By Ahmet Bushati
Part thirty-two
Memorie.al/After the flag was altered in 1944 with the addition of the communist star, Shkodra transformed into a center of resistance against the regime, paying a high price for its tradition of freedom. By April 1945, high school students, already feeling betrayed by the promises of the war, gathered to oppose the new terror that imprisoned and killed innocent people. Communism turned Kosovo into a province of Yugoslavia, while Shkodra was punished for its “historical crime”- its defiance against invaders. The “Postriba Movement” became a tool to suppress all dissent, plunging the city into an unprecedented spiral of suffering: imprisonments, executions, and the destruction of families. The high school students, alongside citizens, became symbols of resistance, while some “young communists” turned into tools of the State Security, leading to expulsions, imprisonments, and internments.
Four times, Shkodra rose in armed rebellion, but history forgot these battles. This book is written to remember the countless prisoners, the tortured, the killed, and the parents who suffered in silence. It is a warning against dictatorship and a plea for future generations not to forget the sacrifices made for freedom.
Continued from the previous issue
In the Footsteps of a Diary
Shkodra in the first years under communism
While I was descending the stairs between two policemen who were holding my arms, by a great coincidence, but also by a great deal of irony, precisely at that late hour when I was more corpse than alive, I was watching with surprise and contempt a former classmate of mine from two years ago, a certain Ç. D., dressed in a suit even on that occasion, with a black coat, sports pants, alpine boots and an umbrella rolled up like a cane, as he was just taking the stairs to go up to report on what he had seen and heard during those days, and why not, even for two years before, when he had been in the same class as us, a time when we had even taken walks together in the square. I had a word for him on the tip of my tongue, but he, his voice tight, as soon as he saw me, ducked headfirst and quickly disappeared somewhere down there.
As if on cue, the police took me to the dungeon, where they took off the clothes I was wearing, dropping me onto the cement that they had apparently wetted a little earlier, and they left me almost naked in the middle of the dungeon, with only my panties and long wool socks that were covered in blood and stuck to my knees and lower skin from the blows of Sirri Çarçani’s boots. Before the police had even closed the door properly, due to the cold and great physical weakness, and especially from the tortures of that night, my entire body, as if by electricity, was suddenly engulfed by an unstoppable wave of strong tremors, so strong that they could be heard even outside, and when I seriously thought that I was finally dying.
From the strong tremors that were acting beyond all control, my mouth was grinding like an engine. The only thing I would remember until the moment before I fell unconscious was the face of the officer from Dibra appearing at the counter, who seemed to have followed us, as well as when he, running down the corridor, repeated two or three times loudly: “I’m dying, I’m dying”! From that moment on, I don’t know what could have happened to me next.
I don’t know if I was given any emergency medical help, as would happen to me at some point in the future. It was the pain of the wounds, which burned like fire, that after a few hours of sleep, would wake me up and make me see myself with great astonishment inside a mattress without handcuffs on my hands, when, even though it was completely unexpected, I would experience for the first time that a peace and a happiness, a truly supreme happiness, along with a longing that cannot be expressed, would immediately take possession of me. In an instant, it would seem to me that even life itself, which I had sacrificed until a moment ago, was smiling at me and promising that one day, one day I would be again among my dearest people and with plans for life as before.
Believing that the tortures had ended, it never occurred to me that they could be repeated again, images after images of the happy people of the house, and of my friends proud of me and everything else good would flood before me. Like the dead I was in a dream, despite the pain and the burning of my body, and without thinking about who had untied my handcuffs and put me on the mattress, I slept again and did not wake up until one morning, from the counter, an acquaintance of ours, who I think worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Tirana, who was accompanied by Shaban Saiti, said nothing but expressed his great surprise at seeing me there and said: “Ahmet Bushati, here! Ahmet Bushati”?! Who knows how many times in a row?
They also gave me some soffertas with a dish at lunch. After a few hours of rest, after I had eaten and had some water, I was feeling hungry. By evening I would finish the four soffertas that my family had brought me every day and that I had not seen for eleven days.
Thirst, again a great thirst, returned to me during the day. Fortunately, dinner came with heavy rain, so much so that for the first time, thin streams of dirty, dark brown water were falling from the ceiling into my dungeon, which I collected below in empty bowls, not letting even a drop of them go to waste. With great economy, I would use a small part of the water to gradually cleanse my face of the soot and blood that had congealed on it, and not without pain to glue the hair that was clinging tightly to the skin of my face, while I would drink the greater part of the water, of a somewhat lighter color, as it was.
