Fatbardha Mulleti (Saraçi)
Part nineteen
Memorie.al publishes some parts from the book ‘Calvary of women in communist prisons’, by Fatbardha Mulleti Saraçi, (granddaughter of the famous former mayor of Tirana, Qazim Mulleti), whose family from 1944 until in 1991, he was persecuted by the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, where Fatbardha’s father, Haki Mulleti, a former senior state administration official since the 1920s, was imprisoned and interned by his family, until died in the hospital of Tirana, poisoned by the State Security. In her book ‘The Calvary of Women in Communist Prisons’, which is the fruit of several years of work, the author has masterfully described the unknown stories of some of the Albanian women and girls who suffered in prisons and internments in the dictatorial regime of Enver Hoxha, started by her mother, Pertefe Mulleti, and many others.
In addition to the above, the author Fatbardha Mulleti Saraçi, in her book, has described some of the tragic stories of some well-known families, mainly from Northern Albania (but also from Central and Southern Albania) such as; Gjonmarkaj of Orosh of Mirdita, Dine, Dema, Kaloshi, Ndreu, of Dibra, Pervizët from Skuraj of Kurbin, Miraka of Puka, Kola of Mat, Bushati, Pipa, Dërguti, Serreqi, Naraçi, Saraçi, Marashi, Gurakuqi, Çoba, Malaj , Vata, Deda, Vuksani, Kaçaj, Luli, Sokoli, Mushani, etc., of Shkodra and Malsisë e Madhe, Kupi, Merlika, of Kruja, Kërçiku, Mulleti of Tirana, Staravecka of Skrapar, etc., which were persecuted and were massacred in the most barbaric way by the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, parts of which will be published in the continuation of this cycle of articles by Memorie.al
Continued from the previous issue
Sultana Dine
(With children Fatmira e Dine)
The husband of Mrs. The sultan was Esat Dine, a career officer in the Albanian National Army. When the communists came to power in 1945, they were exiled with their families, to distant lands and to the most difficult jobs. The tortures and persecutions reached the point that Mr. Esat, decided to accept to cross the state border, which was a step towards freedom, but also towards death.
A group of internees, among them Esat and Xhelal Dine, Abdullah Kaloshi, Jonuz and Tafil Ndreu, Nikolle Gjonmarku, Muhamet Nasufi, etc., escaped from the internment camp in a stormy night. They were moving in an area they did not know, they were walking towards the mountain of Mokra, towards the lake…! In the fight against hunger, with the cold, they were discovered by the State Security forces, some surrendered, and others managed to pass, like Xhelal Dine and Nikolle Gjonmarkaj, while many of them accepted death better, than fell into my hands alive of insurance, of the Albanian communists. They were thrown into the deep abyss and there in the depths reached the barrage of Security bullets. Esat Dine was killed in this clay abyss on that cold winter night in 1949. Remained buried. The young Sultan’s husband was killed, the little girl Fatmira and Dine were orphaned, an exiled one-year-old, the young bride connected her life with the children; it was in the spring of the woman’s age.
In the new family of Agim Dines, where my sister Vera was married, who lived in Tirana, their house was a warm hearth of hospitality for our families. It was here that I first met the venerable Lady Sultan. It was 1960. She had come with a pass (obtained at the Lushnja Branch of Internal Affairs) for a medical examination. I mean, a woman, with an oval face, brown, with long, black hair, her dark, big, lively eyes that were deep, steady eyes that showed multiple thoughts. Her whole being emitted kindness, emanating from her suffering soul and heart. Her stories in the Dibra dialect, about their lives, full of suffering, in exile, such as Berat, Porto-Palermo, the terrible Tepelena, the camps in the fields of Myzeqe, truly told the vicissitudes of our relatives, who suffered us there , in internment camps.
During the story, we listened in silence, with watery eyes, with a sore throat; we were not able to say a word…! But to us, only hope remained, that the future would be better, that one day the dictatorship would end and freedom would come! The Sultan’s wife connected her life with her children (daughter and son) who were left orphaned, did not leave the Dine family for a moment, stayed with them, and spent the ordeal of internment with them. Together they faced communism, managed to survive, so grew up four-year-old Fatmira and one-year-old Dineja. When I met Dinen, in Tirana, he was a 16-year-old boy, tall, tall, emitting a ray of light, full of beauty, the legacy of his ancestors.
His pink face shone and his written eyes, full of sparkles, like broken glass, in blue, green in gold, were full of life, full of optimism, with a great desire to study and in especially his passion for literature, he read a lot and studied. The mother had raised the Sultan with a lot of love and care. The boundless love bestowed on the young Dine was shown in his magnificent appearance…!
