From Vepror Hasani
Orgocka: “The whistleblowers were my friends; Vangjush Raci, my office colleague; Xhevdet Dervishi, a worker, Kristina Gjashta, Polish, married in Korça, and the fourth, she did not tell me.”It’s a secret,” the investigator told me.
Memorie.al / “Even to this day, I don’t know how to tell them those 19 days of waiting for my firing.” When the trial ended, two people in uniform took me by the arm and took me to the cell, pushed me inside it, tied my hands behind my back and told me: ‘Now you will wait for your death’. Then the two men in uniform came out. The cell door closed, there was the sound of the iron bolts and latches that secured the door…steps down the hall leaving…! I was left alone with my death. The Supreme Court panel had just given its decision. They had sentenced me to death, by firing squad. My wife, Barbara, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. We had both been in the same room.
I had met him in Poland, while I was a student in Warsaw. She too was now somewhere in another cell. I would no longer see my wife, ‘Basha’, that’s what I had called her since the day I met her, because that’s what her parents had called her. I wouldn’t even be able to look at my two children: Elisbjeta and Artur. They were small: Elisbjeta only 12 years old and Arturi, 10 years old. I had finally been separated from my family. I was 35 years old, while my wife had just turned 30. What I saw in the courtroom completely shocked me. My wife was mad…”!
This is how Vaskë Orgocka, the brother of the well-known actor and director, Dhimitër Orgocka, begins his story, who tells of the horror he experienced in the investigator and the madness of his wife.
“Awaiting Death”
“I was alone in the cell. It constantly seemed to me as if someone was whispering to me: ‘You will die…, you will die…, you will die…! “A firing squad will come and kill you, your body will remain half covered with dirt, it will be torn apart at night by wolves and dogs…! No one will be able to find your remains… not your mother, not your father, not your two brothers, not even your only sister…’! ‘Your wife will scream like mad, inside the walls of the cell, but she will never see you. She is only a madwoman, you will not exist, you will be a being without a grave… a nothing…’! “My death could happen from moment to moment, – continues his confession, Vaskë Orgocka.
– It could happen the next day, the day after tomorrow, and…! This little mattered…! One day, sooner or later, my firing would happen. Of course I was sorry for my life, I was only 35 years old, I didn’t know what was happening to my wife and two children. I overheard every movement of the prison: sometimes one cell door was opened and sometimes another, only in my cell, they were not coming…! The guards either brought prisoners, or took those who were to be shot, or brought them before the interrogator. I knew this from the prison experience. I was waiting for the door of my cell to open…! I waited all night, in the morning the door opened and I saw three guards enter. A shudder ran through my being. They had brought me my daily food. Maybe I would be alive that day too.
They took the handcuffs off my hands so I could eat the bread and they started looking at me for a moment, with teary eyes. I didn’t mind the food. I took all the cigarette packs, took the cigarettes out of there, maybe 200 cigarettes, and put them one after the other, like they were my lifesavers. The guards followed my every move. Suddenly I raised my head and asked: “Do you know anything about my wife?”. None of them answered. I didn’t know if they hated me too or pitied me. I had started eating prison soup. When I finished eating, I was handcuffed again. ‘Let me light a cigarette’, I said, and they let me.
A moment later, there was only me and my death in the cell, the voice of the woman who was crying, but who was not there, and the voice of my children, who most certainly could be crying too…! With the cigarette lit, I lit other cigarettes. I threw the lighted cigarette on the floor, then bent over with my hands tied behind my back and caught the other cigarette in my mouth. With the same effort, I managed to light the cigarette I had just thrown on the floor. So I continued to smoke cigarettes, one after the other, all night and all day, without any break, until I went crazy. I lived to wait for death.”
“My friends in the cell, two mice”
“I continued to stay alone, waiting for my death. The floor had two cracks and two rats were coming out of them. I started playing with them. Sometimes I mourn one of the cracks and sometimes I mourn the other. I forced the rats to get out of there through the ‘gate’, which I let them free. They would come out, stick their heads out and look at me with a look of disgust. It seemed to me that they were trying to tell me: ‘We heard that you are going to be shot, so we want to keep you company. You can play with us for as many days as the shooters come and kill you…’! At such moments, I remembered everything I had gone through in the four months of the investigation. It seemed to me as if my two mice were asking me: ‘How did it happen that you are here…’?!
