By Shkëlqim Abazi
Part thirty-four
Memorie.al / I were born on 12. 23. 1951, in the black month, of the time of mourning, under the blackest communist regime. On September 23, 1968, the sadistic chief investigator, Llambi Gegeni, the ruthless investigator Shyqyri Çoku, and the cruel prosecutor, Thoma Tutulani, brutalized me at the Branch of Internal Affairs in Shkodër, they split my head, blinded one eye, deafened one ear, after breaking several ribs, half of my molar teeth, and the thumb of my left hand. On October 23, 1968, they took me to court, where the pitiful Faik Minarolli gave me a ten-year political prison sentence. After half of the sentence was cut, because I was still a minor, sixteen years old, on November 23, 1968, they sent me to the political camp of Reps, and from there, on September 23, 1970, to the Spaçi camp, where on May 23, 1973, during the revolt of the political prisoners, four martyrs were condemned 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 process more than normal in the democracy we aspire to. But on October 23, 2013, the General Director of the “Renaissance” government sent Order No. 2203, dated 10.23.2013, for the release from duty of a police officer. Thus, Divine Providence was interwoven with the Neo-communist “Renaissance” Providence and, precisely on the 23rd; I was replaced by, no less and no more, but the former Security operative of the Burrel Prison. What could be more significant than that?! The former political prisoner is replaced by the former persecutor!
The Author
SHKËLQIM ABAZI
Continued from the last issue
R E P S I
(Forced Labor Camp)
Memoirs
Usually, the police officers of the second and third shifts, when replacing each other, did not bother to come to the dungeons to see the isolated prisoners; instead, they formally made a handover report and that was enough. But in the late hours of that night, we would have violent visitors. This was due to the loud tone of Dom Mark Hasi, who was still addressing the Holy Mary with prayers for the alleviation of the pain of the martyr by the post. His voice drew the attention of the guard behind the cell, irritating his nerves to such an extent that he began to threaten with shouts: – “Shut up, man, close that cesspit!” Since he was right above us, we clearly heard the threat, but the priest did not budge from his purpose; with the same tone, and even a few octaves higher, he finished his prayer.
The guard, who took this as a personal challenge, also raised his tone: – “Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!” The macabre signal was amplified by the frosty night. That was all the guards in the other blockhouses needed; before even clarifying the situation, they began dense bursts of gunfire into the air. The shots were followed by guards further away, so the random cracks turned into an un-aimed cacophony. The barrage chaos drew the attention of the camp command, and ultimately, the priest’s compassionate prayer turned into a total alarm.
In such cases, which must be noted were not uncommon in prisons and labor camps, the first place they checked were the dungeons, because it had happened that isolated prisoners broke down the cell doors and attempted to escape. Naturally, these attempts had a sad end, closing with bloodshed. The reckless individual often breathed his last in a pool of his own blood, killed by the rifle of the guard soldier, who thus brought to life the Party’s slogan: “One enemy less, one success more!” and then, they rewarded him with fifteen days of leave and other moral incentives, such as decorations, certificates of honor, interviews in the press, lectures in schools or agricultural cooperatives, etc.
Almost always, those who attempted escape failed. Even when someone managed to cross the barbed wire fences, they fell victim to the trap set after the security belt, which consisted of volunteer forces from the area. Even if they caught the poor wretch alive, they would kill him immediately. They did this first: to feel flattered in the so-called proletarian pride of the masses and to fill their chests with medals and decorations. And in this way, they also sent a message to the police and army personnel that they would always support them with revolutionary vigilance.
Secondly, like tracking hounds taught to follow wounded prey by the scent, they had been injected with the smell of blood. To complete the collective brainwashing, they used every kind of means, from imitations with supposedly enemies, to real blood. And the brainwashed crowds charged mercilessly against the miserable victims, just like that hound over the prey, which, at the moment it hopes to have it between its teeth, the hunter snatches it from its mouth to eat it himself, and then satisfies the dog with a few bones.
