By Maksim Rakipaj
Part thirteen
Memorie.al/ Maksim Rakipaj, originally from Përmet, whose family had helped and supported the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, after graduating from the Navy School in Vlorë, in 1972 he was appointed an officer in the Merchant Navy, where he served with dedication until in 1977, on the “Durrësi” steamer, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in political prison, as part of a “group”, which also included his colleague, Aladin Kapo, the son of Hysni Kapo’s brother. Family biography was also the reason for his punishment. After the end of the war, two of his uncles were sentenced to political prison, his grandfather was declared a kulak and in 1976, his father was expelled from the party. Maksi began serving his sentence in the Ballsh camp and in 1979, he was transferred to the Spaçi camp and then to the Qafë Bari camp. He was released on September 12, 1984, benefiting from a reduced sentence, from an amnesty. After being unemployed for a long time, with many hardships, he got a job as a miner in the Mzezet mine, he worked until 1991. After the 1991s, he started working in the administration of the Municipality of Durrës, he served until 1997 and after that, he returned to the Merchant Navy (the last captain of the transoceanic ship “Vlora”), until he left Albania for Italy, (illegally on a dinghy), where he currently lives for many years. Since the 90s, in addition to various jobs, Maksim Rakipaj has also devoted himself to writing, such as; poetry, prose, fiction or documentary, translations, etc., publishing several books, such as: ‘Prophet – Khalil Gibran’, (translation from English ‘Toena’ 2003), ’20 love poems and a song of sadness’, (translation from Spanish, ‘Toena’ 2003), ‘Alive after the shipwreck’, (published by ISKK, 2014), ‘Bukowski – poetry’, (translation from English, ‘ENEAS’, 2015), ‘Trilusa m’Tirône’, ( translation from Italian, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘Anthology of Arabic-Persian Poetry’ (English translations, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘The Complete Sonnets of Shakespeare’, (English translation, ‘ADA’ 2016′) , ‘Survivor’ (autobiographical novel, ‘2 East, 2 West’ 2018), ‘Nobelists – poetic anthology, (UEGEN 2019), ‘Hymn of happiness’ (‘JOZEF’ 2023), etc. From the creativity of Mr. Rakipaj, Memorie.al is publishing the book “Survivor”, (published in 2022 by “JOZEF” Publishing House in Durrës, directed by Mr. Aurel Kaçulini), where he has described his life chronologically, where the part the main one is that of serving the sentence in camps and prisons, as well as various characters, his co-sufferers that he met in the communist hell, etc.
Continues from last issue
“Academy” of Spaç
I wasn’t even 60 pounds. My friends were surprised; they did not expect to be assigned as a miner, as weak and helpless as I was. I was advised to talk to the head of the Technical Office, or the “Reeducation Office”. (Aman, oh my god, how they mocked the ass and with those slanderous terms!) I met the boss Halit M., from Has, then Tropoja caught him. 1.90 m tall and over 100 kg. He showed himself very loving, but he couldn’t do anything, without spending a month of work, he couldn’t change the organic signed in the Command:
– “Then, listen to me carefully, Max…! You know who you are”… – he speaks to me with a sly smile. I would come across those words and that smile very often…until 1991. The subtext was clear, I had to serve the camp’s command and Security Operative, spying on my comrades.
– “Of course, I know who I am – I told him – But I will have plenty of time to know who Max is too.” I have also tried to learn who I am. And to tell the truth, in the Spaçi camp I had enough time to do this, with the “sparing” help of the command and operative Kosta Prifti, without forgetting the spies, who sold their souls.
It was not easy to remain human, to remain a man in the vampire prisons. When I remembered how terrified I was during the investigation, I was ashamed of myself, I was even ashamed, that I had fallen into their traps at times, but in prison, I found strong people, who I made an example to follow and imitate, I had many and excellent friends, I also had a family, which was never separated from me, I learned that a man, when he cannot avoid death, is not afraid of it, but sees it straight in the face, without batting an eyelash.
However, those in command of the camps were never happy with me. I worked as a miner until the day of release. Even after that. I worked as a miner in the coal mine in Gërdec, until June 1990. Even there, director Pëllumb B. told me these words: – “You know who you are, Max”! But I, I knew who I was for a long time, I started to recognize myself in the investigator, I started to correct myself in the Ballshit Camp, but I ended up in Spaç. One of my prison friends called it a camp; “Academy of anti-communist resistance”.
