Dashnor Kaloçi
Second part
Memorie.al/ publishes the unknown story of the former chairman of the “Communist Youth Group” Anastas Lula, with the nickname “Qorri”, one of the participants in the founding meeting of the Albanian Communist Party, in November ’41, which by order of Enver Hoxha, on March 12, 1943, he was executed in the village of Gllava, Tepelena, by a partisan unit of Ramiz Aranitasi’s gang, commanded by Orhan Frashëri, in the presence of all the inhabitants of that village, who had gathered there. , by order of that partisan unit. Testimonies of Ham and Isuf Keçi, two friends of Anastas’s school, during the period they were studying at the American Fultz Technical School in Tirana, as well as Shyqëri Këllez, Enver Hoxha’s former personal bodyguard during the war, regarding with the deep contradictions of “Qorri” with Enver, Miladin and Dushan, during and after the founding meeting of the SNP, which came mainly due to the problem of Kosovo! The many vicissitudes of the Lula family (originating from the family tree of the former Prime Minister of the Zog Monarchy, Pandeli Evangjeli), to find the remains of Anastasios, after numerous meetings that Dhimitraq Lula had, with some people who showed two the brother’s executors, his last words before the shooting, as well as the place where they had buried him, where he went and found them in 1996!
“On March 12, 1943, a group of partisans of Ramiz Aranitasi’s gang came to my house for lunch, who were commanded by Orhan Frashëri and one of his deputies, whose name was Dhori and who was from Kolonja. They told us that three hours ago, they had shot a former partisan in Glava’s neck, whose name was Anastas Lula. “Anastasin” they said, “we shot him because he had deserted from the leadership in Tirana and cooperated with the occupier, and he had betrayed the Communist Party and the Central Committee. The Central Committee therefore ordered that he be shot. ‘ ‘We’, said Orhan Frashëri, ‘before we shot him, we gathered a part of the population of Glava, we read the order of the Central Committee and after we asked him, what Anastasi had to say, he answered: I want a cigarette’ . After putting the cigarette in his mouth, as they said, he smoked it several times and then threw it away, addressing them: ‘Now I’m ready. Long live Albania ‘! After Anastasius had said these words, they fired at him with automatic weapons. ‘So’ said Dhori, ‘I fired two more times with a pistol at that cart…! Dhori at the time was about 35 years old, of medium length and with black hair. I later learned that Anastas Lula had been from Cologne and was the chairman of the “Communist Youth Group” and a member of the Central Committee of the Party. This is what Ferik Demir Çorej, from Uznova in Berat, said in his testimony regarding the murder of Anastas Lula, former chairman of the Communist Youth Group ”and one of the founders of the Albanian Communist Party, who by order of Enver Hoxha, on March 12, 1943, was executed by a partisan unit of Ramiz Aranitasi’s gang, commanded by Orhan Frashëri, a well-known prosecutor before the ’90s in the city of Berat, (he passed away a few years ago at the age of large), which holds the title “Honorary Citizen” of Berat, Skrapar, Mallakastra and Frashër commune in Përmet.
Continued from the previous issue
Miladin and Dushan Mugosha accuse Anastasis of being an adventurer!
According to the testimony of Shyqëri Këllez, that after the founding meeting of the Albanian Communist Party, Miladin and Dyshani began to come out openly against Anastasis and Sadiku, accusing them of being “adventurers, group factionists” and various other epithets, as Anastasi and Sadiku , had agreed to attend the founding meeting, recalling that it would take place at Bije Vokshi’s house (in late October), where they had been summoned to settle disputes between the three communist groups, between them. One of the accusations made by Enver with Miladin, Anastasi and Sadiku, was that: the group led by them (“Communist Youth Group”) had not accepted the directives of the Comintern, while the “Korça Group” had accepted them and embrace them.
The mystery of the arrest of Anastas’s friend, Sinan Gjoni “Rrumbullakut”!
On April 12, 1942, the first meeting of the Albanian Communist Party was held, which ended on the 14th, and Koçi Xoxe was absent from that meeting, who was expected to be one of the main leaders of the Communist Party, as he was in prison. Tirana, (since 1941), when he was arrested by the Italian authorities together with Andon Deçka. According to the testimony of Shyqëri Këllez, (former bodyguard of Enver Hoxha during the period he was staying illegally in Tirana), during that meeting, Enver had taken up residence and was standing near Miladin, which left it clear that he was his favorite person to lead the party, being elected Provisional Secretary General. At that meeting, Enver Hoxha harshly criticized Anastas Lula and Sadik Premten, accusing them of “the spirit of the group and factionalists, who hinder the work of the party, maintaining old ties with the group’s comrades.” Also in that meeting, Enver started attacking some other members of the “Communist Youth Group”, who were scattered in different districts of the country, such as with Sinan Gjoni (“Rrumbullaku”), who was the Organizational Secretary of the Party Committee for the Vlora Region, who had come to that meeting together with Hysni Kapo, the Political Secretary of the Vlora Region. After that meeting, Sinan Gjoni is separated from Enver Hoxha and together with five other friends leave to return to Vlora, but on the outskirts of Fier, they are stopped at a checkpoint by the Italian patrol and arrested by them, as they were all armed. On the same day, they were sent bound to the Tirana prison and after a few days, they were brought before the court, where three of them, Hamid Mëzezi, Ferit Xhajku and Nikola Tupen, were sentenced to death and executed by hanging on a rope in the middle of Tirana, near Avni Rustemi Square. According to the testimonies of Shyqëri Këllez, Anastas Lula and Sadik Premtja made Enver Hoxha responsible, as the man who had a hand in their arrest, and that irritated almost most of the “Communist Youth Group”.