Young Dine continued his high school education in the city of Lushnja and in this high school, students from the internment sectors came, who had grown up and tried in particular the Porto-Palermo camps of Tepelena and now those of Lushnja. They traveled miles of roads to get to knowledge, they were thirsty for culture.
Although they were interned, they dreamed of wanting to continue their higher studies, but this was impossible in socialist Albania, because these were the children that the dictatorship did not allow them to continue at the University.
They were special in school, because they were excellent, in behavior and lessons, but they were not equal to the students in the class, they had at their expense class discrimination, communist racism, they do not appear in any pictures of the class, from high school, have no memory among high school friends. Bitter this fact, as their life in general.
These high school students tried their ordeal after graduation. Their lives were maimed by dictatorship, by long deportations, by undeserved prisons, by the denial of human rights. In the gymnasium, the internees excelled as: Gjon Markagjoni, Ahmet Kolgjini, Dine Dine, Naimi, Fatmiri, Evgjeni, etc. Ahmet Kolgjini tried to overcome the perimeter wall of the Socialist Republic of Albania, was sentenced to twenty (20) years in prison others as well.
The young Dineja was sentenced to prison, with false charges, the investigator tried and tortured, he was sentenced to many years in prison. Dineja, Naimi, Fatmiri, Eqeremi, Evgjeni were imprisoned, contingents of unpaid work, the young slaves of Socialist Albania, tried the pyrite mines in Spaç, where the temperature reached the galleries 50˚C above zero, when outside it marked -15˚C . The dreams of young boys were killed, they lost their youth. The precious son of the Sultan’s mother, was crossing all the paths of suffering, and experienced the loss of her youngest son, Gent. The life of the Sultan’s son’s son would be more unexpected. As the young boy’s dreams were shattered, he was severely wounded and her heart, already old, worked, sewed and followed her son, in all the journeys of suffering. The mother, loaded with bags of food on her back, walked, longing to see her son behind bars, forgetting the years, the fatigue, listening to the boy’s voice, which was her most precious thing, her hope and her future.
The years took their toll, mother Sultana arrived in the winter of her life, old age, diseases, sufferings and the precious mother ceased to be tired, ceased to suffer, ended suffering, closed her life under the dictatorial system of Enver Hoxha, who for her mother The sultan was the image of Albanian slavery. Her son had started a family with Mr.’s daughter. Lazër Radi, the immortality of the wonderful mother Sultan Dine continues.
She was buried in the land of Myzeqe, in the thorns of Ngurrëza, where mother Rukija, mother Meleqeja, Fuat Begu and her little nephew Genti were also buried, all died in exile. A life full of suffering was closed, but eternity continues, the memory of the lives that survived evil i.e., life won. Remained the example of the woman with high morals, dignified, full of virtues, such has remained in my memory, in our memory, in the immortality of good deed. As soon as the wind of freedom began, the first to leave the homeland was the son of Sultan’s mother, where in America the youngest of the family was received, who had grown up in exile and tried prisons. The uncles welcomed him with open arms and then all the Dinellaris traveled. They flee and flee, not for pilgrimage, because the storks flee and the pilgrims fly high and high, but in a certain season, they return while they, the Dinej flee, left forever, but here in Albania remained the graves of the first to die in exile, that those who were shot were left buried, lost their property.
Their sufferings and pains remained in our memory, which show us what a devilish system is, such as communism, in particular the heartless Albanian communism, which with the class war destroyed entire families, with communist racism caused many victims, shattered an entire people, condemned the lie, fed the robbery, taught the people to appropriate the property of the other, only that it was the property of the “declassed”, “of the enemies”, made them thieves. The good Albanians who were taught to value property and were honest, for that the world knew us, for the faith, for the honest. There in America Dealers work, study, many of them have graduated. In 2004, a young boy from America came to Shkodra, took with him a beautiful and wise girl, from the cities of Rozafa and Lule-Bora, to create the new Albanian family, in the new world. They took a mountain of suffering to the new land, they went…!
Agim and Vera Dine family
My sister, Vera Haki Mulleti, married Mr. Agim Dine, the son of Hasan Dines, who had been a financier, but who on November 17, 1944 was forcibly taken from the house by the Albanian communists who shot him without trial, with many other intellectuals, the Tirana massacre, remained buried. The children Agim e Bukurie was orphaned by their father, because their mother had died and her son had been an orphan for six months. They grew up and were educated in the family of their uncle, a Muslim cleric, with a university degree in Istanbul, Mr. Myrteza Alimehmeti. The only sucker of the Dine family who was not exiled was Agim, because he was under the care of his uncle, but the young boy was never separated from the class war, the mistreatment…!