I was at work when I was arrested. At that time I was working as a geologist in the Mborje-Drenova mine. I had just arrived at the office and started to eat bread, when someone entered my office and said: ‘The director is looking for you’. I left the bread in the middle and headed there. When I arrived at the director’s office, I saw several policemen and the operative of the area, Sotir Ndrio. The latter pushed me brutally, as if to tell me: Make way and don’t stay like that, dog!. I foresaw something, I trembled all over. I understood that I was going to be arrested. It was the time when Albania had broken relations with the Socialist Camp.
The State Security had started to arrest those who had married foreign women. Men were imprisoned, while their wives were either expelled from Albania or arrested. I was one of them. I was married to my ‘Basha’. It didn’t take long and the operative of the area approached me, saying: “In the name of the people, you are under arrest.” They tied my hands behind my back and then went to my office, took the coat I had left there and threw it on my arms. They put me in the car and drove to the Inner Branch.
Upon arriving there, they took off my pants belt, shoelaces, wristwatch, which they never gave me back, and put me in the cell. They gave me only three blankets, too used and dirty beyond words. It was December 7, 1968. It was cold. It was impossible to use the three blankets as a mattress, as a pillow, and as a quilt to cover yourself. The cell had a space of 1 x 2. Even to the grave I have to confess my troubles. However, until that moment, I had not thought that I would be sentenced to death by firing squad. I was too young to be separated from life.”
Investigator Odhise Porodino
“That day they took me and brought me to the investigator, Odhise Porodina from Gjirokastra. – ‘Do you know why they were brought here? – he asked me. – ‘No’, I answered. – ‘For the hostile activity you have committed against the motherland’, – he replied. His words shocked me. So it wasn’t a joke, it was a serious charge. I began to understand that from that day on, I would never see the light of the sun again. The interrogator seemed calm, and neither shouted at me, nor hit me, nor cursed me. He told me completely calmly: ‘We have received four denunciations about you, but if we had one, you would be punished the same, and four denunciations are too many for you. Accept the charge and we’ll close it quickly…’!
I’m looking at him madly. I didn’t know what to do. ‘You do not believe me’?! he said. ‘Here, read it to us’, and handed me three written sheets. The whistleblowers had been my friends. One of them was Vangjush Raci, mine foreman, my office colleague; the other was, Xhevdet Dervishi, a worker who helped in the transportation of work tools, or as an assistant to the marksheder, while the third was a Polish woman, married in Korça, Kristina Gjashta, the laboratory technician of the mine. He did not show me the fourth denunciation. “It’s a secret,” the investigator told me. To this day, I don’t know who he could have been.
I don’t know if the denunciations were made voluntarily, or if they were forced. All this is of no importance to me. Everything was calculated, down to the last detail, for my life to end. Finding no way out, I admitted that I had done agitation and propaganda. At least this way they will sentence me to 10 years, I thought, but not more. I never thought that I would be sentenced to death by firing squad. The investigations in Korça lasted only four weeks”!
Investigator Koço Josifi
“Just then, when I had started to think that my investigation had ended, I got into a car and was driven towards Tirana, to ‘Prison 313’. It was the end of February. The Tirana cell seemed better to me, because it had at least a 2-meter by 4-meter space, but the 3 blankets they gave me were the same as the ones in Korça: used and dirty, so I couldn’t it is said. The next day I was taken to the Tirana investigator, Koço Josifi. Upon entering there, he told me: ‘The soup is over, now we will deal with the meatballs…’!
His words shocked me even worse. This meant that what I had accepted as guilt had only been water, while the ‘meatballs’ were what I hadn’t told him until then. Shivers ran through my body again. They must have decided to get rid of me…! On the day they took me to Tirana, they also arrested my wife, Basha. I learned everything when I was going from the dungeon to the corridor, to the investigator. In the corridor I saw a bag and some loot. I recognized them all: they were my wife’s belongings. Seeing those spoils, I couldn’t contain myself.
