From Shkëlqim Abazi
Part seven
Memorie.al / I were born on December 23, 1951, in the black month, in a time of mourning, under the blackest communist regime. On September 23, 1968, the sadistic chief investigator, Llambi Gegeni, the ignorant investigator Shyqyri Çoku, and the cruel prosecutor, Thoma Tutulani, butchered me at the Department of Internal Affairs in Shkodra, they split my head, blinded one of my eyes, deafened one of my ears, after they broke several of my ribs, half of my molars, and the thumb of my left hand. On October 23, 1968, they took me to court, where the wretch Faik Minarolli gave me a ten-year sentence of political imprisonment. After they cut my sentence in half because I was still a minor, sixteen years old, on November 23, 1968, they took me to the political camp of Reps and from there, on September 23, 1970, to the Spaç camp, where on May 23, 1973, in the revolt of the political prisoners, four martyrs were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad; Pal Zefi, Skënder Daja, Hajri Pashaj and Dervish Bejko.
On June 23, 2013, the Democratic Party lost the elections, a process that is more than normal in the democracy we claim to have. But on October 23, 2013, the General Director of the “reborn” government, sent order No. 2203, dated 23.10.2013, for; The release from duty of a police officer. So Divine Providence was intertwined with the neo-communist “reborn” Providence and, precisely on the 23rd, I was replaced by none other than the former operative of the State Security of Burrel Prison. What could be more meaningful than that?! The former political prisoner is replaced by the former persecutor!
The Author
SHKËLQIM ABAZI
Continued from the previous issue
REPS
(Forced labor camp)
Memoirs
The Six-Hundred Grams
(The routine of a day, in the sleeping camp)
A fat man, better dressed than the others, had climbed onto a kind of podium, on a stool, with a piece of paper in his hand. With an unclear voice he began to read, the herald repeated it forcefully. It was a list of names, with the names of us newcomers who arrived last night. Everyone who heard their name had to answer “Here!” and step out of line. I did the same.
We were six young men who, even though we traveled crammed in like sardines in the narrow prison vehicle, still did not know each other. Apart from Ladi, the friend with whom I was convicted in a group and Luigji, who for two weeks, stayed with us, I had also seen Pjetër and Nika, but only through the hole we made with the handle of a spoon in the cells of Shkodra. I didn’t know much about them; I hadn’t even fully memorized their faces, because we had been seen in semi-darkness and lying on our stomachs.
I will briefly introduce my travel companions, in the order of the roll call:
- Pjetër Pali from Velipoja, was a man of about thirty with a medium build, with regular features, black hair, black eyes, with a kind-hearted smile that for as long as we were together, it would not leave his face.
Pjetri, according to what he had told me in the cells, had escaped at night, together with his wife and an infant child, crossing the Buna River with a raft! On the other side they had relatives, who sheltered them. Since they were declared kulaks, they were considered enemies of the Hoxhist regime; they hoped they would not be returned, so they surrendered to the Yugoslav authorities in good faith. There, they also applied to immigrate to America, where family members and friends who had escaped a long time ago stood as guarantors for them.
And, one beautiful day, the Titoists fulfilled their request, handcuffed them and; sent them to the black America of Hani i Hotit. Now he had to serve his sentence, with twelve years in prison and his wife eight. The boy would grow up with relatives. In the cell, Pjetri had told me about an older brother, who was a political prisoner, but I didn’t know where he was serving his sentence. The case brought the two brothers together in the same camp; in Reps. I was with them too. There I met Nikoll Pali, he was not only Pjetri’s older brother, but he also became a natural brother to me.
He had been in prison for years, and he put the extensive knowledge and experience he had gained there at our disposal. Kindly, he oriented us to adapt to the conditions of the camp and then, to choose the right people, so that we too could create our own social circles. I had good relations with the two noble Zagoriani brothers in prison and later.
