By Koço Sterjo
Second part
“CANNIBALIADA” AND A TRIBUTE TO MOTHER IFI (HARITO) DILO
(An article, especially for the new generation of Albania)
Memorie.al / Canibaliada. It started with the eating of the right to stay in Tirana, right after the end of the Second World War; it seemed to end with the slaughter of a mother at the doorstep and continues with the eating of the right to restitution. – Dilenjto – Haritenj. Some say the plural of their surname Dilaj, others Dilej, but I like it that way, because it seems to me that it expresses their greatness and greatness better. The other surname, Haritenj, would deserve the same treatment; – History of raids, raids and imprisonments. – What you will read below in this article is much more terrible than what you can imagine…!
THE ROOTS OF “CANNIBALIA”
Continues from last issue
CHAPTER WITHOUT A NAME
The issue of mentioning the absence of the heirs of Henrik and Pirro Dilos, opens a new topic for the participants of “Cannibalia”. The three aforementioned children of this well-known personality from the Dilo tribe remained unmarried. This, first of all, is explained by their view from that time, as; “son of reactionaries”. This was also the biggest hostage of their mother, who fled from this life, killed her spiritually. If there were other personal reasons (we told you that Riku submitted to the electric chair), they do not take the time of a normal person. Well, it wasn’t like that for those who want to justify this with lies. They explained this, allegedly by the fact that; their father had instructed them not to marry, because; “this regime has a short life and get married when it does”!
No matter where you analyze this, it turns out to be untrue and a product of the abnormality and intrigues of those who are still burdened by the guilt of the communist past and its followers. Culture, education, the close relationship with all the other brothers and sisters, who with difficulty and at an adult age, were marrying their children, because of what was put in front of the man in his path; the “biography”, the increase in age of his children, the impossibility of predicting the fall of the dictatorship, in the conditions of its total destruction, and a host of other reasons, invalidate what is claimed. And they had a double weight on them, exerted on them, by the regime of the time. They were not only the nephews and nieces of Ilia and Jani Dilos, but also of Petro Harito.
PREDECESSORS
Who was Petro Harito? He was the son of Mihal Harito, the deputy of all Albania, from Shkodra to Preveza, in the parliament of the Ottoman Empire, the comrade-in-arms of Abdyl Frashëri in the Albanian League of Prizren (recent studies shed light on the fact that the League was co-chaired by both of them, as it was also affirmed in an Albanian Radio-Television show, in the years 2007-2008), for whom, when he died, he cried in his grave with laws: “…Get out, sit on the balcony / What was happening in Istanbul and know…, / O Mihal, the head of the caravan / you put fear in the Sultan / My viper point by point / the enemies were afraid”!
The keys and financiers of the Nivan Monastery semi-gymnasium, the school where the great poet of the capersky of the literary eras in Albania, Andon Zako Ģajupi and the great linguist, Ilia Dilo Sheperi, studied. (The decoration, which was given to Mihal Harito, at the time of the communist dictatorship, was not handed over to his granddaughter, Ifi Dilo Harito, but to people far away from him). Without further ado, whose son was Petro Harito, since he himself was a senator in the Albanian parliament in the 20s-30s of the last century, at the time of the Kingdom of Zogu, that is why the descendants of his biological son, his daughter Ifi (Harito) Dilo, with the three aforementioned children, the heroine of this belated tribute-writing, as well as her sisters and their families.
As great as a politician, as simple as a person, that when he came to the village, he was not ashamed to sweep the goats’ pantry. He was sentenced to death by Greek chauvinist circles. He had enough economic power to buy not only the fields, but also the mountains. He had raised and educated four girls in the best way, in the conditions of orphanhood, among them mother Ifi Dilon, the dignified wife of Qirjako Dilos. So, he was not the “friend and companion” of those who took power later and were released on his heirs, like the savages.
Petro Harito’s grave was leveled and, during those moments, the ignorant vandals and the fanatical communists who had ordered them to do that, mocked him, saying: “We disturbed the peace of the fakir”. Officially, the People’s Council of the village asked Ifi and verbally threatened him to remove his remains…! But Ifi answered them: “I have no reason to remove my father’s remains. He worked for this Albania, where you dance today…”! Ilia Dilos’s grave was destroyed and he was exhumed from the church yard, where it was placed by the sheperjots of 1945. His remains were sent with children to the village cemetery, without the participation of family members, and they fell to them from the streets. Some of his fellow villagers, fanatical and ignorant communists, when they exhumed him, joked with the dead man’s skull: “What a big head he has…?! He was a patriot, but his children are enemies of the party and we will teach them a lesson”…!
