By Qatip Mara
The second part
Memorie.al / In the Albanian diaspora in New York, the dedicated patriot with a high spirit of patriotism, the talented intellectual Abdyl Ali Koprencka, has been decently integrated with American life. In this photo that accompanies the article, I am in his office that runs the agency “SKRAPARI TRAVEL”, (Tickets – Insurance – Immigration Forms – Motor Vehicles – Translation – Welfare – Income – Tax – All Social Services). His quality performance of kindness, for immigrants and their families in New York, radiates his culture and patriotic spirit. Although he was born outside his homeland, in Rome, he carries Albania with great love in his patriotic heart. Very modestly, with simplicity, he communicates respecting you with sincerity and patriotic love. His work with exemplary behavior has made him very well known, respected and much sought after by his immigrant compatriots, who with the many problems far from their homeland find a “little Albania”, in his office at: 61-01B Catalpa Ridgewood Avenue Queens, New York.
Continues from the previous issue
Abdyl Ali Koprencka, had continued the 7-year school, feeling happy among the Shkodra students, who had accompanied him with respect and human warmth. He had just finished the seventh grade; he was shocked by the arrest of his uncle’s son, Xelal Sami Koprencka, (‘Martyr of Democracy’) who was shot in 1979. He painfully remembers the day of the trial, where he states, among other things: “Uncle’s son, Xelal Koprencka, was very popular and did many honors to people. In 1956, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. The charge was; escape attempt. It was the summer of 1956, I was in shorts. The trial was held in the house of the Rrojs, turned into a court. The main door with two windows was completely open and as you entered the left wing, it was the room where the court session was taking place. Jelal was located in a sector surrounded by wooden railings.
Two policemen were standing outside the railings. His hands were untied from the German handcuffs, which were tightened with screws, as per the executioner’s wishes. The loud voice of the prosecutor could be heard. Even today, after sixty-one years, I remember that scene: Defendant, you wanted to betray the country and go to your uncle, in the USA, etc., etc. Jalal had a strong and sharp voice and was very determined. He denied everything. He served six years in prison. When he got out of prison, his family was settled in another house, near the city park and near the two-year-old Pedagogical Institute. After being out of work for some time, he started as a manual worker in the Tobacco Fermentation Factory. He found the work tiring. It carried bundled bundles of tobacco leaves. His right arm was hurting him a lot. As a child, he suffered from tuberculosis and his right arm did not have the muscle part. With his left hand, he carried the chair up to the ceiling. He had tremendous strength and as far as I remember, no one could break him.
During the years 1962 to 1965, we were very close to each other. Through him, I learned about torture and life in prisons during the Albanian Inquisition. The State Security followed him step by step and he felt special satisfaction. In some cases, I have witnessed. He often tried to confuse them. It was hidden in one street and another street. I was a soldier and he was escorting me to Tirana Railway Station. Security agents were behind following us. “They are following me – he told me. – You will see what I will do to him. We broke up. He started running and led you towards the freight cars. When I met again, he told me that; I made him socks. I ran through the wagons and disappeared.” In March 1967, he was arrested again and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was sentenced several times, being imprisoned.
He is sent to Spaç and there he writes a letter to the dictator (Enver Hoxha), when Albania divorced from sister China! With courage and selflessness, he went to his death. He protected all his friends, he didn’t take anything out, and he took everything on himself. They sentenced him to death. The process lasted from May 5 to May 8, 1979. He was shot together with Fadil Kokomani and Vangjel Lezho. He is not told where the remains are, although his prosecutor is alive and well aware of where they are. In the final act, he refused to be blindfolded and shouted: LONG LIVE ALBANIA. DOWN TO COMMUNISM”. (President Nishani decorated him with the “Medal of Bravery”, first class, in December 2015″).