I would be very surprised when, after no more than two days of frequent urination, I noticed that my thighs, until then so swollen, would quickly turn into two very thin skeletons. Many more days would pass before I could remove the long woolen socks from my legs that had stuck to the large wounds. My shirt, too, was all stained with blood.
Thus ended this first cycle of torture, although it had been the beginning, because I would have to face others, even more difficult, in the future. The investigator from Debra called me in vain, as if he wanted to tell me what had really happened. Many days had passed since I had been called to the investigator’s office, until one evening, after about three weeks of silence, I found myself again in the office of the investigator from Dibra e Madhe. As before, as soon as I took my seat on the permanent stool in front of his desk, I looked at the calendar hanging high on the wall, behind the investigator’s back, and saw that for that day it marked March 25, 1948!
The evening was mild. Even the investigator he, as if for spring, was wearing gray civilian clothes. He was wearing a bright orange tie and new shoes in the same color as the tie, which shone like a mirror. However, contrary to the good weather and his beautiful clothing, he himself was showing himself to be very worried, which was shown by his face, his standing position (generally near the window), and his movements as if they were too hasty for the surface of his small office, which visibly expressed his impatience, added to this his complete silence the whole time, which would keep me there, without having addressed me even formally, even a single word.
My call, as meaningless, since in that case it had nothing to do with his duty as an investigator, but was as an object of the “reserves”, which we had for everything, I believe that that day must have served some of his insidious adventure…! It occurred to me that he had called me to cover up some “little” love affair with one of those “trustworthy” women, whose duties, as the case may be, required him to do even at night.
I was surprised and very surprised when he, without having asked me a single question up to that point, began to attack me. I didn’t understand anything, and at the same time, along with my surprise, I was feeling a great deal of disgust for the falseness of his previous attitude towards me, somewhat different from his colleagues. The idea that there could be no Sigurimi investigator who was not treacherous and with an evil spirit, somewhat calmed the revolt that was boiling inside me.
After four or five times that he had kicked me under the knee, his new shoe opened like a mouth, which angered him even more, his face turned black and he started to sulk, blaming me as the cause of that “misfortune”! Boredom and the false face of an executioner.
After the winter period of incessant torture, I had emerged quite tired and weakened. It seems that the “tough” interrogators had decided to leave me alone during the spring, to recover. So after a few days without torture, even with a mattress and daily food, I began to get bored. The cell with its suffocating immutability, as dark as it was, where even day and night did not change between them, would one day become unbearable to me, as if it were a real grave.
So slowly was that time and death passing me inside that dungeon, abandoned even by those who had put me inside it, that I had begun to talk to myself, so that, sometimes with gestures and sometimes with voice, several times during the day I would vent my impatience, saying: “Whatever is done, this false situation must end”!
And such a situation occurred in coincidence with the arrival of spring, which I had understood from the corridor that had more light than before, from the black tiles with the moisture on the cement that had begun to dry, as well as from some afternoon sleep from which I would wake up drenched in sweat. Moreover, in the afternoons and until some hours of the night, I would hear the joyful sounds of children playing somewhere not far from our prison.
It was on one of these days, at a time when I had just had lunch that an officer with a regular and peaceful appearance appeared for the first time at my counter. The soft features of his face, the lack of the annoying hat on his head with wavy hair, as well as the gentle tone of the few words he uttered, and finally, his rather calm look, made me believe that he could be a good, educated man.
Before moving on to the counter of the other dungeon, he asked me: “Have you done the process?” “No” – I answered. “Think carefully, you’re in my hands” – he said and left, while I, who trusted his almost “angelic” appearance, said to myself, as if with a smile: “But where can I get it, so that it falls into your hands”!
They had the “false face” of the executioner Xhemal Selimi himself! A short, but special, interrogation session. It must have been night a couple of hours earlier when the police, on the orders of the chief, handed me over to his office. Chief Lilo Zeneli was waiting for me there, along with that “good” officer who had visited me about three or four days before. Before I turned to the right, where a stool awaited me, my eyes fell on a long, full whip resting on the chief’s table, as well as on a short, thick stick next to it.
Even before I sat down on my stool, I was distracted by the high-pitched tone of the radio, which had been blaring excessively beforehand, in order to drown out my possible screams, as soon as the current began its work in my ears. Meanwhile, I spoke to the chief who was standing in front of me: “You can turn down the volume on the radio, because I don’t shout,” and meanwhile, I saw how Lilo looked into the eyes of Officer Xhemal Selimi, who was standing behind me, with the electric wires in his hands, with a sly smile.
They, as they had experience, did not lower the volume of the radio, which was a good thing, because I, as I had not thought, would not escape the screams that would consist of a long line of “o”s, that would instinctively come out of my mouth, every time the strong vibrations of the current would take my body “to the air”!