But even with just bones, the bone-eaters felt happy. Ultimately, they were awarded a tin decoration or a work by Marx, which they framed and placed above the photo of their parents. And they boasted before the assembly with their supposed “great deeds,” filling their grandchildren’s heads with fairy tales on long winter nights that they were supposedly leaving them a legacy of loyalty to the Party and the motto: “One enemy less, one success more!”
So, even that night, we isolated prisoners were checked first. When they confirmed we were all there, they asked the duty soldier for an explanation of what had happened. He told them the truth. But the misunderstanding was not resolved, because the alarm had woken up the leaders who were on duty that night, including the operative. He ran toward the dungeons, with his greatcoat thrown over his shoulders, shouting: “Scoundrels, you wretches! Now you’re ruining our sleep too! You will pay dearly for this!”
After saying something to the police, he turned again: “You priest and you ‘brave one,’ out of the dungeon!” They opened the door, but before we crossed its threshold, two policemen threw themselves on the priest and two others on me. They tied our hands with German cuffs and chained us to the posts that had been specially installed on the two side ends of the dungeons. We became three tied men, geometrically forming the corners of an equilateral triangle. Although it did not fit the context, the most ridiculous thing that was tormenting me at that moment was the fact:
“Will they have tied us at equal distances so that the triangle turns out to be exactly equilateral?” Of course, this trigonometry had nothing to do with the situation, but strangely, fantasy works even in extreme conditions! As soon as I found myself against the post, I felt the bitter current of the cold wind and the icy particles of the fine rain hitting my face with force. A shudder ran down my spine and spread throughout my body. Every cell went into alarm; the sensation seemed to act faster than the physical reaction. “Oh heart, your hour of trial has come! Come on, brace you, let’s face it and get through it!” I gave myself courage. The grating voice of the operative scratched my ear from behind my back; however much I tried to see his face, it was impossible, as they had fixed me in that position where there was no chance to look at the others.
– “Good night! We’ll see how brave you feel early tomorrow morning!” he blurted out behind my head, then added: – “This is what you get, you clove, when you get involved with the priest!” I did not answer. The cold, like a razor blade, had numbed my tongue in my mouth. Steam rose in plumes from my nostrils. Meanwhile, the stinging began in my wrists. After ensuring that we were securely tied so that we had no possibility of escaping, the last policeman also left. At that moment, I heard the faint voice of the first tied man: – “Mr. Operative, please untie me, I can’t bear it anymore!” – “Haven’t you died yet, behind the post?” – “Ask whatever you want of me, just free me!”
This mournful voice and this plea for mercy pierced the soul, but the operative was not part of the category of the weak. – “Before we put you there, I told you what I wanted! You wanted to play the brave one, continue now! I am patient, I will wait!” and he followed the police. – “Please, untie me! I surrender unconditionally!” the miserable man pleaded again. – “Untie him, Pjetër!” he ordered one of the police. – “As you command, Comrade Operative!” The policeman returned and untied him. The now-freed man stood numb before the officer.
– “Tomorrow morning, we will see each other!” he said to the newly untied man. – “Pjetër, tomorrow, don’t put him to work!” he commanded with a thundering voice, perhaps so that we other tied prisoners could also hear. Then, triumphantly, they all went down the stairs that led to the road connecting the infirmary to the camp of thirst. Oh, how long that night was! Long and endless, until the very end! The minutes, like a snail race, dragged very slowly. The hours, with even more difficulty, seemed like months. The whole night was equal to eternity! – “Under Your Grace, oh God!” Who uttered this formula? The priest or me? May God hear it!
The cold penetrated my bones. I turned into wood. But into a stump without sap, into a kind of log, swarming with billions of stinging ants. The fleeting flakes of the solidified rain struck me like the points of needles on all the exposed parts of my stump-body. I could not perceive which part felt colder. My face? My hands? My heart? Oh God! First, the thin, sharp spears cut through my skin, touched my bones, and penetrated deep inside the marrow, and then the needles turned into elastic swords that bled every tissue, to the depths of my brain.
