me a newspaper that one of her cousins had brought from Albania. There was published the article with the title: “I come from Rome to accuse the theft of the values of the national culture…”!
The article was in the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike” dated 28.04.1994. I am giving below a part of this article:
– “With Nestor Topençarov, I had not seen each other for years. To tell you the truth, I barely recognized him when he came to my office these days and invited me for a coffee. We used to be together in the “Themistokli Gërmënji” high school in Korça, in the same class. Now, although he has his family in Ohrid, he himself lives in Italy, in the city of Rome. He looked shocked. A murderous smile froze on his lips. He had just broken up with one of his former investigators, now a lawyer. He had gone to the office…”!
PETRAQ KITA
After the advent of democracy, when my sister was traveling by train in Albania, there was a familiar face in front of her in the carriage. Often the long road makes you exchange two words with the person you are close to. During the conversation, when Ivana found out that he lived in Korça, she asked him where he worked, as he seemed a familiar face. Immediately he changed the conversation, but Ivana recognized the judge who had sentenced me. When he made it known, he justified himself with the expression: “we were forced”. After this answer, the conversation was terminated.
In the years that followed, I devoted myself to family and work. My wife and I spent almost 24 years together. They were some of the most beautiful years of my life. He gave me a lot of love. That love that I had needed so much, after that life of hell, that I had led. We traveled a lot. We saw new countries and continents, different people and cultures. We also built a beautiful villa. Here in Italy, where we live, we have several local families who have offered us their friendship. However, we missed our relatives, friends and colleagues in Albania. Now I am left alone, since my life partner passed away 10 months ago. Her memory gives me strength to move forward.
EPILOGUE
In May 2022, I arrived at the “Mother Teresa” airport in Tirana. From there, I took a taxi to Durrës. On the way, in conversation with the driver, I found out that he knew one of my close friends from the faculty. This helped me to meet more and with other friends.
They had been trying to contact me for several years, but to no avail. Finally, they wanted to search for me through the show “There is a message for you”, on the TV channel Klan. But as it turned out, I surprised him. I spent several beautiful days with them, both in Tirana and in Kruja. Another friend, as he found out, came immediately from Vlora.
– “Just to hug you”, – he told me.
I was moved by their behavior.
After we parted, we talked about each other’s news, seeing how we had not seen each other for 46 years. Then someone showed me what I had imagined. They had been under pressure from the Security, to become my witnesses. I felt good for these friends who faced the brutality of the investigation, to protect a truth. But, on the other hand, I was sorry, because because of me, very difficult moments had passed.
In the middle of October, I came back to Albania. This time, apart from Tirana and Durrës, I also went to Korçë for a few days. I hadn’t seen him in many years. I got to know the city and met many friends and acquaintances.
I returned to Italy at the end of the month. One evening, while looking on the Internet, an interview directed by the journalist Blendi Fevziu, on TV Klan, caught my attention. Invited to the studio was a “historian”, who would talk about how Sigurimi worked. This topic caught my attention.
I had seen Mr. Fevziu in several previous interviews. What I had not seen for 46 years was my and my father’s investigator, Irakli Koçollari. Instantly my eyes went dark. As in a movie, I remembered the arrest and the investigation, the prison and the difficult life after release, my burnt youth, the youth that no one could give me back.
My condition worsened even more while following this interview. To the journalist’s question, that; how many years he had worked in State Security, Koçollari cunningly avoided telling the truth. I answer with puns: “Disclosure-counter-disclosure”.
To continue with:
– “You know that I have been outside, and in Discovery”.
He said that he had worked in Greece for 11 years, since 1980, and did not mention what he had done before this year, the investigators where he had worked.
Not only that. When asked about the unjust punishments of that time and the reason for the punishments, he replied:
– “Why was a man punished for agitation and propaganda”?
In his answer, this investigator passed the responsibility on the denunciations of people (witnesses). Tried to ignore the truth. He did not show that most of these processes were programmed and directed by the system and that he had been an active part of it!
Irakli Koçollari, with his inhuman ways, by finding and preparing witnesses, had played with the life of an innocent. Even today, after all these years, he does not express the slightest sign of remorse.
When asked by Mr. Fevziu:
– “How could there be agents in a closed Albania, with control and violence?” Who could do it? Many punishments were fabricated”?!
Koçollari confronted the journalist: – “No, it’s not like that! You don’t talk like that”! It seems that Heraclius forgot the ways he used against us, to look for agents, where they did not exist.
And when the real agent came forward, he befriended him.
The agent? And what an agent!
The chief agent! Majku, head of CIA operations for Albania.
What hypocrisy! To speak no more, (as it interferes with me), of what he further showed, in connection with this argument…!
His lies were endless…!
I didn’t hear anything about the head of the investigation, Reshat Leskaj.
I met one of my investigators, Ligor Kondil, in Korça 29 years ago. He had become a lawyer.
I saw the other investigator, Irakli Koçollari, after 46 years, in a television program. He had become a historian.
I remember an Italian film that I had seen at a young age. The title was; “The long night of 43”.
It was based on a true event.
It was the period of fascist dictatorship. Northern Italy. The city of Ferrara. One night in December, a group of innocent people were shot. This operation, carried out in secret, caused its leader to lose track.
A few years later, when the war was over, this character walked around the city as an honorable man…!
History repeats itself…! Memorie.al
END January, 2023