Mines
In that early July ’79, from concentration camp no. 309 Ballsh, they took me “by lift” to the annihilation camp no. 303 Spac. Ever since the revolt of ’73, the crime in power took some measures to have the situation under control. Without exception, whoever worked in the offices or did “privileged” work, in the Spaci camp, had to be a confidant of the command. There was also a large group of unemployed, unable to work. But not everyone who was sick earned the right to be out of the mine. My dear friend, the unforgettable Ahmet Kolgjini, had 5 serious heart diagnoses, always yellow in the face, worked in the mine until he was released.
The work in the mine was organized in groups of three: the miner and the two workers. The miner had to arm the gallery and make the holes with a pneumatic hammer at the front of the gallery and was responsible for the group work. The two workers had to clean the work front from the previous crack. If this was not achieved, the armament could not be put on and the beers could not be made, i.e., in the technical language of the mine: “The cycle was not caught”!
When the cycle was not caught, the miner had to tell the policeman of the brigade and the free brigadier (there was also a convicted brigadier, but that was included in the chosen jobs), who was the culprit, so; the two workers who did not arrive in time to free the front of the ore. The culprit went straight to the dungeon. The miner was forced to become a spy. But I don’t remember ANY CASE, not one, of miners spying on their workers, in case the miner didn’t give convincing explanations, he went to the punishment dungeon himself. There have been quite a few such cases.
Beers were made with hammers, which worked with air coming from compressors. 7 or 8 atmospheres of air had to come in and the drill became dry. The dust suffocated, entered everywhere, into the lungs, deep into the skin.
Wet drilling was out of the question. Wet drilling means that a trickle of water had to pass through the baromine that drilled the rock, making the deadly dust watery, which was caused by dry drilling. Who came to Spaç; “recommended” (as incorrigible), the miner was designated. I was assigned a miner, since the first time the organic of the month was announced. They assigned Agim Hamit from Vlora to teach me how to use the hammer.
Hell ’43 and Spaç ’73
The Spaçi Revolt ’73 is unique in the entire history of prisons for the entire communist world, in terms of its size, the ideas it brought out, and its heroes. A lot has been written about him. Participants of the revolt wrote. Those who were not in Spaç at that time also wrote. I was not in Spaç during the revolt. I went to Spaç, in July ’79, but the spirit of the revolt was still felt, it kept that spirit alive, the spirit of those who were shot, the re-convicted of the revolt, who were many.
I won’t mention them by name, there are many and I don’t know all the names. But getting to know many of them gave you strength to face the horrors of everyday life, gave you strength to hope for a better future for Albania, gave you strength to love life, your family, your loved ones they were not separated.
To give you strength to despise death. This was what the revolt gave the Spacians. And the communist dome, he knew well, felt the strength of the real Spacians. And took her measures. For five years in a row, no day off, neither for Sundays nor for holidays. Mining rates were doubled. The food in the mint went bad. All kinds of games and books were banned until ’79.
However, beatings by the police against prisoners were also banned, “by order from above”. The son of the then prime minister, Bashkim Shehu, also made a film that year. The film was titled “Hell ’43” and was dedicated to the Porto-Romano camp, an internment camp set up by Italian fascists during the war to hold opponents of fascism there.
We watched it on TV with great interest. Of course, there were many excesses, like all the films and the history that is written by the victors after the war, but, nevertheless, the fascist violence of the film was far from the violence committed by the Albanian communists, against the Albanians, who did not like communism. But the concepts for commanding the camp were the same. Fascism and communism are brothers, but communism is even bloodier.
The film, as I recall, opens with a conversation between a Fascist Question specialist on prisons and a senior party leader, where the former elaborates on the idea of the camp’s operation: “The core of the camp will be those whom we will break in the investigator – these are rats and they will be an example for others; then they will be workhorses, it does not matter what yield they bring, it is enough to work so that they do not have time to think. Then we will add a lot of people with low morals, ordinary people, etc. We will instill in their brains that these are not people, but caterpillars, worms, we will make them have no respect for human values and for themselves”.
This was, as far as I remember, the fascist idea of running a camp with political convicts. According to the son of the communist-fascist Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu. I don’t know if this is really a fascist idea, for running a political camp, and it is not my duty to deal with this. But I have experienced on my own skin, me and 1200 men in Spaç that this was the concept of the Albanian communists, for the direction of the Albanian political camps, especially after the Spaç Revolt.