Within my soul, a rebellion was arising that I had not known before. I was starting to get high. I knew they would kill me, but at least I raised my voice. When I was in front of the investigator, I said: ‘After you arrested my wife, tell me, what about the children, did you arrest me?! I’m telling you right now: don’t call me to the investigator anymore, because I won’t come again’. But what happened? From that day on, every time they called me to interrogate me, they took me to another office, where the chair was stationary, they sat me there, tied my hands behind my back, and as they tied me to the chair, the torture began …”!
Director of State Security, Feçor Shehu
“The investigation of Tirana was not like that of Korça. Every time they interrogated me, they beat me, tortured me, insulted me, bled me until they left me unconscious. One day, when the investigator Koço Josifi was interrogating me, the door suddenly opened and a large man entered the office, with a fat face, with the look of a criminal. As soon as the investigator saw him, he stood up and took a stand. I don’t know why, but that man gave me chills. I didn’t know who it was. – ‘This man will kill me’, – I thought. The big man, as he approached the table, asked: ‘Who is this’? “Bathtub Grabocka”, answered the investigator.
– ‘Still with this’?!- he said and made a sign with his hands, as if he wanted to say: ‘Kill him’! After these words and signs, he opened the door and went out. For a moment, the investigation office was covered in silence. – ‘Do you know who he was’? the interrogator asked me. – ‘No’, – I answered. – “He is the Director of the Security Directorate of Sheti… Feçor Shehu”…, – emphasized the investigator. I shuddered again. Apparently my name had gone up to the highest instances of the state. It was clear: I wouldn’t have it easy. They wanted to kill me. Feçor Shehu, had come to the investigator, precisely for this: to say; ‘kill him'”!
Investigator Ferhat Matohiti
“The investigation continued. Just like Feçor Shehu, who had suddenly entered the investigator’s office, the same scene was repeated again: This time, the door of the investigator’s office opened and a tall, not very fat, curly man with a black face, like from the black man. He sat in front of me and looked at me for a moment. – ‘How are you’? – he asked me. – ‘Okay’ – I answered. – ‘I am not asking you about your health, but I am asking you about the investigation processes’. – “I don’t know what to tell you, – I answered, – they are asking me to say things that I have never done…”.
– ‘We knew you were a smart person,’ he returned to me, ‘if you had been a total fool. Listen to me carefully: before we arrested you, we knew something about you, but now, we know everything about you, We know very well, you haven’t done anything, you’ve done a shit. We brought you here because we need you.’ – ‘Then teach me what I should say, and what I should not say, – I answered, – but will you sign another card, where it will be said that I have not done anything, but I said these things because the investigation asked’. – ‘Hey, maskarai! – he said, don’t worry, we will finish the job with you very soon’, – he said and left, but he came again after a few days and tied me to the chair. Later I would find out that this man was Ferhat Matohiti, Director of the Directorate of Investigation, for the Republic”.
“Broken Jaw”
“Yes, they tied me to the chair and started beating me. Ferhat Matoiti himself was beating me. When he was hitting me on the face, I felt that a tooth was broken in my mouth. The blood that flowed had no rest. The tooth was broken, but there was a tooth left, which dug into my flesh and hurt me constantly. After that, I was taken to the dungeon. I did not know what to do, the blood did not stop, the pain was unbearable. Found in these conditions, I knocked on the door and told the policeman to take me to the investigator. They took me to him. I told him that I had a broken tooth and a razor blade that was sticking into my flesh and I couldn’t stand it.
– ‘Where did you break your tooth’, he asked me, as if surprised. – ‘Eating bread’, I answered. – ‘Okay, go to the dungeon, we’ll send you a dentist’. I went to the cell and was waiting for the dentist. Finally the dentist also came. He was a tall man with a big belly, red and sweaty. He was carrying a large bag in his hand. “Where is the tooth that hurts”? – he asked me. I opened my mouth and showed him the tooth. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll take it out now.” He opened the bag and took out a pair of horseshoes. – “Open your mouth”, – he told me. I had nothing to do, I opened my mouth. – ‘Be brave’, – he told me and stuck the horse’s tongs in the meat.