Execution of Anastas Lula, by order of Enver Hoxha!
Just a short time after the Albanian Communist Party asset meeting held in April 1942, Enver Hoxha, with the help of Miladin Popovic and Dusan Mugosha, dismissed Anastas Lula from the leadership he held in the Party and ordered him to leave as a simple partisan in a partisan gang operating in the area of Berat and Skrapar, where as its political commissar, was Ramiz Aranitasi. Although he was convinced that he was being sent there to be physically eliminated, as an idealistic communist he was, Anastasi accepted the decision of the Albanian Communist Party and went to that gang, where only a few days later, he would be shot by a unit of its. Regarding this event, after the ’90s, Ferik Demir Çorej from Uznova, Berat, testified, who, among other things, said: “On March 12, 1943, a group of partisans of Ramiz Aranitasi’s gang came to my house for lunch? Who were commanded by Orhan Frashëri and one of his deputies, whose name was Dhori and who was from Kolonja. They told us that three hours ago, they had shot a former partisan in Glava’s neck, whose name was Anastas Lula. Anastasin they said, we shot him because he had deserted from the ranks of the leadership in Tirana and cooperated with the occupier, and he had betrayed the Communist Party and the Central Committee. The Central Committee, therefore, ordered that he be shot. We, said Orhan Frashëri, before shooting him, gathered a part of the population of Glava, read the order of the Central Committee and after asking him what he had to say, Anastasi, answered; i want a tobacco cigarette. After putting the cigarette in his mouth, as they say, he had inhaled it several times and then thrown it away, addressing them: Now I’m ready. Long live Albania! After Anastasius had said these words, they fired at him with automatic weapons. So said Dhori, I fired two more times with a pistol at that cart…! Dhori at the time was about 35 years old, of medium length and with black hair. I later found out that Anastas Lula had been from Cologne and was the chairman of the “Communist Youth Group” and a member of the Central Committee of the Party. In addition to the testimony of Ferik Demir Çorej from Uznova in Berat, another witness (who refused to be identified) gave his version of the execution of Anastas Lula, who stated that: “One night before the murder, Anastas together with Orhan Frashëri, they were in the village of Zhapokike in Tepelena and at night, a letter came to Orahan from a courier and he (Orhani) woke up all his friends together with Anastas and continued the journey all night, walking towards Gllava. “When they got there, Orhani sent two partisans who gathered in the village and dug a hole, which they covered again near a gorica, when they shot Anastas.”
Why couldn’t Enver execute Anastas’s friend?!