The young family Agim and Vera in the early 1960s, were a couple who emerged from the strata of political persecuted, their lives would continue with much suffering, facing the waters of life in socialist Albania. My sister Vera, born on July 26, 1935, was nine years old when the dictatorship system was established, and from that age she went through all the paths of pain with her family. She experienced her father’s imprisonment, the trial that took place, the sentence, she went every day to send her daily food, she experienced the pain of arresting her mother, Përtefes, the assurances that the young woman had a six-month-old baby did not matter, they left the baby without milk of the breast, experienced the taking of vital items of the family, eviction from the parent family, being left without a vital income, deportation and departure from the city of birth – Tirana, in the direction of Kavaja.
He experienced the separation from his uncles, who left the country, the internment of his cousin, 15-year-old Reshit, who had grown up together, endless suffering and the humiliation inflicted on our family by the comedy “Prefect”, the feuilletons, with real names, continued communist mudslinging. The young girl, Vera grew up healthy, beautiful, whitish, her beautiful brown eyes shone brightly, with her long, braided hair, which was the color of wheat straw, glistening in the gold in the sunlight, was very hardworking. She worked hand in hand with her parents to cope with life’s difficulties.
Kavaja with its communist gloom was a place where murders, imprisonments, people addicted to the obsession of the bazaar, wrapped in white sheets, with the sign “enemy of the people”, shot, shot by bullets, walked around in carts in the city, they even fell in the school yard, we children saw the corpses in horror, macabre events.
The good sister replaced the mother in the housework, when mother Përtefe was next to her daughter Sabahet (Donika), in the hospital of Shkodra, after she was very ill, affected by tuberculous meningitis, it was the summer of 1951, the year that the sister would was graduating.
On November 20, 1951, the beloved mother returned from Shkodra, dressed in black, that beautiful woman, with written eyes, shining with all the colors of the rainbow, white, that emitted a ray of light, that for us, the children was the beauty of the earth, had been transformed, transformed, had lost its luster, wept, only wept, the heart of the mother mourned the loss of the first child. The whole family experienced the loss of the big, beautiful, wise, kind sister, who lived in the hope that she would help her father maintain the family.
On the mountain of suffering, death and irreversible loss were added to our family. My sister Vera tried what it meant to have the security police come to you every night, to pick up your dear father, those were difficult years. They kept the father’s boyfriend in the interrogator, every night, under psychological pressure and under torture. As soon as he saw the policeman at the door, the young girl fell to the ground with everything in her hands, trembling and her heart was broken, when she saw that the policeman was taking her dear father, sweet, kind, heart. Our sleep took the escape, the empty place of the father filled us with pain and we had our mind only on Him.
One day a police officer mistreated her father in her presence, that fifteen-year-old girl could not bear it, reacted and opposed the policeman, stopped her hand that was about to shoot her father, while his insulting, shameless words continued in infinity. Ah! My father experienced with pain, his heart suffered in many directions, his daughter was in pain.
It was certainly the law and he managed with the city court to sentence the young girl to a fine, she had to pay the sentence to the state, they did not take into account the young age, she was not yet sixteen. He was employed in tailoring, in the most difficult place, all day on foot and with a clothes iron in hand, he ironed for hours and hours and his salary was stopped, he had to pay.
This wonderful girl, had golden hands, what her eyes could see and her hands, she was a source of love in the family, she experienced the great pain of losing her father, suddenly, and we were left without the dear man. This good and hardworking girl formed a family with the erudite hardworking Dawn. They were of the same layer, both accomplices. The young Agim and Vera family were a center of hospitality, generosity, love for all our families. This family for me, Bardha, was a reception center, full of love, an oasis of kindness in Tirana, when I went to take the exams in high school. This young family gave us a lot of love, but the most beautiful gift was given to us when little Ermira and the son were born, who experienced the name of his grandfather, Hasan. I experienced many emotions, great joy to be an aunt, to love you children who are of your blood, to worship the little beings, who radiated light, who were the offspring of our families, the most beautiful gift that life has given us, we were given the right to the future and the hope was cultivated that the future belonged to us as well.
We fed the children with a lot of love, we filled their hearts with joy, and we increased their passion for knowledge, for studies. The beautiful moments we experienced with their childhood remained unforgettable, will be eternal moments when reading Jules Verne, walks by the beach, by the sea, water, life that made us see with the eyes of the mind, distant horizons, those of the forbidden, who had isolated us, but the waves of the sea roared, wet our feet, the symphony of the waves of the sea sent messages, life flows, that sea of dark thoughts that divides, through the sea of life, evil will depart, freedom will remove tyranny …
The beautiful moments we experienced in this sweet family hearth, made us find the strength to face the class struggle, to face the contempt’s, insults, layoffs and layoffs.