“Mice”, there was in Spaç; these were in the choicest jobs; in offices, brigadiers, normists, cooks, accountants, etc., and other jobs, which were privileged and with guaranteed payment. But these were the shame of Spaçi, who surprisingly became the favorites of the Democratic Party, when this party was given power, in those more or less mysterious circumstances, in the early 90s. But this is another topic, because there were and still are good guys, still lined up in that Party. But I’m sorry, that despite all the opportunities they have in print media and TV, they still don’t play their role, they don’t give what is expected of them! But this is another topic.
At least, in those years, that’s how they thought to rule Spaçi, but they never managed to break the spirit of Spaçi ’73; “rats”, looked down upon and felt it; “horses”, not only worked, but also studied, wrote, learned foreign languages, discussed, thought with their heads and did not become caterpillars, worms, as the ALP wanted. Ordinaries who were brought to Spaç, pickpockets, etc., forgot their vices; theft was almost non-existent, they also began to think, with their heads.
These ideas came to me, following a discussion about the films of the communist era and the sacrifices of the communists, their exploits and heroics in those years. I respect their fight against the invader, but that fight turned into fratricide; and they did not want to stop the bloodshed, but continued it even after the war, when the great powers, in the peace conferences after ’45, threw Albania into the ‘Communist Camp’.
They, the simple Albanian communists, had nothing in their hands, except to blindly obey the tyrant, or else they came to Ballsh, Spaç or Burrel and there they realized belatedly that they were Albanians and that they had us as brothers, regardless of political convictions. And they blamed Enver Hoxha when they came to prison, forgetting that until yesterday, they had been tools in the hands of a sadistic criminal.
“You killed me, the family of the enemy!”
I have learned from life that people and things in general are not just black and white. You find goodness where you don’t think so. Even the bad, too. I will tell a little about this, I will give some examples that I have lived myself. Many think that today, remembering what I’ve been through, I should be full of bile and bitterness. It is not true at all. Not that I’m forgiving everything, no. It’s just that I see things more clearly, with their many nuances.
…December 1979, in Spaç. It’s cold and snow has covered everything. A family that had a meeting with a relative (a woman over 70 year’s old, with her 40-year-old daughter-in-law and 7-year-old grandson), remains in Spaç. There is no car to return at that time, no hotel. They remained outside, sitting on the steps of the club, which is closed. Darkness. The red-haired policeman, Mark Marku, leaves the camp, after finishing his service. He sees three people sitting, shivering from the cold; he approaches and finds out who they were…! “Where will you spend the night”?! “Here we are, the night took us, and there is no car, no hotel…”!”Come with me, to my house.”
So he takes them to his house that night, keeping them, as is the Albanian tradition, as his friends. “Spirit is God’s and friends”. The next day he finds a car and leaves with them. But, someone sees him, who takes home the enemy’s family. He spies on her. Emergency meeting of the grassroots organization. Warning for expulsion from the party, is the measure taken for him. And Mark answers: “I don’t recognize any mistakes in myself. Whenever I find people in need, I will help them. We are Albanians, we are men…”! It was the time, when the villains were in command, which could not stand masculinity and Albanianness. There was only talk of “socialist patriotism”…! The party above everything…! The class war.. .”!
Acquittals, re-sentences, returns
…After the revolt of ’73, it was difficult for honest prisoners to be released, even after serving their sentence. Whoever did not accept the offers of the operative Kosta Prifti and the one who replaced him after the 80s, Shyqyri Toska, was unable to be released. Even if someone managed to get free, within a few months, they were back again. Re-conviction was fashionable those years…! There was a barcolette from the black humor of the prison: “How long have you been sentenced? 7 years. How many years have you done, until today? 14 years. How much more do you have left? 15 more years”!
After the “suicide” of Mehmet Shehu, as if the “fashion” of reconvictions was neglected, perhaps to leave the blame to him, for the intensification of the class war…! The “poliagent”, had acted on purpose, to antagonize the party with the people…! However, whoever completed the years of the sentence, surprisingly, was now released from prison. Before that, a man from Shkodër named Paulin was re-arrested, exactly on the day of his release, just as he had come out of the great gate of Spaçi. And now he was being released, one of the monuments of the Albanian communist prisons.
It had been 34 years and 7 months. Arrested as early as 1945, at the age of 19, because he had been secretary of ballistic youth, for the Korçë-Pogradec area. That was his crime. His name was Haxhi Mekolli, 55 years old. He looked over 70, but was lucid, still strong. When he was informed of his release, he said to the cartel officer: – “Why don’t you leave me alone for another 5 months… it’s been 35 years…?! I will say 35 years”! I don’t remember anyone else being escorted, with more love and respect, by the prisoners of Spaçi. Shaking his hand was like receiving a blessing.