After finishing the 7-year school, former student Abdyl Koprencka, started his studies at the gymnasium of Shkodra. He had made friends with high school students from Shkodra and was doing very well in his studies. He had finished the high school with very good grades, but he did not give you the right to study, for the higher school. With the help of his aunt, he was enrolled in the Pedagogical Institute for two years, in the Mathematics-Physics branch, but for political reasons, he was not awarded a diploma. He was appointed a teacher in the locality of Lekbibaj, Tropoje, in the remote village of Palc. Amidst the difficulties of the mountainous terrain, without an automobile road, he had walked for over 10 hours, from “Bajram Curri”, to the school where he taught. After four months, he was mobilized by soldiers, in the genius (work) department, in the tunnels of Elbasan. The class war also accompanied him in the army; not equipping him with firearms, but with picks and shovels for work, working in difficult sectors, in the period 1965-1967.
He had shown care and attention to avoid accidents in the tunnels. After completing the mandatory military service, he had no desire to work in education; perhaps he felt that the class war would hinder him in those years of his irritation, mainly on the internal and external front. He had asked for a job in the labor offices, to work in the enterprises of the city of Shkodër, such as in the Wire Factory, but they had denied him the right to work in the factory, arguing that; “the father has escaped and fights against the people’s power”! The Chairman of the Executive Committee, at that time, had accused him of; “Parasite of the Socialist society”, saying that; “There is work only in the agricultural farm”. With the help of one of his friends, Qemal Tabaku, from Elbasan, he had started working in the Water Directorate, but the spies had reported him and dismissed him, sending him to Zallin e Kiri, where he had worked until 1970 and with the help of his aunt, he had started work as a surveyor, at the Hydropower Plant of Vaut de Deja.
Remembering the time he worked at the hydropower plant, he respectfully emphasized the help given by the director of the hydropower plant, Emin Musliu, and continued that he was also helped by the chiefs of staff, such as Musa Pulti and above all, Xhemal Elezi, who had saved him from prison. At the hydropower plant, he had the opportunity to continue night school, in the Mechanical branch. He had earned the “Secondary Mechanical Technician” diploma. In June 1972, Xhemal Elezi and the director of the construction site called him to continue his higher education in the field of Civil Engineering. He had not accepted that the class struggle had intensified. At the hydropower plant, he had started working as a mechanic in the site’s compressors. With the help of the Party secretary, Ndue Gjoni, in September 1973, he started his higher studies in the branch of Engineering, but the class war, on March 16, 1975, expelled him from the higher school. Staying optimistic about life in the ongoing class struggle, he had continued working as a laborer in the civil defense construction site, and with the help of Xhemal Elez, he had changed from metal worker to welder.
Here, too, the knife of the class war hit him, telling him that he was an unsuitable element in this construction site. Xhemal Elezi had transferred him to the production site of the Construction Company (N.Sh.N.) Shkodër, as a welder. In this enterprise, he worked among former political and ordinary prisoners. In February 1976, he was fired without reason. He continued to work at night, making the journey on foot, because there were no transport vehicles. The distance was, from Perashi, to the Tobacco Fermentation Factory. The production site was located there, where it welded the bars for the bunkers that were assembled in Malësi.With the help of the collection director, Xhemal Selimi, in March 1976, he started working as a mechanic in this company. He had worked in Berdica until 1989.
Subsequently, he worked at the Pasta Factory, until the day he left Albania, on November 14, 1990. Facing the challenges of the communist dictatorship, the patriot Abdyl Ali Koprencka, survived and created a family in 1980 in Shkodër, with his wife Vivan Herri , with whom three children were born, raised and educated, two daughters and one son, who spent the first years of their childhood in the beautiful city of Shkodra, with humane and loving residents. The Abyl Koprencka family, on May 14, 1981, had happily awaited the birth of their first child. The daughter, Nevila Abdyl Koprencka, had made her parents happy with her sweet childish stuttering. On January 15, 1983, the daughter Belma was born, who together with her sister, Nevila, had decorated the environment of the house in the “Ndocaj” neighborhood.
They had started walking happily on the street of Uruçë, surrounded by the kindness of Shkodra residents, who are citizens with Western democratic concepts, because Shkodra for centuries has been the gateway to European-Western culture, a showcase of Western civilization. The Avdul Ali Koprencka family experienced with great pain the last days of the life of the doctor Ali Xhelal Koprencka, in the second week of July 1983, who hoped to go to Shkodër, to meet his son, his granddaughters, Nevila and Belma, but the serious illness had ended his life, on July 16, 1983. It was multiple bitterness with sorrowful tears, caused, not by God, but by the communist plague, that separated people forever. His son, Abdyl Koprencka, raised as an orphan in the ravages of the class war, was embittered with the permanent poison that he was not near his dear father, when he had closed his eyes forever outside the homeland, which he had loved more than himself.
