By Sofika Prifti Cara
Part Five
To Forgive…!
– The Old Kavaja Clan – CARA
Memorie.al/ publishes several parts from the book ‘To Forgive’, authored by Mrs. Sofika Prifti (Cara), published by the Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes and Consequences in Tirana, in which the author has described with detail and professional competence the history of one of the most prominent clans, not only in the city of Kavaja but also beyond – the Cara clan – which produced not only distinguished patriots who contributed to the national cause and the freedom of Albania, but also renowned intellectuals, graduated in the West, who later returned to the homeland, contributing in several fields of science and life. Yet, even though the descendants of the Cara clan dedicated their lives to the national cause, after the communists came to power at the end of 1944, they would be persecuted, imprisoned, and interned, and the fierce class struggle would pursue them until 1990, when the collapse of the communist regime began.
Continued from the previous issue
HOW THEY ARRESTED BARDHI
What I mention below are fragments of memories, written in the company of cigarette smoke, which, coiling in the air, seems to drift out of the room, taking a distant journey to go as far and as deep as possible into the ordeal of the Cara family from Kavaja. This family had moved and settled for work reasons in the city of Fier in 1939 and lived there for nearly half a century.
The sole reason that prompted me to write these memoirs is to recount to the descendants and all our fellow citizens the suffering and humiliations inflicted upon us by the communist authorities, for reasons completely futile! What fault had my husband, Bardhi, committed to be targeted by the communist secret police? The only “fault” Bardh Cara had committed before imprisonment was that he was the son of Musa Cara, therefore, for that government, Bardhi was an “enemy of the people”!
He was an honest man, working privately, like many others in the city, a seller of various copper utensils. He sourced his supplies in Kavaja. Everything with regular documents. Our family lived a normal, very simple life. I worked as a teacher at the time, and together, we were satisfied with the life we led.
In the years 1964–’65, an order was issued by the state to prohibit private trade. It was said that the employment office would employ people according to their professions. Bardhi was employed as a bartender (bufetist) in the village of Drizë, where the works for the Azotik (Nitrogen Fertilizer Plant) had just begun. At work, he was exemplary. He worked for a year and was suddenly fired because someone thought that he was the son of a political escapee, a former exponent of the “Balli Kombëtar” (National Front)!!
Consequently, (what madness and backwardness!) Bardhi was not allowed to work in places where large industrial works were being built!! My husband remained unemployed for a long time until; finally, he was assigned as a laborer in the Road-Bridge Enterprise, very far from the city, where they quickly arrested him! (What a paradox! A state of paradoxes!)
It was a Sunday, February 26, 1967. As usual, I saw my husband off to work at half-past six in the morning. At nine o’clock that same morning, a loud knock was heard at the door! I quickly went out and opened it, frightened! What did I see?! Six stern-faced men stood before the gate; among them was the neighborhood operative, Bastri Basha, the chairman of the “15 Tetori” Neighborhood People’s Council, Fejzi Hoxha, a member of the Neighborhood Council, and three policemen.
“Where is Bardhi’s room?” the Sigurimi operative fiercely asked.
“I am his wife! – I said, shaken. – What has Bardhi done?”
“You will find out later who Bardhi is!” he answered full of anger.
I pointed out the room with my hand, which was shaking like a twig. My heart was pounding hard, as if it wanted to jump out of its place. Why had all those people come?! What were their intentions?! What was happening to our family?!
The government men rushed into the room and told me in a commanding and arrogant tone:
“You stand there by the door and don’t touch anything! We have come to search the house of the enemy of the people, Bardhi Cara!”
“Bardhi, an enemy?!” I said, extremely shocked and surprised.
“Yes, yes, an enemy, and a very dangerous one!” they replied.
And after these words, they started the search, ripping open all things that were sewn, mattresses and pillows, and anything they suspected. They turned everything upside down, even breaking a first-era porcelain pitcher that was very antique and beautiful, with a narrow mouth that a hand could not enter, but which made a noise when shaken! (The children had put buttons from a sweater and a small handkerchief inside, which prevented the buttons from falling down.)
They broke it! The pieces of the pitcher, the buttons, and the handkerchief scattered on the floor. Who knows what they thought it contained. After they finished the search, they gave me a paper and told me in a fierce voice: “Sign here that we have not damaged anything during the search!” I signed, with the pen shaking in my hand, and asked them, surprised: “Why are you not telling me what Bardhi has done? At least let me know?!”
