From Ali Buzra
Part Thirty‑Seven
LIFE UNDER PRESSURE AND SUFFERING
(APPRAISALS, COMMENTS, NARRATIVES)
Memorie.al / At the request and desire of the author, Ali Buzra, as his first editor and reader, I will briefly share with you what I experienced in this encounter with this book, which is his second (after the book Gizaveshi në vite) and which naturally outlines his writing style. The sincerity and frankness of the narration, the simple and unadorned language, the accuracy and precision of the episodes, or the absence of a deliberate, later‑worked fantasy or its non‑exploitation, I believe have served the author positively, who comes to the reader in his original form, inviting us at least to become acquainted with unknown human destinies and sufferings, whether by chance or not, leaving us to reflect as a beginning of awareness toward a catharsis so necessary for the Albanian conscience.
Bedri Kaza
Continued from the previous issue
It was not known whether he had any knowledge of Shahin’s case, but in any case, Gogo Nushi welcomed them well. After a few days, Halil, Avni and the sisters received the Frontist certificates, thus removing the “kulak” label from them. Their uncle Sehit stood constantly by the boys. He married off Halil and Avni. With his interest, Avni started work in a state enterprise. First in the State Construction Enterprise, then in municipal services and education, acquiring the trades of carpenter and house painter. – “Several times, some special cooperative cadres tried to remove him from state employment,” Avni recounts, “but the enterprise kept him.” He was a skilled specialist and extremely correct in his work. The last to receive the Frontist certificates was their elder brother, Xhevit. He was a livestock breeder. He did this work throughout the years in the cooperative. His flock of sheep was among the best in the district. He was deeply in love with the profession of livestock breeder, caring for the sheep as if they were his own.
Xhevit and his uncle Maksut, night and day, in the mountains and in the fields, stayed with the livestock flocks, achieving high yields in animal products. Menduhia, Xhevit’s wife, was continuously ill. The sufferings in the internment camps, the economic hardships and constant stress affected her health. She passed away in 1976 at the age of 44, leaving four children: one son, Hajri, and three daughters. But for Xhevit as well, life’s difficulties did not pass without consequences. Sleeping most nights in the huts near the livestock stables, and staying out in the rain and snow without protective clothing, he caught a severe cold and fell ill. He died in 1988 at the age of 56. Xhevit did not live to see the overthrow of communism, but he lived with the grief of his children being despised as nephews and nieces of Azis Biçaku.
We have described some details of the difficulties and sufferings of the family members of the Halil Dosku lineage in Dorëz. His son Shahin, a contributor and supporter of the liberation struggle, who was the pillar of the family, died in a communist prison, and today has no grave. Their homes, goods and livestock were confiscated, leaving them at the mercy of fate. For several years they bore the “kulak” label, being deprived of civil and human rights. Despite the unjustly created difficulties, they survived through continuous work and effort. Not only could the children of the family’s brothers, but also the nephews and nieces not pursue higher education at the time. This became possible only in the years after the overthrow of the dictatorial system.
The family of Maliq Dosku did not have the “kulak” label removed
One of Halil Dosku’s brothers was Jonuz. He had four sons: Maliq, Nezir, Bilal and Mersin. Jonuz died in the mountains at a young age. He left a dying wish to be buried in a place called “Fieri i Terziut”, so that this place would become a cemetery for the entire neighbourhood. This was because there was a dispute over that territory. And so it was done. The first grave opened there was Jonuz’s, and then others were buried, and today it is enclosed and holds the cemetery for the entire Ortojon neighbourhood. Mersin got into a conflict in the village and was forced to leave with his family, and it is said he went toward Kruja. Maliq separated into his own household, taking lands in the village and moving there, while Nezir stayed with Bilal in Ortojon. Nezir, in the male line, left only one son, Demir, while Bilal left Nazmi, and they lived together for a long time.
The family that experienced persecution, harassment and imprisonment throughout the entire period of communism was that of Maliq Dosku, which was classified and remained kulak. Maliq had five sons: Bexhet, Bajram, Ferit, Nebi and Gani. Bajram accidentally drowned in the Shkumbin River, while Bexhet died at a young age, leaving young children. Maliq Dosku’s family had an average economic level. During the war, he did not get involved with either side, neither the Balli Kombëtar nor the Front, but in the interest of peace, he supported his cousin Shahin. When the partisans came to the village, he, like many other families, helped them with bread, shelter and food. Maliq was an incomparably brave man. It is said that when he gave his word, he would go as far as sacrifice to keep it. He had many friends inside and outside the country.
The vicissitudes of his family began at the end of 1946. At the beginning of 1947, he was arrested, accused of a murder committed two or three years earlier, and sentenced to nine years in prison. A few months later, his son Nebi, aged 16‑17, was arrested and would serve eight years in prison. Although they were not sentenced as political prisoners but as ordinary criminals, father and son were sent to the Maliq labour camp, where Zeq Hunçi, Shahin Dosku, Daut Gurra, Sadik Muzhaqi, etc., were also serving their sentences. In 1949, at the age of 63, he died in Elbasan prison. His son Nebi was also there, with whom he shared a room. Being an ordinary prisoner, the prison director informed the district chief, Xhelo Leka, who notified his family.