In the distance, out of sight, his son Abdyl Koprencka, had bitterly imagined the funeral ceremony of his dear father. A sad death that tears and burns your soul, but the soul of the patriotic doctor Ali Xhela Koprencka lives in immortality. Ali has left only physically. Those who transform life into the light of freedom cannot die. Doctor Ali Xelal Koprencka produced democratic moral values. Doctor Ali Koprencka cannot die the one who immortalized himself with his humanitarian work and with his eternal love for the homeland. He remained immortal in the heart of his son, Abdyl Koprencka, the hearts of the Koprencka tribe and all honest nationalists who want a democratic Albania with Euro-Atlantic standards.
After three years of grieving the death of his father, Abdyl Koprencka awaited the birth of his son with emotions of happiness. On September 3, 1986, a few months after the death of the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, who was the persecutor of doctor Ali Xelal Koprencka, God brought the rebirth of doctor Ali Koprencka, with the birth of his grandson, Ali Abdyl Koprencka. Proud of his dear father, Abdyl Koprencka, he had named his son; Ali Koprencka the Second, in memory of his father. Just as his uncle, Sami Xelal Koprencka, who had decided on his son’s name; Xelal Koprencka the Second. There are two heirs of the signatory of the Declaration of Independence of Albania, Xhelal Dalip Koprencka, but they had different fates. Xelal Koprencka the second, live in the communist dictatorship and sacrifice your life for the homeland, for freedom and Western democracy, entering the altar of the martyrs of freedom.
He remained in immortality, as a symbol of courage and Albanian bravery. They shot him cruelly and a few days later, they exhibited photos of his bullet-riddled body in the Spaçi camp. Ali Koprencka the Second was born in the last years of the communist dictatorship and at the age of four, he left his hometown, flourishing in the blessed country of Freedom, security, the USA, which is the Sun of Democracy in the World. He had completed the cycles of pre-university education with high results. He had continued the Psychology-Criminal Studies College. Today he works as a FINANCIAL ADVISER at First Investment Bank, in Time Square Manhattan. The girls, who learned the Albanian language in Shkodër elementary school, have successfully completed university and have been integrated with intellectual skills in the American economy. Although they were young in Shkodër and did not understand the class struggle, they had felt the discrimination of teachers and school leaders. They were excellent students, but they had never been praised. They keep many fond memories of Shkodra and their schoolmates.
Continuing the conversation with the intellectual, patriot Abdyl Koprencka, he told me about the obstacles and difficulties of coming to America, with political asylum. He had applied for political asylum at the American embassy in Rome, in the city where he was born, on March 16, 1943. With his family and three children, he had taken refuge with his relatives. On December 28, 1990, the request for political asylum in the USA was accepted. The proceedings would last until June 1991. During this time, he had worked at various jobs. On June 5, 1991, he traveled with his family to the land of freedom. On July 29, 1991, he settled in New York. With an iron will, he had started to work, to integrate with the American market economy.
He had overcome bureaucratic difficulties, to benefit from parts of his father’s will, for which he emphasizes: “My father in his wills, he left the property to his son, or his tribe. The main condition of inheritance was that the son, grandson or granddaughter had to have regular American documents, or the communist government of Tirana had to be expected to change. This greatly hindered the Commissioner of Tirana, to seize his labor and sweat in exile. The red espionage network was very organized here in New York and they made the law, for all the problems that the Albanians had at that time. To be mentioned here, is that when Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, for the first time in New York, gathered the same web of spiders that had selflessly served the Tirana clique.