- Luigj Vat Nika, was a large-boned man, with a reddish face, a big head and red hair, with protruding cheekbones and jaws like a horse’s skull, with a stocky body and elongated limbs. When he walked, slightly bent forward, he resembled a giant gorilla. He was about thirty-five years old.
As he told me in the cells of Shkodra, he had no family. He was raised for charity, among friends and relatives, in the village and then, on the streets and hangars of Shkodra. He was very rough, so much so that in many cases with his unbalanced behavior, he became an object of humor for his friends.
He had been sentenced to four years for agitation and propaganda, but when you asked him: what propaganda did you do? He would reply: “I spoke for Saint Anthony of Shajti, even strongly, with all the mice and snakes of Rrmajl”!
“What did you agitate, o Bixh?” – I would tease him.
“All of Enver’s speeches, published in the ‘Voice of the People’, while going to the big one in the brambles”!
He always felt hungry. When his release was approaching, he told me in good faith:
“By God, o Çim, I am very well here! Where would I drown, man? I have no father, no mother, no sister, no brother and no kind, to wait for me! Here I have a bed, I also have something to eat and drink, even though I was never full, at least I have them secured for free, so to speak!”
Poor Luigj, he adapted to these conditions. He felt safe here; at least they didn’t despise him. Everyone offered him something to eat, because they considered him to be mentally challenged. He was half-witted, but harmless and approachable to everyone.
- I had met Nik Prekali, along with Pjetri, through the hole in the cell. He was a small, thin, short man, about twenty-five years old, from Bajza i Kastratit. He had been sentenced to three years for agitation and propaganda, the lowest sentence that existed for this article.
According to his confession, he had been engaged at the age of ten, and his newborn fiancée, in a cradle. The girl, from a nearby village, grew and became more beautiful every day. Her beauty had incited the lust of the youth leaders in the village.
As soon as she finished the eight-year school, according to the communist style of the time, under the example of Shkurte Pal Vata, she had to go “volunteer” to the railway. But this was unacceptable for the groom’s family: “where has it been seen and heard in the highlands, for the engaged girl to go, outside the village without a companion!” they would justify.
But this was in conflict with the Party’s directives. Thus, the youth leaders and the front leadership called Nika to a meeting, to “convince” him to give his consent, but he flatly refused and this was the beginning of the later hardships of poor Nika.
With the mediation of the youth organization, the operative of the border area set up a trap. At a village festival, after they ate and drank, sang and danced, they put handcuffs on his hands; put him in the “sixty-nine” of the Internal Branch and straight to the cells of Shkodra.
There, dazed by Shyqi’s beating and Llambi Gegeni’s foxiness, they put a paper in front of him, on which he signed without reading what was written on it. With a formal and exemplary trial, in the cultural center of the Agricultural Cooperative, they “cut his wedding suit”, three years and sent him as a “groom” to Reps, while they hung a scarf around his fiancée’s neck and sent her as a “volunteer bride” to Myzeqe, an activist on the Rrogozhina-Lushnje railway.
Nika was a good, loving but naive and ignorant man. He believed that he would fix his biography with work, so he worked tirelessly, hoping that they would forgive him and get him out of prison a little sooner, so that he could be reunited with his fiancée.
I would joke with Nika:
“Slow down, Nika, you’ll be exhausted; you won’t have the strength for your bride when you get out!”
“What am I to do, man? I have to work hard, to get out an hour earlier! My bride is waiting for me, lucky boy!” – He would justify.
“Nika, are you for real?! Why, do they need your labor, they want to flatten the mountain in two days, with Stalinists!” – I would make a joke.
“I have to rehabilitate myself, Çim the poor one, I want to go back to my bride, with a new mind!”
“You can beat the basin and the flute with one hole, but without filling it to the brim, they won’t let you go, my dear Nika!” – I would incite him even more.
“No, for real, my bride makes me very sad! Have you seen her, she comes here once a month, with her people! She is waiting for me, man!” – Nika would reply seriously and start a pastoral melody from his region.