Upon receiving the news, family members and neighbours went to Elbasan, took the body and buried it in the Ortojon neighbourhood. After being released from prison, Nebi married the daughter of Jonuz Bozhiq from the village of Babje. Ferit married the daughter of Azis Balli from Funarës, a kulak family, while Gani married the daughter of Emin Biçaku from Qarrishta, a political prisoner. In 1955, all three brothers with their families were classified as kulaks. Thus continued the ordeal of their sufferings and persecutions, which they experienced until 1990. In 1955, after Nebi was released, Ferit was arrested. He was accused of having sheltered Tush Topalli from Pogradec, who was a fugitive pursued by the state police. Ferit was sentenced to five years in prison, which he served entirely. In 1957, another brother, Gani, was arrested in Rrapun, and a pistol that he carried without a permit was found on him. The court sentenced him to two years in prison, but he served only ten months and was released.
A few months after his release, in August 1960, Ferit was arrested again. Around the same time, Mefail Biçaku from Qarrishta, a former shelter‑provider and protector of Jews during the war, as well as Selim and Ahmet Gurra from Dragostunja, were arrested on the grounds of “attempted escape”. The two years spent in the interrogation rooms, under some of the most brutal pressure, proved fatal for the arrestees. Mefail Biçaku fell into severe depression and was hospitalised, while the Gurras, uncle and nephew, were sentenced to heavy prison terms, about which I have written above. For Ferit, unable to find or fabricate any evidence, the Court decided to refer his case to the Central Commission for Internment and Deportation, which by Decision No. 59 dated 23 March 1962 decided to intern him until 1964. He was interned in Borsh, Saranda, on the grounds of political reasons and attempted escape.
After being released from internment, Ferit began working as a road worker on the Rrapun – Qarrishtë line. Later, Ferit went to work with two mules in Stravaj, and finally in Belsh, Elbasan, where he transported firewood. Meanwhile, he was constantly surveilled by the State Security. The provocations were of all kinds. They were only looking for a pretext to arrest him again. In these circumstances, as I have described above, he met Kadri Biçaku in Elbasan and decided to escape. Thus, in the spring of 1965, he escaped together with Kadri, leaving behind his wife and his two underage daughters, who stayed with his brother Nebi’s family. From Macedonia, Ferit applied for a visa to America and went there. Ferit’s escape alarmed the State Security organs in Librazhd. From then on, the treatment of the families of Nebi and Gani Dosku would be even harsher. The only two kulak families in Dorëz would experience nothing but constant persecution and contempt.
When the mother of Nebi and Ferit passed away, only kulaks, with whom they had had dealings, participated in the funeral. According to tradition, they asked the village master, Osman Topi, to beat the death drum. The Secretary of the Party Bureau summoned him and demanded an explanation as to why he had beaten the drum for a kulak. “The drum is beaten for notification,” he replied. “There is no notification for kulaks; you made a mistake,” the Secretary threatened him. For their children, education beyond middle school was out of the question. Nebi’s son, Xhemal, after completing compulsory eight‑year education, managed with great difficulty to attend high school in Librazhd. In 1979, Nebi engaged and married him to the daughter of Jonuz Kopaci from Qukës. The Kopaci family had many of its members convicted; seven of their men were shot by the communist regime.
The political pressure on Nebi increased further. This was also due to the new in‑law relationship. What was he to do? In the village, no one would come to offer condolences to them, let alone give or take in marriage. Nevertheless, they were conscious and content that they had taken a bride from a noble family with distinguished traditions from the Qukës area. Nebi was a brother‑in‑law to Selim Gurra from Dragostunja. Now the surveillance on him was tightened. In the cooperative, they sent him to various work fronts, aiming to provoke a reaction. He requested to work in the construction brigade because there was the possibility to earn more workdays, and he was sent there. While working with the construction brigade at the firewood collection centres, which were part of the defence sector, they placed informers and spies alongside him. On one occasion, they assigned him to remove the chaff from the threshing machine to set up the hopper. It was a “Tomorrica” threshing machine that operated non‑stop, day and night, in shifts.
Nebi was left on the hardest front and was not relieved. He worked until 12 o’clock at night, in extremely harsh conditions. In that position, personnel were changed often because the smoke would take your breath away and you could not last long. Exhausted and worn out, he left work and went home. The situation was made alarming, with claims that the kulak wanted to sabotage production. After gathering some stale testimonies, the State Security decided to arrest him. In coordination with the Party bodies in the village, Nebi was brought before the people at the cultural centre in the centre of the cooperative, Krasta, to undergo a so‑called “public denunciation” first. There it was stated that “he is dissatisfied with the people’s power and deliberately sabotaged production by leaving the grain machine idle. When he had his Qukës in‑laws at Xhemal’s wedding, he did not toast to Enver Hoxha, he offers cigarettes to comrades during work hours in order to leave them idle,” etc.
After these testimonies, as ridiculous as they were naive, in the presence of about 400 people, they said to him: “In the name of the people, you are under arrest,” putting handcuffs on him. His family members were present as well. His brother Gani and Gani’s wife Hatixhe went down to Librazhd and sent four urgent telegrams from the post office addressed to: the Chief of the Internal Affairs Department, the District Prosecutor, the First Party Secretary in the district, and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kadri Hazbiu. While his wife was weeping, Gani, with the courage that characterised him, knocked on office after office in the district and at the ministry, complaining that his brother had been arrested unjustly. He insisted that they were being mistreated as kulaks. “Because of this mistreatment,” he stressed, “our brother was forced to escape abroad, turning his back on his homeland.”
Thus Gani alarmed the situation up to the highest government bodies. After three days, the Chief of the Internal Affairs Department and the District Prosecutor came to the cooperative centre. They summoned Nebi’s wife, Hatixhe, and said to her: “You sent a telegram that you will flee, etc.” – “No,” she said, “those who flee go secretly, but we are here,” nailing the district officials with her words. “Your husband is not in order; he needs a lock to put on his mouth,” they snarled at her. “Go home! They said to her, this matter will be dealt with by the government.” Then the prosecutor went to the telephone booth and ordered his release. Thus, after three days, Nebi was released. The victims of persecution by the communist regime were not only the sons of Maliq Dosku, like Ferit, Nebi and Gani, but the prey of the dictatorship’s violence also became his nephew, Xhevat Bexhet Dosku.
Maliq Dosku’s eldest son, Bexhet, died at the age of 24, leaving two underage sons, Ruzhdi and Xhevat. Their mother was the daughter of Tafil Çota from Togëz. After the liberation of the country, the family of Maliq Dosku went through great difficulties due to the persecution by the newly installed regime. In these circumstances, the mother of the two young boys, being a separate family, raised them with great effort and sacrifice. After they reached the age for military service, both brothers enrolled in a driver’s course and completed it. While the other members of the Maliq Dosku family were being persecuted, Bexhet’s wife and sons had no problems. They married one after the other and began working at the Consumer Goods Depot. Ruzhdi married the daughter of Bilal Biçaku from Qarrishta, while Xhevat married the daughter of Sherif Hidri from Dorëz. Xhevat initially worked as a driver at the Consumer Goods Depot in Korçë and Elbasan.
Later, the Consumer Goods Depot was established in Përrenjas, and he transferred there. He worked with passion and was a master of his profession. His wife had young children, who were born one after another. She worked in the cooperative, where, as is well known, the pay per workday was minimal. Xhevat worked night and day, with great strain, to support his family. As with the majority of the population in the country, his family could barely afford dry bread with the income they received. The 1970s and 1980s were years when the cooperative economy was in total crisis and the value of a workday was very low. Xhevat, despite his level of education – he had completed only primary school – was an intelligent man and a skilled orator. Often in conversations, he expressed dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the country, even attacking the regime in power.
This did not go unnoticed by the State Security organs. In these circumstances, they began to surveil him, putting informer‑spies behind him who followed his communication with others. His family circumstances – being the nephew of Maliq Dosku and of uncles who bore the kulak label, and being a son‑in‑law in Sherif Hidri’s family, whose house had been burned immediately after liberation – favoured such a campaign of persecution against him. Xhevat Dosku was now targeted for punishment. Only the gathering of information and a pretext were awaited. Suspecting a possible escape, because he transported firewood with a “Skoda” in the border areas of Qarrishtë and Steblevë, they found a pretext and revoked his driver’s licence. This was also done with the indirect aim of provoking him to express dissatisfaction.
Distressed as he was about the revocation of his licence and the loss of his ability to work as a driver – a profession he loved dearly – Xhevat started working as a tyre repairman at the train station in Librazhd. At noon on 25 July 1979, while he was working at his workplace, police forces from the Librazhd Internal Affairs Department surrounded him and entered the premises, delivering the usual refrain: “In the name of the people, you are under arrest.” Three policemen pounced on him as he was sitting down working, in the presence of his 11‑year‑old son Luan, who had come with his brother Uran, a little older, to have lunch with their father. During summer holidays, young Luan and his brother would collect medicinal plants from Kodra e Madhe to sell, in order to earn some money to buy books and clothes for school.
The boys were stunned when they saw this terrifying scene with their father, with whom they could not have lunch together that day. Their cousin, Xhevahir Hidri, lifted them onto the cart of Abedin Kostenja’s truck to go to Krasta. “When we arrived home,” Luan recounts, “what did we see? The police had come, and while searching the house they had turned everything upside down. A village cadre, not from Librazhd, saw some planks placed on the corridor beams and told the police that they were stolen. At that moment, the village teacher, Petrit Hoxha, who was also the chairman of the council, intervened, saying that those planks were not stolen, but had been obtained with a paid invoice. Teacher Petrit did not actually know about them, but he did it to ease Xhevat’s family’s burden a little.” / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