The chairman of the neighborhood council replied to me with a tone of astonishment: “We never would have thought this of Bardhi! He must have been a covered coal, like marine wood, that when you look at the ash, it seems extinguished, but if you touch it, it burns, the ember is inside! Tomorrow go take him a blanket in prison!”
They left! And left fear and sadness behind. In those moments, I told myself that I was losing my mind, but an internal call restrained me: “Stop! What are you doing? Pull yourself together!” As if it was truly the call of the great God! I did not calm down, but I did somewhat gather myself. My thoughts became clear. The old people once said: “A word spoken at the right time is medicine for healing.”
A voice within me said: “Sofi, do not despair spiritually, do not surrender physically, because you stand tall, you have done nothing wrong, you are a true believer in God!” Then, with a trembling heart, I turned to the Almighty for help: “Oh God, we are thankful for your will! Oh God, grant me your peace! Oh God, pour out your Mercy upon me, upon my dearest people!”
Silence sometimes leads to weakness and spiritual paralysis, or makes you accept loss and misfortune. You must act quickly, with determination and maturity, to show what kind of person you are, how valuable you are, to protect yourself. Often from parents, we inherit the trait of how to respect the best, how to analyze the things we hear, to keep the best and discard what is not worthwhile for us. We must observe the other person wisely for a while, to confirm whether actions match words.
Man is destined to do only what fate has ordained, to experience various sufferings from the government or social system, and never to blame the great God! It is known by all that if you submit to bad luck, you become its slave and do not find happiness. How can I bypass that day that will remain unforgettable for me, that trembling, that sadness and great pain, those shed tears, which, once they open the path, do not stop flowing day and night.
But man also finds himself faced with new attitudes, unexpected situations, when everything is turned against him. That’s what happened to me. The hounds of the communist dictatorship picked on me over futile trifles, separated me from my people, made false accusations, sent me to difficult jobs so that I would become upset and capitulate. Although I did not fall into this trap, they finally fired me from my job. Time is like medicine that soothes anger; life continues to move on; the hope to live continues as long as you are alive, like the stars in the sky that never go out.
When a soul loses peace, it is very difficult for it to return to the hearts of people who are used to doing evil, because those authorities of that time only knew how to do evil; they never knew how to do well. Man faces bitter unexpected events and must become strong so as not to retreat, no matter what insults and threats are hurled at him. However, my non-retreat was another great misfortune. I leaned on my own strength; perhaps those were the last in my life. I thought of living alone, abandoned. Who doesn’t need to be loved?
Indeed, we feel pleasure when we think that relatives love us, but how bad we feel when someone hurts us and causes relatives to abandon us, deny us, and not meet with us – not because they don’t love us, but here the bad seed, the devil, intervenes. The only thing that can never change the love for relatives is the heart. I was severely fed up with bad impressions from what happened to me, and what did I achieve?! How easy it is to talk about life! But how difficult it is to live that life! I got used to being alone, repressed, spending the hours, days, weeks, and months in silence and patience, to make my life easier.
The difficulties that caught me, I had to overcome precisely with that lonely life, living with memories of my people, of my parents, sister, brothers, nephews, nieces, and desperate relatives. Time moved very slowly, terribly slowly, just like the steps of a tortoise! I often thought and gave myself courage: “Sofi, don’t worry your head, don’t fret! You have now set yourself the task of raising two small children who need you very much.”
But sometimes despair overcame me; I became pessimistic, so much so that I wished to die. (This is called talking to you, becoming friends with yourself!) I was young, 22 years old. Perhaps, I told myself, it would have been better to close my eyes and never open them again, so as not to see my people, with whom we were in the same city, but, at the same time, very far away, as if we were not of the same blood.
And we had this gift from the famous “class struggle.” Every holiday that came, I wholeheartedly wished that these people dear to me would enjoy health and happiness, and that all their misfortunes would come to me, because fate (not God) had chosen me precisely to experience this ordeal, to go through all the evils of this world. A joyful heart lengthens your life; a blow, however small to the heart, weakens and withers it.