It was the second time in two weeks that I ended up tied up. My old wounds had not yet dried; now new ones were opening. From my wrists, the pain spread everywhere, venomous, stabbing. Late the rain stopped, but the wind raged even more. The roars of the Orosh gorge mingled with the howls of the wild animals of the surrounding woods, which, to survive the harsh winter, dared to approach inhabited areas in search of prey. Of course, we were not at risk of being food for them, because the wolves with human semblance had caged us inside three sets of barbed wire fences and guarded us with armed soldiers, like butcher’s meat, hanging on hooks, to tear us apart themselves, whenever they needed to.
Now only two of us remained tied, each at the most extreme corner of the straight line. We could not see each other, because we were back to back. When more than an hour had passed, which felt quite long to me, the priest, with his usual tone, asked me: – “How do you feel, my son?” – “Wretchedly, priest!” – “You are suffering for me today! I feel weak, seeing you like that!” and he let out a deep sigh. – “No, Dom Mark, neither you nor I are the cause!” I tried to reassure him. – “Still, I expected this, even more!” – “You are paying a high price for friendship!” – “The few days we spent together taught me that such punishments will be common!” I wanted to alleviate the burden of uncommitted guilt.
– “Be careful, my son, try to bring beautiful things to mind, for example, as if you are having fun somewhere with your peers. If you take your mind off the irons, surely the irons won’t weigh so heavily! Pray to the Almighty God, and you will see, you will feel blessed!” – “I’m sorry; Dom Mark, but I don’t know any prayers!” I replied.
– “Never mind, to pray to God, it is not necessary to know prayers! It is enough to address Him with words from the heart! Now, for thousands and thousands of years, people have prayed to the Almighty, according to the language they knew. God knows all languages! He understands the language of the soul!” He paused for a moment; I felt his voice weaken to a whisper. Perhaps he was praying. Yes, yes, without a doubt he was praying! He was praying, even for me, the sinner! On the other end, I also began to pray in my own way. I simply said: “Oh Great God, give me strength to face this trial! Strengthen my heart, do not shame me! Oh Christ, oh Prophet, oh Buddha, I beg you, protect me from the wicked, from all the brood of those who want to trample me, from those who seek to reduce me to a worthless thing!”
With these expressions, which perhaps are not written anywhere in the Bible, the Gospel, or the Quran, but which were the only ones that came to mind at that moment, I continued to address them in turn: Muhammad, Christ, Holy Mary, Buddha, the gods of Greco-Roman antiquity, all the saints past and present; in a word, God Himself, according to my imagination. Did they hear me or not? Maybe yes, maybe no! Now that we were both reciting these prayers at both ends of the dungeons, each in his own way, the rain also stopped, and the pain subsided.
With the passing of minutes and then hours, my wrists became numb, the sensation faded, the pain subsided; I no longer felt anything, and it even seemed to me that those parts did not belong to my body at all. My mind escaped into the deep recesses of the past, the cold no longer stung me as before; I reached a kind of peace with the environment, I gained the missing spiritual balance, my physical tranquility returned. I was almost sleeping standing up. Even today, after forty-odd years, I am not able to say whether this happened as an effect of prayer or was a consequence of numbness. I was just relieved, and I attributed this to the divine force of God.
With prayers on my lips, blackened and cracked by the bitter chill of the night, dawn found me. At that time, the police came, untied us, and threw us like two frozen, stiffened logs onto the cement of the cell. We embraced, wished each other well for surviving the icy night, then warmed each other with our breath, and the blood began to circulate. This was the longest night of my life, at the same time a new door opened to the future. It was there, behind those posts, that the links of an indissoluble and unforgettable friendship were forged.
The example of that iron priest, of that proud man, with a hero’s heart, gave me the strength to endure the cold and the irons on my hands. When I saw that stoic, exhausted, and aged elder, with a countless collection of illnesses acquired in the endless ordeal of the painful years, resisting without complaining, I imposed patience on myself. It was precisely that night that the sentence was imprinted in my mind: “Resist, learn, and temper yourself!” This meaningful sentence would accompany me on the exhausting journey through the waves of life. It served me then, as it continues to serve me today, and on.