They did not advise me or threaten me, as was their custom before starting to torture a prisoner. Chief Lilo, taking advantage of the experience of the other interrogators with me, would not have any more time to lose. Xhemal Selimi, too, was called there, so that he could only act with concentrated blows. Lilo held a cube-shaped generator in her hands, similar to a rice mill, while Xhemali, behind her, was spinning the wires of electricity around my ears.
As long as I was sitting on the bench, Lilo, after each sequence of electricity, hoping for my surrender, would stop the generator handle and ask me: “Hey, are you going crazy?” and as soon as she got a negative answer from me, she would continue with the electricity as before.
In the continuation of the uneven currents, I would have finally abandoned the bench – where I had initially sat – and, as if following the rhythm of the current, I would have been sliding around the office floor, bouncing up and down like a rubber ball, every time Lilo increased the voltage on the generator, while my lips, in tune with the frequencies of the current waves, would have moved between them, trembling greatly and my mouth, filled with foam, would have released white saliva from both sides of it.
While Lilo continued her work without speaking, Xhemal Selimi was shouting so loudly that, if it weren’t for the high tone of the radio, it would have been heard on the main road and beyond. Once, Xhemal Selimi, in order to put an end to his work with me, took the whip, with which he would beat me as hard as he could, while I, from the strong and continuous current, would throw myself here and there on the floor.
This double torture, with very short interruptions, no matter how difficult it was, was not giving the expected result to the two brave men who were brutally torturing a young man. Because of this, the incontinent executioner Xhemal Selimi, who never stopped screaming as if he were a beast and not a man, at one point threw the whip somewhere and a hard piece of wood, with which he would beat me as hard as he could, sometimes without even sparing my head, while the current continued its work in my ears. In these moments, just like a month ago, after being tortured by Siri Çarçani, I finally fell unconscious, not knowing then or ever what would happen to me later!
I would not know if they had called the doctor or the nurse on that occasion so that I would not die without having to go through the process, and I would not know how much time had passed until I, for a moment, would see myself quite vaguely in front of the door of my dungeon, the Deaf man who, together with a policeman, was putting my sleeping clothes inside, which they had taken away from me three or four hours earlier, and also lifting my weight.
I would regain full consciousness sometime around the second half of the night, when I fell asleep and could not help but feel the pain of the wounds that Xhemal Selim’s stick had caused to my body and head, as well as the large blisters on my lips, which from the electric shock were burning me like fire. My ears were also hurting, and my left one was bleeding, leaving me scarred for life from that incident.
This torture inflicted on me by citizen Lilo Zeneli, – who had been a butcher by profession – and by a scoundrel like Xhemal Selimi – who was hoping to become a citizen through the work of an executioner – although it did not last long, it would be the most concentrated and intense torture I had experienced there up to that time, but perhaps not the most difficult, considering the one with Sirri Çarçani.
So Lilo Zeneli was not continuing to “put on a show” for his subordinates, – as it had seemed to me on some occasion – but with the most unwavering responsibility, to seek to see the duty of a Sigurimi chief to the end, even though in this case, if it had not been for his intervention to somehow restrain the furious Xhemal Selim, there was a possibility that I would not have come out of there alive. As on some other occasion: “Molišje e hove”!
It was not for nothing that they said that man is stronger than stone. It did not take me many days for me to regain my composure and for the solitude and deep silence of the dungeon and prison to bring me back to that unbearable state of lethargy and boredom, which from time to time would shrink and numb all my energies. But still, the tortures that were inevitable and that had no alternative but death always remained important. This internal state would be aggravated by the very idea of the investigation, which would constantly create a difficult position in me before the investigator for the dry and stereotyped answers that I was forced to give to his questions, also unchanging.
However, despite all of the above, even though I was inside a dark dungeon and awaiting other torments, as well as death itself, from time to time I would find within myself that intimate world of mine, which would not only give me strength, but as I examined it, I would come to experience moments of a deep intimacy, one that I had never experienced before and that only suffering seemed to give me, which like nothing else in the world, was drawing me towards the best, the human, which seemed to me to be ennobling my soul and revealing to me wonderful secrets, such that in some ways, even I did not know that I had hidden deep within my conscience.
But even suffering, alone, would not be enough if it were not inspired by lofty motives, by a dream or ideal that had led me there, from which those dispositions would then spring, which would not only greatly ease my suffering, but also inspire me with energy for every challenge and sacrifice, as well as hope for a bright and proud future. Memorie.al
Continued in the next issue