As for the murder of Anastas Enver, there was not much trouble, because he was alone in that gang, without any of his friends, who had from the “Youth Group”, with Sadik Premten, the problem was different, as he was in the area and had had great support even from some of the main comrades of the Communist Circle of Vlora. Based on this fact, as evidenced in his memoirs, Enver Hoxha himself left for Vlora, to defeat the factional group of “Xhepi” and “Qorri” (pseudonyms of Sadik and Anastas). But Sadiku managed to escape execution, as he had the support of the commander of the “Plaka” gang of Vlora, Neki Ymeri (with the nickname “Vangjo”) and Xhemil Çakeri, and others, such as: Qazim Çakeri, Pali Terova, Mynir Xhindi, Abaz Fejzo etc. So great was the influence of Sadik Premtes and the “Youth Group” in the Vlora District that Enver asked for Miladin and Liri Gega to come there themselves, who appointed a new Regional Committee, headed by Hysni Kapo. In this regard, in a letter sent to the Vlora Regional Committee on May 3, 1943, Enver Hoxha wrote, among other things: “The party must instill terror in the enemies. For this, “Xhepi” (Sadik Premtja) and Pali Terova should be shot as traitors and sworn factionists of the party and the people. Simultaneously arrest “Vangjua” (Neki Ymeri) and “Difi” (Qazim Çakeri)…! “If they do not repent and continue to have an anti-party stance, they should also be shot.” Pursuant to this order, the Vlora District arrested Pali Terova, “Vangjon” and “Milon” (Xhemil Çakerrin). While Sadik could not be arrested on Friday, because he had a great influence and support in the villages of Vlora and based on this fact, he was able to escape some of the traps that were set for you. “Vangjon” (Neki Ymerin), and Xhemili (commander and commissar of the Plaka Çeta of Vlora), were deceived, telling them to go to Mallakastër, to meet with Mehmet Shehu, in order to coordinate hostilities, for withstand the operations that were expected to be launched by the invaders. After the squad arrived in Mallakastër, a partisan unit of Mehmet Shehu (led by Idriz Seit Sadikaj) arrested them in the Kota mill, where in an attempt to escape, Hydajet Micoli (“Dysheku”) was killed. . This is also made known by a letter that Mehmeti later sent to Liri Gega and Hysni Kapos, where, among other things, he wrote: “Dear” Muzhik “and” Besnik “. According to the order sent to me, “Vangjo” and “Difi” (Xhemili) were arrested. I tied them and they are in safe hands. “Difi” with the doctor (Ibrahim Dervishi, former member of the “Youth Group”) came to me the day before yesterday and appeared alarmed, they told me the matter…! “Difin, arrest him there.” Then, on May 12, 1943, after announcing the murder of Xhemil Çakërri (“Difi”), “Dyshek” (Idajet Micolit) and the wounding of “Vangjo” (Neki Ymeri), at the Kote mill, Mehmet Shehu in the letter he adds: “Difi writes to me today from Tragjasi and tells me that the revolted people are looking for Paul, they are armed and describes the situation to me as very catastrophic. It whispers as if you had released Paul. If it is true, it is a grievous sin, and I do not believe you did it. “Do not give in to any pressure from anyone.” After the murder of Xhemil Çakërri and Idajet Micoli, as well as after the arrest of Pali Terova and Neki Ymeri (“Vangjo”), the situation in the Vlora Region became very tense and the revolted people demanded explanations from Hysni Kapos, but nevertheless, Enver Hoxha had succeeded. To eliminate many of the members of the “Communist Youth Group”, who held key positions there and were under the influence of Sadik Premte and Anastas Lula, the two main leaders of that group.
How were Anastas Lula’s remains found after 59 years in Glava?
After the ’90s, one of the first preoccupations that Anastas Lula’s family had was finding his bones and that big burden was taken over by his brother, Dhimitraqi, or as he was otherwise known by his family and friends, Taqo, who for some time had been able to serve as a teacher in the district of Kolonjë. Based on some acquaintance that he was able to establish with the high official instances after 1992, (after he was elected as the Chairman of the Democratic Party for the Kolonjë branch), Taqo started the search to find the remains of his brother, after first had two or three meetings with some elderly people who were originally from the village of Gllava, where Anastasi was executed. His assassination in March of ’43, had not passed without a fuss, but again finding his bones was very difficult, as that event had taken place in that deep area, where he was not known at all and there was no one be interested in preserving the place where he was buried! But in the meantime, many of the villagers who were forced to attend and be present as eyewitnesses to that macabre scene, had fixed in their memory, the pit where they covered Anastas Lula after the shooting, near a gorice. Taqo Lulo had learned this many years ago, when his other brother, Sarandi Lula (former military man, who had studied in the Soviet Union), during the period of serving his sentences in the political camps and prisons of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, from some of his accomplices, had learned that Anastasi had been shot in Gllava and he had made that known to Taqo, through a letter, which he had written with implication. Sarand was never given the opportunity to do anything to find the remains of his brother, Anastasios, although with some of his accomplices he expressed that he could not wait for the day he would be released from prison to go to the village of Gllava and to put a bunch of flowers under that gorice where his brother was resting, after he fell ill in Spaç Prison and died in the prison hospital in Tirana, in 1986. So this was left only to Dhimitraq, who besides Anastasius, there were two other brothers still without a grave. The first was their second brother, who had died in a Sanatorium in Italy during the war, while the other was Sarandi, whose grave he could only learn after the 1990s, as under the laws of the communist regime, the family could retrieve his remains only after he had completed years of sentence. Thus, after finding the grave of Sarand, somewhere on the outskirts of Tirana, in 1996, Taqo Lula went to the village of Gllava, to ask: “We know we grew up in that grave.” “My mother told me not to rest under that gorilla, over that grave, because it is not good.” “It was the day of Sultan Novruz, when he was shot and it will be a good grave, my mother told me”. “! This is what the villagers of Gllava told Taqo, when he and some of his relatives who were accompanying him were searching by digging under the gorica. “You are looking for him wrong, he is down here, my father, Rakipi, told me,” said a young boy named Dashamir, and began to search with his hands in the newly opened pit…. in order not to damage the bones that were there for many years….! Memorie.al