Dom Mark’s Last Words
The priest was not well all day. Although he had not eaten, he was tormented by the hiccups; a burning heartburn caused him frequent burps. In the afternoon, when they took us out for personal needs, he could barely stand. I accompanied him by the arm to the latrine. As soon as he returned to the cell, after the police had left, Dom Mark told me: “Come a little closer, I want to talk to you!” That tone surprised me, because the usual voice that made the cell dome thunder had lost its strength, it was softened and faint. I worried; the idea that something serious was threatening him terrified me. He looked paler than usual, his body trembled as if his hour had approached and he was entrusting me with his final wishes.
But this spasm did not last; quickly, his voice regained its usual tone: – “Listen, my son! Only two days separate me from the end. If they release me, I will get out of isolation,” he began. – “But before I leave you, I want to say two words, because I don’t know if we will have a chance to talk again.” I moved to interrupt him and tell him that we would have plenty of chances, etc., but he put his hand over my lips: – “Quiet, today I want to talk alone!” He sat cross-legged on the fleece spread beneath him, filled his asthmatic lungs with oxygen, and continued:
– “It’s been a lifetime that they have put me in and taken me out of prison, whenever they wanted. I have met all kinds of people here, with bravery and without bravery, with manhood and without manhood, with love and with hatred; well, I have encountered all kinds of characters. But I want to tell you that to succeed in this job, you must be smarter than brave. Bravery is very beautiful! Indeed, it is good to have this quality! But it is a virtue of youth! Look at all of human history, from the beginning; generally, the brave ones have been young men in the prime of life, with a developed physique, without wrinkles, without gray hair, in a word, all of them beautiful and robust. That’s how history has presented them to us. But for these brave men to be eternalized, wise men were needed. The poets were needed to sing their deeds and clamors, the philosophers to prepare them spiritually, the soldiers to strengthen them physically, the historians to give us the epochs of the legends, the sculptors to carve them in marble and bronze, the painters to throw them on canvas or murals, etc., etc. So, youth has bravery, old age has wisdom.”
“All these brave young men that the history of old and new times has conveyed to us have died young and beautiful. Indeed, it is a very beautiful thing to remain forever young in memory! Have you noticed the old paintings and sculptures? Have you ever seen a brave man with gray hair and wrinkles? No, indeed, you won’t find one anywhere, even if you pound the ground! Look at David, Hercules, Achilles, Hector, Leonidas, Ajax, Alexander the Great; look at Spartacus, Caesar, Antony, Cleopatra, and the whole constellation of famous people of antiquity; they are all young, all beautiful, all powerful. They have remained young and handsome in the memory of mankind! And yet, they died young!”
“But would we, the succeeding generations, have known all these deeds and clamors, would we have had the opportunity to imagine those heroes of antiquity and later times, if Homer, Herodotus, Socrates, Phidias, Plato, Aristotle, Pliny, Pluto, Cato, Seneca, etc., etc., and up to Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and others without end, who have served them to us in their works eternalized in songs and in art, in sculptures, paintings, poetry, history, philosophy, etc., had not existed? And yet, all these wise and learned men were old!”
“Look at Homer, he is a blind old man, and Achilles and Paris, young men full of life and health; look at Aristotle, a wrinkled old man, and Alexander the Great, young and all muscles; white-haired Mentor, and Odysseus and Telemachus, young and radiant; look at Shakespeare, an ugly man, and Romeo and Juliet, like the light of the sun; likewise, Dante with his long nose, with Beatrice radiant opposite, etc. To mention them all, I would have to talk for a day and a night. These creators lived long, to be able to gather all the material and testimonies of the time. It is their merit that today we boast of the wonders of antiquity, the pyramids of Egypt, the gardens of Babylon, the pagodas of India, the Great Wall of China, the Acropolis of Athens, the Colosseum of Rome, and all those unrepeatable works of art.”
