By Filip Guraziu
Part eight
Continues from last issue
The works of “comrade” Enver
Memorie.al / The party, day and night, propagated: “Enver Hoxha, the great leader of the Albanian people and of the world proletarian revolution, the outstanding theoretician and loyal defender of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, against all revisionist traitors, became immortalized through the works he wrote, which are beacons of light for the victory of the proletarian revolution, all over the world”. In the 1970s, as per the order of the party, all teachers had to buy Comrade Enver’s works, which were studied and analyzed in “Forms of Education”.
For every month, they stopped us at the payroll 100 old ALL (the selling price of the book), and they handed the work to us at school. I personally, but also a special friend, with whom I had complete trust, told me as a secret, we had never read those works.
We took the books like our others, but then we threw them like garbage in a corner at home. One day, from my close friend, Ben Deda, I found out that the seller of a “wholesale” store in a village was buying Enver’s works for 80 ALL, that is, only 20 ALL, less. I was surprised, but also happy from this discovery!
The surprise has remained with me until today, while the joy was understandable; with the monetary value recoverable from the seller, we could spend some nice time with my friend at the brewery…! A long time ago I realized that other teachers had found ways with “different performance”; they exchanged “comrade Enver’s works” in the bookstore with other books they were interested in…!
I remember that one of those works, which I had left at home, I took to the seller in the village for sale, because the cover had to be stamped, but I didn’t take it.
Who remembers those years, can attest to the lack of sanitary napkins on the market, and instead, out of necessity, not only in my family, but also in others, we started using newspapers, but “very carefully special”, you selected the pages that had the photos of the leaders, because, as you understand, “it didn’t work…”!
In this particular case, Comrade Enver’s work, which had an irregular cover, i.e. the wedding photo, ended up on the green wooden bench, near the housekeeper’s cup. Nothing special, I remember that, that action was not even discussed in the family, it was more than ordinary, after all, his work had its place…!
A few days passed, many pages were missing from the work, but many others remained. Quite by chance, she comes home for a personal medical consultation with my wife, the secretary of the basic organization of the party, in the village, where she had worked two years ago. After the medical consultation, traditional coffee conversation, the secretary needed to go to the bathroom.
The woman showed him the bathroom door and returned to the room where we were staying. He realized that, I was very worried, but I cut him short: I will clarify later…! After a few minutes, the secretary came to the room quietly, without any worries, you continued the conversation normally!
Maybe she didn’t notice the work on the bench, or she did and didn’t want to bother with it! Whatever the case, everything went well and I never forgot her friendly demeanor!
An ugly crime that will never be forgotten…!
I am sure that the new generation that today lives in the depths of this perverted Albanian democracy, cannot imagine how far the madness of communist crime reached, as a result of Enver Hoxhe’s criminal morality. If you try to tell young people today, what happened in that dark period of Albanian history, maybe they will believe you for nothing, or they won’t believe you at all!
Two young men from Hoten village, part of the former Barbullushi Cooperative, cousins, Gjon Mark Kumbullaku, 25 years old, and Dodë Fran Gjerkaj, 22 years old, are upset by the lack of freedom, extreme poverty and lack of perspective of a life rather, they left the Milot-Rrëshen railway construction action and tried to cross the Albanian border, surrounded by barbed wire, in the Sukaj-Dajç area, on the night of August 24, 1989.
The difficulty of the terrain, combined with the strict measures of military border control, forced them and ours to spend the night sleeping, listening to the movements of the patrols, and deciding that the final action (crossing the border) should be carried out in dawn of the next day.
The events that happened proved that the two young men had made a mistake in their calculations, or luck did not help them, because they were discovered by the border guards, and after a siege, they were forced to surrender, with their arms up (as according to the testimony of the person who was present). In these conditions, the border guards, educated with communist criminal morality, transformed into beasts, shot them to death.
First, Doda was killed, while Gjoni, disfigured by the pain of Doda’s murder, and desperately asked for his shooting. A second burst, from the brother-murdering Albanians, shut his mouth…! A manly act that honors his memory, but also the family that raised him.
The madness of savagery or the savagery of communist madness was not enough, only with the loss of the lives of two young men, who had done nothing wrong, except that they wanted to live freely and with dignity. We remember that the murders on the border were a routine action by the criminal regime, it is said that about 8000 people lost their lives, from 1944 to 1990.
In order to instill terror in the population, the corpses of two young men, riddled with bullets and bloody, half naked, tied with barbed wire to the sides of a military truck, were paraded through populated centers, starting from the village. Barbullush, where it took the energetic intervention of the chairman of the Council, the late Shaqir Muhja, so that the corpses tied with wires were not sent to the homes of the victims’ families.
Back, the macabre truck continued to move through the streets of Shkodra, instilling terror, but at the same time hatred for the communist criminal dictatorship. After this macabre parade, the victims were buried immediately, near the border with Montenegro, in the Kalldrun – Koplik area.
Even though the families send prayers, after prayers, to Ramiz Ali, to enable the reburial of the victims’ remains, the answer never came!
Even in its last moments, the dictatorship tried to hide the crime! Truth may be delayed, but in the end it triumphs.
After 4 years, when democracy had won, in 1993, the families arrived for the dignified reburial of their sons. The participation of the people in that ceremony has never been forgotten, there were over 3000 people!
Today, not only the people of Shkodra, but our Albania, remember with respect the courageous act of the two young cousins.
John Mark Kumbullaku and Dode Fran Gjerkaj were declared “Martyrs of Democracy” by President Bujar Nishani, and on June 25, 2016, the Association of the Politically Persecuted, of Shkodra, organized a ceremony commemorating that massacre (Civic demonstration on the main street of of the city, walking behind a military truck of the time, in which were placed the photos of the two martyrs and a historical conference about the macabre, unforgettable event). Memorie.al
(Note: The data of the above writing were obtained from the members of the families, Kumbullaku and Gjerkaj).
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