THE DILO-HARITO FAMILY PROPERTY ODYSSEY!
For those who do not know the history of the Dilo family, I wanted to remind you that; this family, before and after the liberation of the country from the foreign fascist occupation, lived in Tirana? A piece of land in the heart of Tirana, exactly where the museum (Pyramid) of the communist dictator, Enver Hoxha was built in 1987, is the property of this family, that is, the Harites. But, no one from both sides of politics speaks or remembers about the plot of land occupied by that “Pyramid”, no one remembers about its former owners, at least to reward or compensate them elsewhere!
The same story in Vlorë. Leonidha Ruci, the brother of Aristidh Ruci, one of the great patriots of Independence, signatory of the Act of its proclamation, and of the first half of the 20th century, a relative of Dilenje of Sheper, more precisely, Sava’s first cousin Ruci, the wife of Ilia Dilos, after the death of his brother, Aristidi, in 1950, benefited from his brother’s part of the property, because they had it together, a part of which in Vlora, he had left to her in the act of legal heir, Qirjako Dilos, property, which he, due to the impossibility of using it himself, rented out. In this way, Qirjako Dilo is the testamentary heir of Fevroni Ruci, who was the wife of Leonidha Ruci.
During the time of “cholera” (communist regime), the residents of Qirajin were gradually avoiding the obligation and were living as if they were in their own home. With the advent of demo-anarchy, the Albanian paradox occurs: former renters become owners. The case is litigated endlessly, the monstrous forgeries have done their job and the legal owners lose the right to their property. Not even two presidents of the Supreme Court and as many ministers of justice, ironically, originating from Zagoris, could not put justice in place for this case, as well as for many others. Let’s understand each other; this issue has nothing to do with the return and compensation of properties, because no nationalization was done on these properties.
It was given by the owners for rent to the tenants. And this odyssey happens with all their properties, not only in other cities of Albania, but, and, what is worse, that would be easier, in Zagori. They had a foot of the mountain there and, after two hundred years, the new economic system, they have returned to paper a small piece, now in the last years, which, with the Albanian ways of implementing legal decisions, never comes to hand , no more property, but not even the correct letter. And this odyssey happens, with many of their properties inside the village, which could easily have been returned to them, but are kept occupied by others.
But, all these are nothing before the fact that during monism, the bite of their property went so far as to leave them completely and without a piece of garden, from their lands near the house, very near the house, where only an alley separated them, leaving them to enjoy only the raindrops of the shelters of the houses. The best lands in the village are their lands and, in the name of the new law, they were enslaved by others. And this was justified by the fact that they were not included in the cooperative. Then, why do you give them land elsewhere, supposedly in the name of the lottery?! Then, why don’t you give them their lands? Then, at this point, a big problem also arises for the Albanian land law.
How will he handle such a special case in Albania before the International Court of Justice? The peasant has not combined the basic tools and works with the group, that is, even the land. Well, on this land, nationalization was not carried out, as was done on other types of property, such as many buildings in the wider village or the lands in state farms. (Paradoxically, all their buildings in the village with houses and huts did not appear in the list of nationalizations of the Executive Committee of Gjirokastra, which list was handed over to the power of the new Municipality and the author of these lines had it in his hand for years he was the secretary of this institution).
Finally, every property in this village was arbitrarily and brutally stolen from them, without even performing the simplest formality of the time, as was done with the others, the ranking in a nationalization list. Because, in fact, the nationalization was carried out only on the buildings of those who fled from the village. Then, it’s good that yesterday it was brutally stolen from them without the law, but today, why don’t you return it to them in full and why do you count it in the new land law, the land that they didn’t share with others?! Do we have the clarity of the glass, dear compatriots? Group property is being shared. They have not included their family and its means in this group. Then, give back what you stole from them yesterday by force and by the force of brutality and not the law, even at that time.