He tried to bite the tooth as deep as possible. After that, he started to pull it off, but I couldn’t stand it. He, after giving the tongs, now to the left and now to the right, finally pulled out the tooth, together with a part of my jaw. I remember that until that moment, I had my eyes open. After that, I seem to have passed out and fell dead on the floor. When I got up, I noticed that I was covered in blood. I don’t know how much time had passed and the blood was still flowing. I asked the policeman for two grains of salt and he brought it to me.
I was able to stop the blood flow, but the pain continued for days. I was no longer able to even eat bread. Those days, I thought of ending my life, but how?! It was impossible. I wanted to jump from the second floor, but the stairs leading to the investigator were covered with a net, which would not let you fall to the first floor. However, for a long time I thought about suicide. For four months in a row, the tortures would not leave me, even for a single day”!
“The last days of the investigation”
“Before I went to court, they called my uncle, Tushe Janaq, to face me. He had been convicted once for hiding gold, while he had already been arrested again, for the same thing. As he looked at me, he said: ‘How did they get you like this, my son’?! He was talking and his chin was shaking. Ferhat Matohiti, who was sitting there, said to him: ‘Tushe, may I ask you something’? “Yes”, Tushja told him. – ‘Listen, you were a rich and good man, I can tell that you could be heard gossiping in the village (Tushja was from Kamenica), can you tell me, do the people of the village love us’? – ‘You want to know the truth’? – said Tushja. – ‘Of course we want to know the truth’. – ‘What if the truth is bitter’? – ‘There is no problem,’ said Matohiti, – tell him. -‘And then I can tell you that people love shit’. This was my confrontation with my uncle.
Tushe Janaqi was almost 90 years old and was not afraid of death. After that, I had a confrontation with my wife, Basha. They had taken him to the investigation office and then they came to the dungeon and took me too. When I entered the investigator, I noticed 3-4 policemen, a prison guard, investigator Koço Josifi and Ferhat Matoitin. My friend was sitting on a chair. I was shaking all over. She was completely weakened. There was an almost extinguished look. Something had happened to him. “Can I meet the woman?” I asked. “You can”, they told me.
I went and gave her my hand, but she grabbed my waist, squeezed me tightly and wouldn’t let go. He was crying and could not say anything. A moment passed, then he said to me: ‘You see that man over there’, and he looked at Ferhat Matoiti, – he has a soul, blacker than his face’. Even after this expression, she continued to hold me by the waist, sitting on the chair…! “Take him out,” Matohiti said.
I noticed two policemen, who grabbed him by the arm. She was sitting in a chair because she could not stand. “Well done, Matohiti,” I told him, “you were brave enough to attack a woman.” After these words, they also kidnapped me and put me in the cell. I was already completely convinced that neither I, nor the woman, would get out of there alive.”
Prosecutor Kleanthi Koçi
“Finally, after several months of investigations, they brought us to court. Prosecutor Kleanthi Koçi, from the beginning of his claim, informed the judges that they had before them a sworn enemy of the party and the country. “This man has not accepted anything,” he said, “of all that he has done, so I ask for the death penalty, by firing squad.” My wife was also in that room. I would learn something else there, which I will never forget…! My wife was mad. Every time the judges asked her a question, she answered only by stamping her feet. By this he meant: ‘I refuse to answer’. They took him out of the courtroom and sentenced him in absentia to 25 years in prison.”
“The Wrap Up”
“I continued to stay in the cell, waiting for my death. With this anxiety, I stayed 19 days in a row. After 19 days, I received the answer that; The Presidium of the People’s Assembly had spared my life and left me the sentence of 25 years in prison. My wife, who was already insane, was released after two and a half years and headed for Poland, while I, after 17 years in prison, was released in 1985. In 1991, together with my two children, we headed for Poland. . For the first time, the children would meet their mother and I would meet my wife. We met at the airport. I remember she couldn’t handle children.
We went home and talked for a long time, but a moment came and she stood up. She looked depressed, disfigured, shocked, tired…! We didn’t know what was happening anymore. She went to the phone and called the police: “Three people,” she said, “are in my house and want to kill me.” This scene was repeated time and time again. My friend, Basha, every time she remembered her suffering in Albania, she went to the phone…! This was my life, this was my wife’s life”, Vaskë Grabocka finished his story, while a drop of tear glistened in his eye and he was no longer able to say another word…! Memorie.al