A few months ago, N. was also released at the age of 34, he looked over 45. He had been in prison for 17 years. After 17 years in prison, he was released, but he was not allowed to visit his family. They sent him to a well-known mining town, somewhere in the south. I don’t know if he did 6 months N., free. With the beginning of the New Year ’82, N. also re-entered Spaç. As soon as he passed the great gate, he ran down to his company…! Everyone was sad, while N., being healthy and young, laughed with that characteristic throaty, hoarse voice: – “Where have you been, great lord, how I’ve missed you! Hahahaha, what’s wrong with you?! I I said thank you for coming back…! Cracked, great god, cracked out. I know, how did I do without you…?! O Rako, how is your brother…?! Still sleeping with Bol? Hahahaha …! Oh my god, I escaped…! Who took my bed?! Who? Tell the bastard to leave me, because I woke him up…! Hahahahahah”.
N. is happy to have returned to Spaç. “It is not his fault,” Zydiu tells me, “he has been coming here since he was a child.” This is his whole world. Outside the prison, he doesn’t know anyone, he doesn’t have any friends. He came out, saw how it was and that’s why he’s happy, that he came back”!
Work begins in the mine, as soon as the organic of the month is made. In area I. It’s in another brigade, but we’re on the same shift. Today I’m on shift 2. As soon as I leave work and leave the mine, I see N., sitting, surrounded by others. Who knows what he’s talking about, because everyone is laughing. I come closer. He is talking about life outside prison:
– “I saw that I could not push him outside. The coal mine killed the mother. For God. I used to go to the club for the night, good guys gathered there. They respected me a lot. Jean Valjean, you had one attached to me, hahaha. What is this zhama-zhan, you are telling me, it is not some ass, for God’s sake, you have a problem with me?! ‘No, no, they told me, it’s a French film and this bastard, he used to be, as you say, the bastard, just like me, a strong prisoner, hahahahaha. Hey, fuck you, you’re in school, I look like you, don’t you? No? Hahahaha, did he make fun of his ass there, or you, hahahaha…”!
– “Okay, N., did you meet any women, didn’t you, ah…huh, did you do something or not”?! – one of his friends pierces his boils.
– “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yalla, great god. He told me one day the one who attached the zhamazhan to me…! He knew that I had told him: this is how I became and I have not become a woman with health, for God’s sake, great God. “Don’t worry, he tells me, your brother will find you.” When will you, who had always found it, the dog! Yay, great god! Yes, yes, yes! “Do you know Zenepe”? he tells me. I’m putting the name in vain, because they didn’t call it that, to kill me, I won’t tell the real name, for God’s sake. This was a widow, about 35 years old, a star I tell you, a udder’s ass that I love, oh my god.
Don’t make fun of me, I told him. ‘No’, – this one, I’m not kidding…! “Do you know where the barangay is, Zenepi”?! Go shit ass. “Okay, he told me, – let him come, I like it. But don’t talk to anyone, because it opens us up to work…! Mine, they have good biographies. That’s what he told me, at 8 o’clock in the evening go, knock on the door and enter’. I went… thump to the gate… thump thump…! ‘Come in, get in…’! I entered, as you say, and I’m thankful that I sat down, because my knees were shaking, for God’s sake I tell you…! This brought me a glass of brandy, I felt like mint…! ‘Why did you want brandy, Zenepe’, – I told her… – I’m not into brandy, poor me’!
She laughed, threw her hands around my neck and gave me a kiss or you… and there on the bed. Don’t ask me how; I don’t even know how I got there and how we both found ourselves naked, in the middle of the bed… ‘Come on, jump’, it says…! “Wait, I told him, the bad. I want to see how you women have that booty. I have never seen God who is one! An open saddle this…! “There you have it,” he tells me, “see and be satisfied”! I lay down in front of that booty and how it saved me: ‘Jalla, great god, there’s no p… with me always…! They haven’t lied to me…’!
“Bad sister, how much have you suffered, you desolate moron”?! He tells me this and rubs my head…! I big fool… I started crying, what you say…! ‘What’s wrong, your bad sister?! Don’t cry, what’s wrong?! “Get dressed, I told him, – and let’s go to sleep, I’m tired today”… and I hid my eyes…! “Also, don’t call me sister and brother anymore, you heard, because otherwise you will sleep with me as a sister and brother”! We wiped each other’s tears and slept, like brother and sister, for God’s sake. And as a sister I held her. I found plenty of women, I’m not saying, but that woman, I couldn’t touch her, as a woman…! