By Shkëlqim Abazi
Part Thirteen
Memorie.al / I were born on 23.12.1951, in a black month, of a time of sorrow, under the blackest communist regime. On September 23, 1968, the sadistic chief investigator, Llambi Gegeni, the ignorant investigator Shyqyri Çoku, and the cruel prosecutor, Thoma Tutulani, mutilated me at the Internal Affairs Branch in Shkodër. They split my head, blinded one of my eyes, and deafened one of my ears, after breaking several of my ribs, half of my molars, and the thumb of my left hand. On October 23, 1968, they took me to court, where the wretch Faik Minarolli gave me a ten-year political prison sentence. After having half of my sentence cut because I was still a minor, sixteen years old, on November 23, 1968, they took me to the political camp of Reps and from there, on September 23, 1970, to the Spaç camp, where on May 23, 1973, during the revolt of political prisoners, four martyrs were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad: Pal Zefi, Skënder Daja, Hajri Pashaj and Dervish Bejko.
On June 23, 2013, the Democratic Party lost the elections, a perfectly normal process in the democracy we pretend to have. But on October 23, 2013, the General Director of the “Renaissance” government sent Order No. 2203, dated 23.10.2013, for the release of a police employee from duty. So Divine Providence intertwined with the neo-communist Renaissance Providence and, precisely on the 23rd, I was replaced by none other than the former Sigurimi operative of the Burrel Prison. Could anything be more significant than that?! The former political prisoner is replaced by the former persecutor!
Author
SHKËLQIM ABAZI
R E P S I
(Forced Labor Camp)
Memoir
Six Hundred Grams
(The routine of a day at the dormitory camp)
Immediately, the happy days of my youth and my coarse roommate from Tropoja came to mind. I gathered my strength, and with extraordinary effort, I pulled open my eyelids, and fixed my gaze on that broad face. Yes. The doubt was gone; it was him, the “Bear of the Mountains”! That broad, hairy face, those square contours of his protruding jaw, those thick, black eyebrows under a wide forehead, always furrowed and open, like a bird’s wings in flight. In a flash, I returned to the past; I, the child, in the narrow streets of Shkodra, where we, the former boarders, would leave without permission to see a new movie or the variety shows and theatrical troupe at the “Migjeni” theater; we would hide by the walls to escape the vigilant eye of the dormitory guard.
Beside me, the silent “Bear,” with a coarse body and unusual strength for his age. Without his powerful shoulders, we would never have been able to get even a single ticket. Only he could subdue the many smugglers from Shkodra, who, organized and in cooperation with the sellers, would buy almost all the tickets in the early hours of the morning for the afternoon shows, to then sell them at a double price, which our ripped pockets couldn’t afford. But besides this hassle, the “Bear” also served as our protector with his fists and shoulders, to give us courage.
Often, the boarders would become the subject of mockery by the neighborhood boys, especially in the early years, because later we got to know them and became friends. In such cases, it was again the powerful fists of the “Bear” that stood up to them and encouraged us to be brave. But in a few cases, I too had used his power to protect my female classmates when the street boys teased them.
These things appeared to me as I stood there with my eyes closed, on that table, or bed. But I naturally cleared my head, remembering the situation I was in. Now we were in extreme positions, he, apparently, the prison doctor, I, the prisoner; he, the trusted man of the State Security, I, their prey. I composed myself. In any case, I had to try it, but always being careful. I opened my eyes without attracting the attention of the others, and looked at him intently, straight into his pupils. From where I was lying below, his eyes seemed to me watery. Maybe he was crying, or maybe it just seemed that way to me!
Perhaps immersed in the lake of nostalgia for the years when we were still young and pure, untainted by the political virus of the present time, I was dreaming. But life, in a way, had evolved in the opposite direction, time had done its part, but gratitude and early friendship remained to be proven. “After all, I have nothing to lose, I’ll try it once! If he has remained the person I knew, or even if only one percent of the ‘old Bear’ is left, he might be able to do something for me, otherwise, if his goodwill has vanished, I will continue my game!”
As soon as these thoughts crossed my mind, I began to implement the plan. I raised my head slightly and looked around; I tried to figure out who was in the room. I noticed behind the “Bear’s” shoulders, another white shirt, and even further away, two military men were gesticulating and speaking, but they couldn’t be heard from where I was. I gathered my remaining strength, focused intently on the doctor’s broad face, gave a quick blink of my eyelids, an action that lasted a few seconds, then I collapsed exhausted on the pillow, with my eyes wide open and fixed on the familiar features.
The “Bear” raised a hand as big as a bear’s paw and moved it over his watery eyes. It seemed to me that he wiped away his tears, or maybe it was an illusion of the moment, but anyway, he repeated the same action; he moved his eyelids briskly, in a way that I interpreted as a signal. “He recognized me, let’s see the end!” I was convinced when he turned his back on me, perhaps so as not to betray himself, he joined the military men, put his arms around them and, pulling the door behind his back, they went out.
In the room remained a small, pale man in a white shirt, with hair falling over the front of his forehead. The pale man, with a large syringe in his hand, went to the left of where I was lying; with a quick prick, he plunged the needle into the stopper of a bottle that had been placed on a bookshelf earlier. Then I understood, I was in an office and they must have laid me on a work table. From the stopper of the bottle, I noticed a rubber tube hanging down, which ended in my left arm.
They had put me on an IV drip. A little later I gave in to oblivion. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I regained consciousness, I was able to distinguish, especially to hear clearly, every conversation that was taking place nearby. I tried to turn on my side, because I felt numb, but I couldn’t move, I raised my head and saw that I was tied up. From behind my head, I heard them talking. The cynical voice of my interrogator stood out above the others; I say it with conviction, I would not mistake this voice even in the midst of a cacophony of a thousand voices, it is so deeply etched in my memory that I believe even in the last moment, when I die, this voice will follow me.
“So, carnation, you’re alive?! I hope you understand how to tame tigers?! You wanted to trick us! Oh no, I wasn’t just kidding when I told you, we are the vigilant eye and ear of the Party! Eh, man, eh, how many we have seen like you! Why do you think you are something special? Who are you, huh? You’re a piece of filth, a spy for Tito and America! An enemy of the Party and the people, that’s who you are!”
These words and the shrill voice made me jerk my head up, the whole table shook. Meanwhile, a police officer with a rope in his hands, made a second tie, up to my neck. The moment I felt that I was being tied double, I lost control. An unknown rage took over me; I began to mumble incoherent words through my teeth. I am not able to say what kind of wild appearance I must have taken on at those moments! But about one thing I am very sure, the anger made my flesh crawl and my hair bristled. Surely this negative synergy must have been reflected on my face because, from the right side of my head, I felt a powerful blow that stung me to the heart.
The pain was indescribable, my mouth filled with secretions, my tongue moved freely on that side of my jaw. It seems they had broken my teeth. This happened so fast that I couldn’t collect myself. When I looked above my head, I saw the enraged snout of the interrogator, who was snarling at me threateningly and an unbearable stench of alcohol, irritating my nostrils.
“You scumbag, I will kill you with these hands, why do you think you’re my friend! You even swear through your teeth, how dare you! You mutt, you son of a bitch! I’ll make you and your little whore bitch, who you took to be screwed by Tito, foam at the mouth! The cup overflowed, he had insulted me where no Albanian can stand it. He had insulted my dear and good mother, he had touched the honor of my faithful wife, who for my sake and love for me, made the most self-sacrificing act, and she followed me into the greatest danger, under the threat of guns and border dogs. I gathered what little strength I had left and with puffed cheeks, I furiously spat, all the secretions that had accumulated in my mouth. A red blob of spit, mixed with blood and pieces of broken teeth, spread over the threatening face. The particles of spray scattered on the white collar of his shirt and the beige tie.
Now that I had somewhat taken revenge for the unbearable insult, I fell into a state of calm, while the stunned and covered interrogator remained frozen. Perhaps unprepared for this reaction, he didn’t know what to do. But a police officer handed him a handkerchief, he wiped his face, but the marks on his shirt remained clear. When the confusion passed, he lunged at me a second time, grabbed me by the neck and squeezed me with all his might, as if he had lost his mind. I felt my breath being cut off, my chest was about to burst from the pressure, when a large hand, like a bear’s paw, came between us. It was the doctor.
“Comrade…, what are you doing?! You’ll kill him!” and he pushed him away with force.
“Let me kill the scumbag! After all, one enemy less! Look what he did to me, man!”
“Oh, comrade…, I am here to save, not to take life! When you intended to kill him, why did you call me, comrade?”
“Let me, I told you, let’s close this case! We get saved too, and it’s good for the Party, one less filthy person!”
“No, my dear sir, don’t you understand that in front of you is a man who is finished? He is insane; he is completely out of reality, irresponsible for the actions he takes.”
“What are you saying?”
“This is what I just said. You could have killed him, but not in my hands! I, as a doctor, cannot approve of this.”
“Man, are you on the right track?! This man has committed high treason against the Fatherland! Even a bullet is too little for him, he should be skinned alive!”
“Comrade… you can do all these things you say, but not in my presence. I am a doctor, let me do my job!”
“We’ll see….” he threatened and flew out without greeting anyone.
The entire conversation with raised tones took place over my head. At those moments, I stayed with my eyes closed from the physical injury, but more from the pain for the doctor. For the moment, the “Bear” had triumphed. With my eyes closed, I envisioned the “Bear of the Mountains,” the protector of the weak boarders, as he had been in those distant years. I felt pride for my friend from early youth. The position I was in did not give me the chance to express my gratitude, so I stayed, as if in a dazed state.
What happened next has nothing to do with what I’m telling you, but I wanted to tell you in two words that the smart and courageous intervention of my old friend saved my life. He kept me under medical care for a few more days. During those days, we were alone on only one occasion, and he whispered in my ear:
“Avzi, be careful with the other interrogator, because the first one has been transferred. I hope you get the lightest sentence possible!” he went to the doorstep and called the guard. “Now I’m done, if he has complications, call me.”
He left, I didn’t see him again. But, anyway, he remains my friend. The second interrogator did not put me to this test again. If he had, I don’t know if I would be who I am today. It was difficult, my friends, to resist temptation! Hunger breaks even lions!”
He finished his painful confession.
The third story on this topic and its negative product, I have experienced myself, not just physically, but also spiritually and morally. The person I will talk about, my honorable fellow sufferers, Father Zef Pllumi, Gëzim Medolli, etc., have also spoken about him before me. This guy became such an emblematic figure in prisons and labor camps that no one could learn his last name; everyone called him Ferit, with the nickname “The Cow.” This individual represented the most tragicomic figure of the political prisons.
Of course, I do not possess the descriptive abilities of my honorable fellow sufferers, but in this fragment, I will only tell my experience, in relation to an event on a winter day in 1972. At the end of that difficult winter, in the Spaç camp, an infectious epidemic spread that was then called: “The Spanish flu.” I am not competent to determine if it really originated from Spain, or somewhere else; but its consequences in Spaç were deeply felt, almost everyone got sick, without exception. The symptoms of this plague were high fever, a dry cough, and frequent vomiting, accompanied by blood from the mouth and diarrhea.
The negative consequences that this flu left behind would have unimaginable effects in the camp. As my friend, Ismet Boletini, would paraphrase, who had a mania for linking every event to the financial side, privately calculating the damages for the prisoners and for the state, he concluded:
“Listen, friend, 643 prisoners out of 706 in total have fallen ill. Each sick person was kept on average for 7 days in quarantine; as a result, 4501 working days were lost. For each sick person, the food ration was increased by 12 old lek per day, which amounts to a total of 54,012 lek, plus 42 lek in expenses for medicine, which amounts to 189,042 lek!” he began his arithmetic.
However, Ismet’s calculation continued even further: “13,503 wagons of copper and pyrite have remained unextracted, which if you convert it to a unit of weight, is approximately 27,006 tons, plus or minus depending on the mineral, if it’s copper, it’s less, if it’s pyrite, more. Ultimately, the state has been caused a damage of 243,054 lek by this flu, plus the missing mineral, the loss goes to several million!” As for the damage to the prisoners, in Ismet’s calculations, it came out to be many times greater. He foresaw the consequences as so horrifying that it would take years to replace them. According to him, to repair this economic damage, even human heads would be lost.
“Listen to me, friend,” Ismet reasoned, “that we will pay for these expenses, I have no doubt, but I foresee even more difficult days. Maybe until they replace this damage, they will make our lives miserable, they won’t even give us a single Sunday off. I’m afraid they will become even more savage, it’s not surprising that we will pay for it with human heads, I know communists well!” The smart Boletini was right, like a modern-day Cassandra; his ominous predictions would be fulfilled very soon.
Exactly what Ismet had predicted, the command put into practice, and these and other additional reasons, caused the revolt of political prisoners to break out, a few months later, on May 21, 1973, which would be stained with the blood of four martyrs and the re-sentencing of over eighty others. Initially, the flu defeated the elderly and the weakest, I and a part of the young people resisted. But later, we too succumbed. One of the few who escaped this cholera was Ferit Lopa.