Honestly, I was amazed by the loyalty of that girl, who every month, for three years, followed her fiancé with bags in her arms. Her devotion was to be appreciated.
But not only her, during the years I spent in prison, I heard about dozens and dozens of others, from all regions who, like her, did not leave their loved ones, for years and years.
Eternal glory and respect to these noble women and girls, who with devotion and self-sacrifice, with determination and countless sacrifices, on roads and off-roads, in snow and heat, eating and not eating, prison after prison and camp after camp, they became the wings of their husbands and fiancés.
With his entire boundless naivete, Nika completed his three years in prison to the last grain.
- Paulin Vata from Malësia e Madhe, was the other person who arrived with us. A former officer who escaped to Yugoslavia, where he had spent about ten years in prison, sentenced by them as an agent of the State Security. Infiltrated by the Yugoslavs, he was now sentenced as a spy for the U.D.B., to twenty years in prison.
Paulini, with whom I would become friends very quickly, was about thirty-five years old, very intelligent, agile, with a typical Shkodra humor, ironic but resourceful and dear to everyone, except for the spies and those who stayed close to the command.
He was an orator and very brave, he would show this in Spaç, in the revolt of May 21, 1973, where with extraordinary courage, he opposed the system, at the head of the revolt, after which, he would be sentenced to another twenty-five years.
The fifth and sixth, were us, the two friends of the group, Vladimir Shena from Progonat of Kurvelesh and I from Berat. So, we were the six newcomers, who after the counting or as it was called there, the roll call, was over, we were called to the Technical Office. We presented ourselves.
The Technical Office, as I described above, was located in a separate building, apart from the other buildings, above the kitchen, opposite the roll call square. It was erected at the highest point, except for the bathrooms. Perhaps, with its magnificence, they wanted to impress and give us the message that our fates were being played out inside it. At least with this idea, I went in.
For the staff of these offices, they told us that they were among the most negative contingent, in the community of prisons and camps. To be assigned to it, you had to have given full and clear proofs of repentance and signs of rehabilitation. Without being a spy, you could not be part of this administration.
But it happened sometimes; when the command decided to discredit some important and stubborn prisoner, it was about intellectuals, they would propose that he accept the leadership of the Technical Office.
But in general, honest people stayed away from this office. They would justify the reasons for refusal tactfully. But in exceptional cases, for example, when specialists of special professions were needed or when the pace of the class struggle fell a little, some good person could also be chosen.
One such person was in charge of this office at that time. Tefik Tarelli, was an honest and kind-hearted man.
About him, they said that he had been sentenced for high treason, with a large group from Devolli, mainly from the Tarelli brotherhood. Since the overwhelming part of the group was from the same tribe, they named it; “The Group of the Tarellis”.
Some of them, under pressure from the Security, had accepted monstrous things that they had never done or thought of; then they brought them out as witnesses against each other and as a result, they populated the prisons, as a brotherhood and friendship. They were so numerous that there was no camp or prison where you would not find a Tarell or someone sentenced with their group.
Generally they were good and hardworking, but as every house has a toilet, they also had their most negative prototype, Zenel Tarelli or “the yellow snake”, as the prisoners had branded him for his cynicism, perfidy and baseness. This was a unscrupulous and immoral spy, known throughout the universe of Albanian prisons.
Inside the office, they put us through a kind of interview, with usual questions like: “Where are you from, what is your sentence, how old are you, what education do you have, what is your profession”, etc., random questions. Then they gave us a piece of paper, to present to the clothing and food warehouse manager, so that they could provide us with layers and clothes.
I left the technical office and went to wash: “The warehouse manager has nowhere to go, let me wash myself first!” I thought and went down to the showers. I was disgusted with myself because of the filth. I couldn’t wait to get into the bathroom. Bajrami, a fellow countryman of mine, was waiting for me at the showers.