“Precisely through these works, the deeds and bravery of the heroes were made immortal. Now I want to return to our time. We live under the darkness of the Stalinist dictatorship’s violence. Albanian executioners have surpassed even the Ustaša! Stalin exerted violence over a conglomerate of peoples, several hundred million, who are of different nationalities and races, of opposite faiths and beliefs; he extended the class struggle to an endless territory, but the clergy and clerics, the churches and mosques, even though he did not tolerate them, he was formally obliged to spare them.”
“But what have our Stalinists done? They crossed these borders a long time ago; since ’45 they began the murderous war, physically destroying all the most prominent figures of the nation; patriots, politicians, economists, artists, doctors, professors, clerics of all faiths; rich and poor without distinction, whoever did not follow their tune. And they exerted all this upon a people who are of one blood, of one nation. They instigated religious division among brothers, which not even the Turk could do for five hundred years.”
“They sold half the country. Look, with a secret agreement, they left Kosovo to Tito; now one-third of the Kosovars are spread in foreign countries. They have put a cross over the Cham issue; no one mentions Chameria anymore. Then they invented an imaginary line of demarcation, as a border, between the south and the north. With the so-called class struggle and against backward customs, they deepened this division even more. So, what is this? Simply a new schism, but now based on social and ideological foundations. If the physical border inspired and financed by the megalo-idealists, Shkumbini down Greece and up Serbia, the moral and spiritual border on the ground is being materialized by the communists.”
“Finally, they have begun to speak against the Kanun of Lek Dukagjini, the Kanun of Skanderbeg, the Kanun of Labëria, against all the spiritual heritage of the nation, as supposedly essential obstacles to progress, issuing a constitution that has stripped the people of property, impoverished them, turned them into slaves in their own land, emasculated them, and completely destroyed morality. And so, they curse and curse the Kanuns, as the source of all evils, but the evils themselves; theft, whoredom, espionage, they have elevated to a system. Despite all the flaws that the Kanuns may have, based on these customs and traditions, the Albanian people have survived foreign invaders, preserved the language, protected honor, and have not been assimilated. Perhaps there is much room for improvement, but not for destruction.”
“But their goal is not simply to destroy the Kanun, no! They want to strike those who collected it and propagated it for the good of unity. By fighting these learned and wise men, they want to lose the influence they have on the people. By cutting the threads established over centuries, they hope to open new avenues of communication. For this reason, they fight religion, clerics, and the elders of various regions, throughout the country and especially the Catholic clergy. By striking the descendants of the most famous families, who have sacrificed physically, morally, and materially for this Albania we have today, by condemning them with executions, imprisonments, and internment, they spread terror.”
“Can you imagine that the whole elite of the nation has been physically destroyed or is in the process of elimination?! Look at the prisons; they are full of honorable women and men whose only fault is the love for Faith and Fatherland. And so, they have brought in people from all regions, without dividing Shkumbin above and Shkumbin below. Look at the groups fabricated by the Security; they are mixtures of regions, representing the best, the most learned the noblest. This means it is not just the Kanun, but the Communist-Greek-Slavic ideology that predominates.”
“Look what they are doing to a population of two million? They have outlawed more than half of it! They have destroyed the spiritual constitution, ruined churches and mosques, tombs and tekkes, leveled every holy place. They have sent the youth to actions, not because they genuinely need their labor, but they aim to destroy the family and tribal formation, to break down morality. They have gone so far as to fabricate a new spy-communist religion, where the son denies the father, the brother the brother, the wife the husband; espionage is rewarded with posts, whoredom with posts, scoundrelism with posts.”
“No one has the courage to speak the truth anymore, only lies and lies, endless lies. They have turned an entire people into hypocrites and deniers of faith, and what is a cause for lament, they have achieved what no foreign invader could do for thousands of years: they killed the Albanian’s Besa (word of honor), replacing it with faithlessness and espionage. A friend, a companion, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, can no longer be trusted…! They have made up their minds to rise a new generation stripped of morality, taking them away from the path of God, to replace the belief in Him with belief in the communist Party. We have a long war ahead, my son, it is worth resisting!” Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