About him, it was said: “This flu affects people, not animals! Therefore, it can’t do anything to a cow!” But let’s go back to the event. On one of these days, when the rooms and barracks were occupied by the sick and the rest were at risk of being infected, with the intervention of the camp doctor M. Kosovrasti, the only prisoner for necrophilia, as I heard those who knew him closely whisper, quarantine was announced. The affected were moved to a two-room space on the first floor of the three-story Palace, which had just been finished being built at that time. In one of these rooms, they also isolated my two friends, the Tomorrs, with whom I ate bread together, Tomor Balliu from Çekini of Gramsh and Tomor Allajbeu, from Peshtan of Berat.
Eating together in prison meant that the few foods that our families brought us with countless sacrifices would be combined. This form of good administration had remained a continuation of a tradition that had its origin since the ordeal of suffering in political prisons began, and it still continued.
In the early years, they sentenced intellectuals and professional politicians, the overwhelming majority of whom were elderly. Raised in large families, where for the needs of daily life, they had service workers at their disposal, such as cooks, waiters, gardeners, cleaning staff, etc., they were unable to serve themselves. They were truly excellent professionals in their respective trades, but not for the conditions of the prison. Therefore, to overcome this practical nonsense, they had found the solution of joining in small groups, with two, three, four, or more people. In this way, they faced the difficulties more easily, but they also became a support for each other.
These kinds of groupings resembled a family organism, where the tasks are divided without protocol; the mothers bear the weight of daily chores inside the house, while the fathers, the burden of providing material goods. Like many others, this is what we had done too. However, as in any group organization, one person will be responsible for one job, another for another. So, in our group, one Tomorr was responsible for the food and its good administration, especially for cooking, and this was Balliu, since he was practical and good at cooking; while Allajbeu, as very impulsive and talkative, since he had a sanguine and somewhat difficult character, had self-chosen the relations with others, as one might say today, public relations, while I, immersed in the world of books, lived outside of reality and the daily hassles.
A verse was even made up about our group, of course with good-naturedness, more for a laugh, as much as one could laugh in those conditions: “Two Tomorrs, under the snow / one with a mouth and one with a hand / The talkative one / is plunged into the pot by the other / The third one works with a pen, all three are brave.”
I don’t know who first came up with this verse, but at the time when the two Tomorrs were locked in quarantine, I truly felt the need for them. I didn’t even know the place where we kept the food sacks in the warehouse, because I didn’t deal with these things at all. When the need arose, I found them by asking, but even when I found them, I wasn’t good at cooking. The Tomorrs took care of these little things, as I valued them before they got sick. I was used to finding them ready. So when I was in trouble, I was in a tight spot.
To find the sacks in the warehouse, I had to ask the guard, a good-natured old prisoner, who had been assigned there, after he had proven to be unfit for any other work. Even when I found them, I didn’t know what they contained inside, because I had never opened them.
As for cooking, I knew my amateur abilities. So, after the first day’s attempt, when my pilaf came out as soup and the soup came out as a tasteless, black gruel, from the scorched bottom of the pot, I handed over the task to my patriot, Bajram Hoxha, who, besides physical work, was good at everything else.
The day I went to the warehouse, I didn’t know where to look for the sacks. But the warehouse guard accompanied me to our place and showed me the shelf and left. After I saw the name of one of us, written with a copying pencil on a piece of white cloth, sewn on top, I chose the sack, took what I thought I would need and went to the private kitchen, to prepare soup for my friends in quarantine. After the person who was in front of me finished cooking, one of the stoves was freed up, and then I realized that besides the wood for the fire, I was also missing some other necessary assortments for the dish, such as salt, citric acid, and what else. It was then that I believed Balliu when he said to me: “Long live women! The kitchen is a big hassle, brother!”
According to the advice of a master cook who was next to me, I put the pot with water on the fire, and then I went back to the food warehouse. When I entered there, I went again to the place where I had taken the food a few minutes ago. Now I didn’t need the warehouse guard. When I approached the shelf, I noticed that the sack was missing. I looked around in case I had gone to the wrong place, but I was sure I was on the right shelf. I looked up one more time, the sack wasn’t there! The shelf was empty! What the hell! Did my sack grow wings?!” Memorie.al
Continued in the next issue