I add that when we came here and everywhere we went; we found no help and no support. The Albanian community, completely unorganized and with comments that we should go back to Albania, that here is the danger of drugs for children, very stupid of this kind. A part of these agents was cut off from the source, where they were certainly financed by the “kulashes” of Tirana. The Albanian people suffered under the red hoof and discussed the bread of the mouth, here the communist agency of Tirana, received a regular salary, plus the jobs they had in America. The anti-Albanian pro-Slavic clique of Tirana was able and achieved its goal, with its agents, who crossed the Albanian border, allegedly as if not satisfied, to destroy the “National Front”, “Legality” and the “Independent Group”. Time took its toll. The old ones passed away, the newcomers came as anti-communists, to defend communism and their anti-Albanian hordes.
These elements sowed the division, which was very easy, because we have been divided by our own nature. A concrete fact is that a part of my father’s wealth flew away and was squandered by the people who surrounded him and whom he loved and held close. The villa he had was blown up, with all the very valuable materials inside it. My father, he reached as far as he reached, death rested his wings and his followers did not respect him, on the contrary, they showed displeasure for his last wish. We Albanians are jealous of each other and do not allow the individual to develop and work, so that he can serve himself, his family and his homeland. These negative characteristics have been exploited by the centuries-old enemies, the Slavic-Greeks that we reached where we have reached. National disaster!
An even greater disaster that we do not know how to get out of the mud we have fallen into. The Albanians themselves in exile did not find the formula for unification. The basic point of opportunity to overthrow the terrorist clique of Tirana. They were shot, thrown into a pit tied with barbed wire, legalist, ballistic, independent. Albanians cackled in the clubs of Rome, Paris, London, etc., that they would overthrow Albanian communism. Gjepura. Illusions lost in the grace of that suffering and hopeless people. Man turned into a modern animal and slave, where he was born to serve primitive tools. Everywhere the revolutionizing of the means of work, serving society, advances it. In our country, occupied by the communist clique, servant to the Slavs, an imaginary absurdity was implemented, unfathomable by the human brain!
I used to say to myself and pray to God: “Oh God, let there comes a day when at least it will be known what happened in this country. The day came, but no one believed us? The irony of fate! This orb lives in a wonderland. From excessive freedom, to inquisition and medieval obscurantism, unseen. For one man’s selfishness, total slavery cloaked in rampant fake propaganda. For the selfishness of a family, the greatest crime is achieved, changing the history of a nation. Families disappeared, names disappeared, and deeds disappeared. Why? And why? This question has no answer. The demon threw the seed and the manure he found, he did not tire at all to find it. These criminals destroyed the nation, to survive on this manure that produced them”!
Concluding the conversation with the intellectual and devoted patriot, Abdyl Ali Koprencka, I learned many facts of his life, that a monograph of the genealogical tree of the signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Xelal Koprencka, could be written, but at the end of this writing, I want to express appreciation for the strong character of the patriotic intellectual, Abdyl Ali Koprencka, who with work, and only with work, has achieved dignified integration with American life, defying every difficulty, with optimism for life. He had worked tirelessly, from the moment he touched the blessed American soil, and as an intellectual with his talent for communication, with correct behavior, with high morals of patriotism, he had sought to open a service agency.
On January 15, 1998, he opened the travel agency office “SKRAPARI TRAVEL”, which he has been managing for nearly 20 years, with many legal regulations, serving all immigrant compatriots in New York. In 1999, he was called by American state institutions as a translator. He had stayed among the Albanians with devotion, helping them in their requests. Today he works three jobs. He works 16 hours, on Saturdays and Sundays, at the “SKRAPARI TRAVEL” service agency. After a day, he works at the New York LifeInsurance Building, where his father had invested most of the money. Although he is overworked, he is eager to help Albanians. He was disappointed with the robbery of his house in Shkodër, in the dark year of 1997.
Some thieves and criminals have owned it and destroyed everything inside the house. He continues to be in court proceedings, but there the law does not work. Just like his father, Doctor Ali Xelal Koprencka, who was the symbol of humanity and love for the country, his son, Abdyl Ali Koprencka, is broad-hearted, humane, and patriotic. His heart is Shkodra, he created his family, valuing Shkodra, as the pride of our nation, and it is Skrapari, which is the pride of his origin, Tirana, Albania, and above all, the feeling of Albanianism without religious, provincial, united around the memorial of the bright name of our national hero, Gjergj Kastriot-Skënderbeu. Memorie.al