I didn’t understand where the wood was found, who lit the fire, which brought the boiler, who brought the soap, but I saw a lot of old men bustling around me. Finally, I found myself in one of the corners that served as showers, at the door of which, a cloth resembling an oilcloth was hung.
From outside this oilcloth, a hand gave me some clothes and a towel. I took them without a word. I undressed and with a piece of a meat can, transformed into a ladle, I poured water on my head. I can’t find words to express the pleasure I felt the moment the water started flowing all over my body, it was like a kind of orgasm took over. The warm water slid over the skin of my shaved head and seemed to penetrate inside the cells, a kind of pleasant turmoil, rose to my brain.
Then the wave of warmth began to spread to the most peripheral parts, from the hair on my head to the nails of my feet, which, by the way, were broken like a turtle’s shell, because they had not been cut for months.
I felt dizzy, as if I was going to faint. If this state had lasted a little longer, I would have fallen flat on the spot. But the cold current that was blowing from the sides of the oilcloth, gave me goosebumps and my flesh tightened. I got chills to the bone, to warm up a bit; I poured water again and started rubbing myself hard. Although I passed the soap several times, I didn’t see any foam anywhere.
I lifted the corner of the oilcloth a little to get a clearer view, and what did I see? The skin on my chest had risen in blisters, and my arms were peeling. The flakes of skin hung down and resembled the peeled bark of a tree or, some transparent residues peeled like a snake’s skin. I grabbed them with my fingers. I pulled them gently and delicately, because I was afraid they would cause me pain.
But how strange! The skin peeled off along the entire length of my body; however, I did not feel any pain. “Hold on, boy Çim, you have to shed seven skins in prison, without coming out of it well, if you have that fate”! This prophecy came to my mind, which the unknown man had given me in the cells of Shkodra? It seems that it was being fulfilled!
A layer of filth was layered on my body, which, without exaggerating, could be called; dermis on top of epidermis. The stories about animals that change their fur, about the wolves of the steppes, about the polar bears, about the arctic foxes, that adapt to the environment, about snakes that change their skin, chameleons that change their color, etc., etc., came to my mind. But I had never heard that a person could change their skin!
“Oh, you haven’t heard much, my son! But, hold on, life itself will teach you!” my grandmother’s words echoed in my ears. This previously unknown phenomenon made me worried: “Oh God, from now on I would have to face life under a new skin, with a different color from the original!”
But I quickly abandoned these literary meditations, because the flakes made me shudder. So I continued to pull and pull the necrotic dermis, as much as my hand could reach. When I was stripped like a snake, I tried to rub myself with soap again, now the white foam covered the defects. I lathered and poured water with the ladle, I repeated it several times.
Below on the floor, a layer of water and filth was layered, stuck together. My body felt lighter, the long-standing impurities, dried on my body, was now lying under my feet. With the remaining piece of soap, I lathered the old tank top and turned it diagonally behind my back, stretched it up and down several times, then poured water. It took the streaks of filth with it and deposited them on top of the others, like the bark around the dry stump.
With the remaining water, I rinsed for the last time and when there was not a single drop left, I wiped myself with a towel. When I finished I took a look at my body; some ribs like the bones of a skinny horse that you could count one by one with your fingers, came out on the skin. While two thin arms and two dry and weak calves like shepherd’s flutes, covered with a withered parchment like that of hundred-year-olds, now after washing it resembled a piece of bleached, but wrinkled, paper.
These long bones brought to mind the experimental skeletons, in the biology class. This sight terrified me. I didn’t believe that this scrawny skeleton was mine! I pinched myself, I felt the bitterness of my nails in my flesh. “It’s me! Oh God, I won’t have a long life!” For the first time, I was worried about my health. Never until then, had I suffered from serious illnesses.
To cover this disgusting ugliness, I dressed quickly; first the long breeches down to the ankle, then the shirt-blouse with three buttons. The cloth rubbed against my thin calves and arms and gave me a sense of annoyance, a kind of skin itching. I put on the pants and jacket and went out of the bathroom. Memorie.al