In our families, love, understanding, solidarity prevailed, in every moment we were close to each other. Children were our heart, they grew up. Ermira, the excellent student of the high school “Sami Frashëri”, while Sani became a handsome boy, a Hermes, like his ancestors, magnificent, with a pink face, curly hair, green eyes in blue, radiated light, joy, liveliness… but life brought surprises, as soon as he finished technical high school, he was assigned to the combine, on the second day of work he suffered a serious accident, to the transporter; lost for a moment the arm, it seemed to him, but the strength of the young man managed to pull the hand, but there remained the sleeve to leave the impression that it is the arm, in war with the savage, damaged the nerve plexus; fell unconscious. It was December 18, 1972.
The boy experienced pain, suffering, operations, difficult moments for a sixteen year old, for the parents, we all experienced great pain, remained disabled…! He knew, his father, Dawn, whatever it means to face life, it takes two powerful hands, in addition to the brain, not when one can no longer function. The family lost their composure. The daughter, Ermira, experienced her brother’s pain, she was a graduate, an excellent student, in all subjects, especially in the exact ones, but she was given the right to study only in the Agricultural Institute, branch Agronomy.
She excelled in college with excellent results, fluent in English and Italian…, but in 1985, an anonymous letter went to the directorate of the University of Kamza, for reasons of biography the girl was deprived of the right to continue her studies, state exams were starting , it was May 1985. The Rector of the Agricultural University signed the expulsion of the excellent student; Dr.’s hand did not tremble. Prof. Lufter Xhuveli, implemented the directives of the Party, the class struggle, implemented the Albanian racism, which continued in all forms, how and how to kill as many children as possible the children of the declassed enemies of the people, the endless epithets used by the communists Albanians.
The expulsion, the expulsion of the girl from the University was done in the most humiliating way, the loss of school was accompanied by spiritual separation, pride was broken, love was hurt, persecution shook pure love, where every new fruit fell to the ground torn apart by corruption morals of the time, the communist system to shatter the soul, in every cell of life.
The heart, the soul was killed, the vow was broken, the book of love was forcibly closed… What did the young girl whose love, pride did, do??
This is how society was built in the social-communist system, which everywhere applied the directives of the party, the class struggle, the philosopher Sami Frashëri rightly said:
-Those who become tools of the cruelty of a cruelty, are worse than himself.. The great loss was accompanied by spiritual division, with offensive trials, to separate young people, who were not of the same class, than supposedly “He was not honest”, “he was not biographical”, all untrue fabrications…!
Our courts dealt with such cases, the party-state line was applied, it also entered into love affairs, engagements, marriages; everywhere the party-state by means of the “New Man” “robot” had the right to destroy everything. Pride and with it the faith in man was broken. July 4, 1990, brother and sister, hand in hand entered the German embassy, broke the shackles of dictatorship, the boy hoping for treatment, while the girl willingly to be near her brother, as only Albanian sisters know, especially those of families persecuted. They experienced difficult days, the last thunderstorms of the communist dictatorship, we family members went through difficult moments, but finally the Albanian communists, despite shouting and cursing, under the pressure of the west, accepted the opening of Albania, the emigrants crossed the Adriatic, the sea of division became the first in connection with the world, the young shoots were fleeing, our hearts, which we raised with much toil.
The family in Tirana was robbed of their house, taken away because the children left, they were called hostile families again, the dictatorship was not easily handed over, and the same working methods continued, the people of the party-state implemented the directives.
Young people stabilized in Hamburg, a poem by Ermira was published:
A letter comes from Germany, sent to me by my granddaughter, Ermira, April 1991…!
– Dear aunt Bardha. It has been three months since a ray of sunshine appeared in the sky of Hamburg, only endless clouds, eclipses. I have not seen the sun for three months, now; here I understand what the Sun of my Country is. In every season of the year, even in January, in Albania, we have the sun, whose rays illuminate nature and give life to life, joy and happiness. I think and think, if we had had a little better governance, that I am not saying perfect, that perfection does not exist in power, but if we had had a little wise governance, that the sunlight of my country, that God has given us, life, nature, destiny, to turn it into money, the sunlight we have for free, to turn it into monetary value, because the Germans pay for it, they travel to the beaches, to get sunshine.
From afar he misses everything they have left: family, relatives, nature and from afar his family helped, in particular we rejoiced the hearts of the little ones, who were growing up in post-communist Albania, who lacked stability. The new blood of my country went to the West, Albania loses, the youth leaves, the flow continues, they leave and leave until when? Memorie.al
The next issue follows