Now, I told myself, I am separated from my people; only thoughts and feelings connect me with them. How bad separation must be! It is bitter, like wormwood. A wise saying goes: “When need for life enters through the door, the love for life leaves through the window”! Very rarely had I seen my mother from afar; we never met face-to-face. I felt her compassion as a mother because I had become a mother myself. Tears ran down like raindrops; my heart was squeezed like a lemon.
My mother was afraid to speak to me because the people of that communist system watched her like dogs, and then they would make a denunciation. That’s how my brothers and sisters suffered, because the class struggle went on for seven generations! The truth was that we were living through very critical times. People were very afraid, mentally terrorized, because the regime was very evil, vengeful, so much so that the oppressed had lost hope for a life even slightly better.
People walked the streets afraid, confused, and uncertain about what was coming. So did my parents. Not that they had removed me from their hearts. Such a thing cannot even be considered. Because it is known that every parent gives their heart and life for the well-being of their children. But let’s return to the ridiculous arrest of my husband, Bardhi. Why had they arrested him?!
THE FIRST ACCUSATION
Two months had passed since Bardhi’s arrest. According to instructions from above (it was 1967) that “enemies of the power” elements should be made an example for all; Bardhi’s trial would take place in the neighborhood. We, as a family, were not notified at all. The residents of the neighborhood and many people from other neighborhoods had been notified. That day, when I went to buy bread, before going inside, I heard a neighbor telling another: “Selvi, are you coming at 10 o’clock to School No. 6, because Bardhi is going to trial…? That’s how we were notified!”
As soon as I entered, they cut their words short as if with scissors, did not speak, and were watching me out of the corner of their eyes. It was Sunday; people had the day off. This trial was applied for the first time, meaning that the person would be publicly struck, and the sentence would supposedly be given by the neighborhood, even though the government had issued it long ago! At the balcony of School No. 6, in front of a large table, sat the investigator, the prosecutor, the chairman of the Neighborhood Council, the members of the court, and further down were the police who had surrounded my husband, Bardhi, lest he run away(!?), whose handcuffs had not been removed from his hands, even though he was being judged!
The investigator, a certain Zoi Çavo, read the “indictment” he had drafted for my husband’s conviction. He spoke as follows: “Today, April 28, 1967, we have gathered here to judge and convict in a special court the enemy of the people, Bardhi Cara, a trial that is being held for the first time in this form, so that the residents of the neighborhood themselves can convict the accused. The neighborhood knows better the traitor of the people, Bardhi Cara, who is a sworn enemy of the party, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head!
Bardhi is the son of Musa Cara, who is also a sworn enemy of our power, having been an exponent of the ‘Balli Kombëtar’ who fled Albania and went to Australia. He never returned because he knew what awaited him. Bardhi has premeditated fleeing abroad to his father, because he thought that life there is better than here. He has offended our Chinese brothers, who are the best friends to us! (When we broke up with China a little later, our justice people did not remove the sentence they gave Bardhi.)
The Chinese and Italians in the years 1965-1966 were working for the construction of the Azotik in Fier. Bardhi, according to them, had good relations with the Italians (at that time, as a state, we did not have good relations with Italy), that he had carried out agitation and propaganda for religion! (In 1967, the churches and mosques were barbarically demolished here, and religious belief was banned!!) In fact, Bardhi, when they were demolishing the church in the city, had told a neighbor who was his friend: “How bad that they are destroying all these religious cults, so beautiful! And what harm are they doing to the state?! They are valuable works of art, with centuries-old paintings.”
(Bardhi admitted he had said these words.) My husband was Muslim, I was Christian, but neither of us prayed, although we both believed in one God! When concluding the accusation, the investigator said loudly: “Bardhi is dissatisfied with our party, and all those who act like him, the people themselves will judge and convict them”! After the investigator finished speaking, the chairman of the Neighborhood Council and several others spoke, pointing the finger at him. The funniest thing was that those who spoke were army officers and corporals, who had come to Fier and lived in other neighborhoods.
They did not know Bardhi at all and spoke as they had received the “lesson.” One thing is clear: if you don’t know the other person, you have nothing to say. It was clear that that police state held the stone and the nut in its hand, mercilessly crushing all those it disliked. The investigator then gave the floor to the chairman of the Democratic Front of our neighborhood, named Llambi Profka, a serious man, who, among other things, said: “I am surprised to hear these words about Bardhi today. I have had him very close; we have never had a problem with him for anything.
We all know his family as good people who mind their own business. We have some others as a problem, for whom measures must be taken…!” (A few days later, Llambi Profka was removed as chairman of the Front.) At the conclusion of the trial, none of the neighborhood residents spoke because they knew us well, that we were indeed a family that minded our own business. Since they had not notified us at all to come to that “trial,” when the investigator saw us there, he asked for a person from the family to speak, and this person was me.
A person in life, if they do not have obstacles and dangers, has no way to temper their character. Even to this day, I cannot explain what that power was, what that push from the great God was, so divine, that came to me in those moments and lifted me from the spot where I was sitting closed, like a mussel in its shell! In those moments, my heart was beating so hard that it was almost tearing out of my chest, and it gave a silent, grave-like curse. I quickly climbed up to the balcony where the people judging my husband were. I started talking about Bardhi, whom they had left jobless and that we were without bread at home.
The investigator, his face flushed red, cut me off, shouting and not letting me continue: “Sit down, sit down, comrade!” he spoke to me in a commanding tone. – “Get down and don’t speak anymore! I thought you would add something else, to put this enemy in his place! First of all, he is an enemy, second, he wanted to abandon you and your two children—the one you have and the other one coming into the world! You are very young, 22 years old, you have life ahead of you; now you should seek separation from him. Go, go, and don’t speak anymore! Know that one day you will regret this big mistake you are making, defending an enemy of our party, who has not loved you and has not thought of you and your children! Don’t speak anymore, go!”
Let me thank and adore the great God, who fed us when we were hungry, advised us when we were confused, showed us the way when we were lost, and always protects and guides us with his advice, giving us heart and strength not to fear the evils that come to us! O God, I thank you; I don’t know how you protected me so that the baby did not come out of my womb those days! I was in the eighth month of pregnancy; when I was expecting the joy of the birth of the second child, I received the great sorrow of my husband’s fate, who was being convicted as an enemy!
When I descended the stairs, I had the yellow complexion of a dead person; my legs were shaking, barely holding me up to go back to where I was. There I saw a policeman talking to a woman, who was the head of cadres at NSHN (State Construction Enterprise), clearly, she was a communist and had a military husband, a commissar, from Tepelena. She was not a resident of our neighborhood; she was from the “Konferenca e Pezës” neighborhood.
The head of cadres, as expected, showed her very willing to carry out the task given by the policeman, immediately climbed up the stairs to the balcony, and started speaking like a parrot, as others had taught her the lesson. She spoke with complete servility about “what the Party and Comrade Enver do for the people” and, after insulting Bardhi like a street thug, she said:
“I am a woman, and if my husband acted like this, I swear to you, for the ideal of the party, I would be the first to denounce him, to give him the severest sentence, and to separate from him!” She concluded her speech with these words: “I propose that action be taken against his wife too, because she has also been an accomplice with her husband! This comrade was happy that her husband fled abroad because life there is better than here, and he would send her dollars, that’s why she defends her husband.”
I was 22 years old, about to become a mother of two children; I would never think of my husband leaving me! We were just husband and wife and could not live without each other. In fact, that communist head of cadres fell into her own trap, carrying out “agitation and propaganda” herself when she said that “life abroad is better than here”! She should have been handcuffed at that time, not my husband! But she was their blind instrument!
The investigator once convinced that the neighborhood had no complaints and would not convict Bardhi, stood up and said: “Good, then. You did not convict Bardhi, but the people’s court and the law will convict him!” Of course, the people of justice depended on the government; the simple people were suppressed by that evil government, because it had always buried those who rebelled seven feet under and fear had made people confused, disoriented, talking to themselves, looking hither and thither, even checking where they placed their steps.
Bardhi’s family suffered greatly: they violently took our two-story house and made it a children’s nursery at that time; we were not given the Front membership cards; the children were left with only seven grades of school because their future was completely out of the question. The boys helped their grandfather, who sold pottery articles. The poor things grew up with great troubles until they started their own families. Sabri married Tefta, Bardhi married me, Sofika, Xhevdet, as you will read below, decided not to marry, and Besnik married Burbuqe…! Therefore, even the step we took, we checked in every direction we went. Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
