Memorie.al / Whether you wanted to call it a prison, or you wanted to call it a camp, Spaç for the convicts was nothing other than Hell itself. If you were to search with a candle, you could not find a more suitable place to suffer the punishment of that system to the very marrow. This, as if to satisfy the aims of the communists, had also been favored by nature, hiding large mineral reserves. Both political prisoners and common ones were shoved and discarded there. Among them, sentenced to many years in prison, was also Hafiz Sabri Koçi from Orenja of Librazhd, but who had recently resided in Shkodra. A low-ranking Muslim cleric he had been, but very dedicated and honest, which is why they had sentenced him so severely. They feared his influence among the believers and did not care in the least that he would spend his life in the worst possible way.
From his family, they rarely came for a thousand and one reasons, as they were also poor, so his friends supported him as much and however they could. He had learned here in Spaç the trade of a plumber, and “Sabri here, Sabri there,” whoever could would order him around. These clerics are strange; however troubled they may be and however difficult the conditions, they still do not easily give up their religious rites. So was the Hafiz, withered from toil and lack of food.
But it happens that there are some types, even stranger, who even in prison seek to dig a pit for the other. They spy to the command with the hope that, by burying someone, they will have the command’s trust and be able to gain some favor or a small privilege. A thief makes up his mind and writes a letter to the prison commander, where he says that; Hafiz Sabri Koçi has not learned his lesson and continues to preach and pray even here.
The new commander of the Spaç camp receives the letter, who felt somewhat sorry for the hodja-plumber, who had once told him how they had arrested and treated him there, in the cells of the Directorate of Internal Affairs, where passing through those gloomy corridors, he had seen something green and from terrible hunger, he had knelt and taken it. He had been happy that it had been a piece of moldy bread; he had wiped the top layer and eaten it with great pleasure.
Even here he mostly went without eating, since he would not put pork in his mouth. But they only raised pigs there. Therefore, the new commander decided to go straight to the education room, where he gathered the Re-education Council, which consisted of educated prisoners with good behavior. Ali Çeno, Halit Maçi, etc., were there. He also sent a soldier to Hajdari from Shkodra, who did not understand why they had called him. Present was also the Hafiz himself.
– Hajdar! The commander took the floor. – You sent me a letter, but I went back and forth and couldn’t read it because I didn’t understand the handwriting. Where the devil did you do your primary school? Now take the letter and read it so we can see the concerns you have. Hajdari lost his trail and turned red in the face.
– Speak! Did you write this letter? As if through his teeth, Hajdari answered “Yes,” but did not take it upon himself to read it.
– Fine – continued the commander. – Someone among you will read it.
And he handed it to an engineer who was there for agitation and propaganda, while in truth, because he had a foreign wife. He, after coughing as if to adjust his voice and said; “Hajdari’s handwriting isn’t all that bad,” began to read that letter that weighed heavily on the Hafiz.
Everyone fell silent and watched what stance Hajdari would take, while they affirmed the opposite for the Hafiz, saying that he did nothing but mind his own business. Hajdari, for his part, did not make a sound. Only when the commander asked “What do you have to say?” he replied: – If I ever send information again, don’t let them call me…!
But neither did the others send information anymore. Those who couldn’t stay without doing some small spying. Because they were afraid they would be read in front of their comrades, and the nickname “spy” there was a heavy burden to carry on one’s back. It happened that for work needs, some prisoners accompanied by strict security measures, would go out of the prison perimeter and work somewhere else. When the distance was far, they would put them in a truck and under strict supervision take them to the designated place and when they finished work, they would return them again.
Once, among those who worked somewhere far away was the Hafiz. Upon arriving there, they took the shovels and began to work. As a few hours passed and lunchtime came, the officer accompanying them ordered the prisoners to gather and get into the truck with all the tools. Convinced that everyone was there, he told the driver to start. However, what was not expected had happened. Hafiz Sabri Koçi had remained there.
Initially, no one noticed his absence. Some tired from work and some unaccustomed to his presence in the works carried out outside the wires, even his friends did not realize it. When the Hafiz comes to the place where the truck was waiting, he is surprised that he sees no one there. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He remembered a paragraph of the Quran and was even more convinced that God had not forgotten him.
To be sure, he called one of his friends by name, but received no answer. There was nothing left but to believe that they had forgotten him. Right then and there, he thought of taking to the mountains. To flee from wherever he could and as far as possible. Until he crossed the border because after all, he had many years to do. Where this luck came from, he thought. He looked this way, he looked that way, and his eye caught only sharp and frightening ridges. He seemed too small to himself to conquer them. But what would they think of the man of God, the one who preached law and obedience?
Ancient Socrates came to his mind. He too had refused to flee from prison even though they had locked him there for nothing and had sentenced him to death. And thus he had become immortal and was remembered as a philosopher even to this day. Then I will do harm, very much harm, to that officer who forgot me, he thought. He would take his place in prison. He would take it to tell others that this is how anyone who loses vigilance will suffer.
But the friends would also have consequences. “Why didn’t you tell the officer and the guards,” “who was the Hafiz connected with…!” But also the tightening measures against them would increase. Briefly, the Prison Commander also came to his mind, who had acted with such tact with the one who sent letters, something that didn’t often happen. Therefore, as he weighed the situation well, he decided to set off without losing time and presents himself at the Spaç camp-prison, there where for years he had his “home.”
He walked and walked, until sweat overwhelmed him and he was losing his breath. Hunger too was tormenting him. After six hours of road and no road, and miserably scratched by many thorns, the gloominess of that terrifying place appeared, which didn’t matter if you called it a camp or a prison. At first, he distinguished the white smoke. This is how the smoke of the crematoriums was, he said to himself. Pork is being boiled in the cauldrons. And he felt like vomiting. Am I wrong to go with my own feet to those tyrants? No, no, God will know what I am doing.
Those who order these horrors will be cursed by Him.
He presented himself at the iron door painted with green paint and the soldier standing there with a rifle in hand, surprised, and called out in a loud and sharp voice to the guard officer. He came immediately and asked: – Sabri, you here? Where did you come from? – Let it be, let it be, look what happened to me – the hodja started the justification he had thought of in time.
– I had fallen asleep where they took us to work and I suffered for it; I have been traveling alone for six hours in unknown places. But thank… – he wanted to say: Allah, but he kept his mouth shut. They put him inside and took him to the camp commander. He, after hearing what he told him and realizing that he did not want to get anyone in trouble, looked him softly straight in the eye, as if to let him know that he was grateful and had paid him back for that stance toward that thief. Memorie.al