All this consisted of a question, suggested by the former owner himself, in a meeting in 1994 in Gjirokastër, of the former Minister of Economy in the First Berishë Government, Mr. Genc Ruli with the rulers of the south. The answer seemed to be somewhat optimistic: “Important changes in the law for former political victims will be implemented soon, and this issue will be resolved there.” In fact, this answer melted like salt in water. Well, the so-called democracy in Albania, if it wants, can evaporate the water and bring the salt of this issue to the surface, which is something original and perhaps a unique case in the whole country.
Even more so, in the periods when it is led by the so-called right-wing forces, which are not the true historical forces of the Albanian right, where Jani Dilo, one of the 10 children of Ilia Dilo Sheperi, the brother of Qirjako Dilo, has been active and they are not the authentic patriotic forces of Albania, where all the members of the great Zagorite families were inspired, as they were; Dilenjto of Sheper, Haritenjto of Mihal Harito in Nivan, that of Aristidh Ruci in Sheper and that of Spiro (Ballo) Zheji in Zhej.
“Cannibalism”, all the more as a homicidal being, is distrustful or removed as such even to some of the truths regarding the financial sphere, in the direction of the former political victims of communism. Qirjako Dilos, had his pension cut off for this reason. “No! – they howl, – it’s not possible”! The dollar, which all the Dilenjes sent to their brothers from America, the Albanian Bank, did not convert to the official ratio 1 to 70, which was the exchange rate, but 1 to 20, so much so that they were forced to write to them not to send them anymore.
“No”! – repeats its long masquerade chorus; “There is no possibility”! Well, these actions were supported by specific decisions of the Communist Government, against those it had called “declassed”. Regarding these, you have to browse the official acts of the period before the 90s, to find them and to slap them in the face of the remnants of communism in Albania. (Moreover, for Qirjako Dilon and his family, read the literary-historical work “DILOIADA”, co-authored from Zagori, Jorgo Telo and Eduard Dilo.)
ICON OF KINDNESS AND REMEMBERING
This whole article, a bit long, but deserved also for what we have covered here, is a tribute to mother Ifi (Harito) Dilo, daughter of Petro Mihal Harito, friend of Qirjako Dilo, the second son of the Professor of Albanian and the great Mediterranean, Ilia Dilo Sheperi, as well as the mother of three children: Antigoni, Pirro and Henrik, teacher, architect engineer and electrician of the seventh category, who, together with all this, went through the long ordeal of hardships, of sufferings, of exiles and prisons and left this life saddened, more than any other mother, seeing her three children at the end of their lives still in one house, unconnected with their special destinies, even though now they were old, almost like her.
I have known Mother Ifi closely and no one else can talk to me about her. Consequently, there is no one to change my views about that woman, that mother, that true Lady of my homeland, a homeland as dear as it is wild, that showed itself to those who were like that, as much as the flies of the earth did not step on them. In social conversations, these undeniable truths were affirmed by their persecutors themselves, what surprised them, why they attacked so ferociously at that time, against the most honest, and most accurate and regular people. This proves once again that the truth has colossal power. And that the class war was not justified under any circumstances. And that it was done with motives of personal revenge and political revenge.
To torture this brilliant mother, because she was the daughter of Petro Harito, the former senator of the Zogut Kingdom, and because she was the sister-in-law of Jani Dilo, the former commander of the “National Front” in the Korča district, the right wing of Mit’hat Frashër, the fighter of the battle of Barmash, together with his brother Koço Dilo, and why Jan settled in the West, to escape the indisputable communist persecution, is not at all right, like all political persecution, that was done to the Albanian patriotic class. Neither her brothers-in-law, Mihal, Margarit e Koço Dilo, nor her son Henriku, were caught doing any act, even minimal, of sabotage on the works of socialism, but they were not proven, not even saying any propagandistic words, which fell contrary to the laws of the time in force.
I knew her in her old age. The gray hair, the beauty of the face, in cooperation with the nobility of the soul, gave an angelic appearance to that woman. In her youth, she must have been a very beautiful girl, but her spiritual beauty was more beautiful. It must have been a model of girls of the time. Although her mother had left her and her sisters orphans, since they were very small, they grew up under the exemplary care of their father, who, as he took care of his daughters, did not forget to take care of Albania as well. They spent their childhood under the orphan care of the Orthodox Church in Corfu; they were raised in an exemplary education-model, as if they had been educated by their real mother, add here also religious education.
When I sent my children to the religious colleges in Gjirokastër, the wonderful woman asked me that; how are the children doing and I tell them that; “Here, they have difficulties with acclimatization at first, especially with religious rituals, which are after getting up in the morning, before eating meals until late in the evening…”! “Oooo, yes, they are very good things. I have performed those rites myself, since I was 4 years old, in Corfu…”, – the majesty told me. It was a special intellectual pleasure to talk with him. Very intelligent, quite calm, patient, even when she told me the whole course of suffering since 1945. She radiated kindness, education and culture in what she said, as well as self-restraint. She had hidden the curse within the canyons of her soul. Her curse beset the traitors of the Motherland!
And the traitors are those who betrayed the Kosovo of Jani Dilos in 1943, who prepared the union of Albania with Yugoslavia in 1946-1947, who wasted the energies of an entire people, tying and untying it so many times like a cart with camp horses socialist and who finally killed him in 1990, without bread and who, after this year, trafficked his identity towards the southern neighbor of our country. Mother Ifi possessed a wide culture of knowledge, for family activities and those of work in the village, as she had learned about them in the time, when she was in Corfu, from the old family tradition and that she had tried them all. My lady listened to him with so much interest and learned all the technologies described by her, such as those of the culinary sphere of cooking, the processing of all agricultural and livestock products, the treatment of gardens and livestock, handicrafts, etc. , etc.
Historically, their family had cultivated goats in the pantry and they talked about it and the processing of its products and by-products, with full competence, as if they were genuine specialists, as if they were Male (Mihal) Dilo-re. As if they were French! But those Westerners were in everything, in that damned place in the southeast of Europe. “Don’t give up the milk of Catherine’s cows…”! – said the chief quality specialist to her children, in the last fifteen years of her life, when they went to buy milk in the village, as now age had taken its toll and they were not able to breed the characteristic animal of that threshold-goat. Mother Ifi was a true master of cooking.
Among her excellent dishes, I would mention the preparation of rose jam. (Has anyone ever eaten rose jam? I had heard of many kinds of jam before, but not rose!). Their yard as well as the gardens near the house flourished from this plant. She knew how to prepare in a perfect way all kinds of jams, marmalades, jellies and other sweets from the many kinds of trees that filled their gardens. Their gardens, because they didn’t have just one or two. Their gardens, which the extreme collectivization stole and degraded. At Dilenjto e Nivan, you will recognize the western culture in every detail, from the setting of the dining table with plates, as in the best restaurants, to the maintenance of the cat, which would eat special foods from the plate as well as people and would be washed, combed and caressed like them, like her, how could it be better.
And let’s not forget for a moment that they lived and live in very difficult conditions, in a so-called house, which we talked about above, which is more of a hut from the outside, almost a room single, but very neat from the inside, where 5 people lived first, then four and now three. And, it was precisely in this room that mother Ifi would pass her old age, where a shining care and maintenance for her, from her children, was noticed. When my lady visited her and approached her, the witch would say: “Don’t kiss me, because I’m old, but let me kiss you”! “Yes, how can I not kiss you, my mother, when you are so good”! And the smell of basil was blowing. Apparently, they washed it down with basil tea. And, above all, her brilliant memory shone, until the end of her life.
He described everything he had lived, experienced, read and heard with the highest precision. “I never got wet, at least, once in my life”, – she said with tears in her eyes, because, as we said above, her three children did not have the luck to create a family. But she was very interested in the children of her relatives, when they visited her house, as if she had her own nephews and nieces. Well, he was interested in the children of everyone in the village, how they were doing. Well, even in the last days of his life, he asked about our children where they were, how they were, how they were doing with school, etc., with a “chick” memory, as we say in Zagori, a memory to be admired.
Very wise, very wise, very prudent, but very dead in spirit. For everything heavy that had passed. For the children, who saw them so sick and crippled by the continent’s wildest communist dictatorship. And her spiritual killing, with her stoicism, with her nobility, with her brilliant behavior, as if she didn’t feel it, she naturally passed it on to us and to our descendants through conversations in the family, becoming thus an excellent example of experienced hands, a first-class educator, an icon of memory for all our family and beyond. Memorie.al
USA, 2013
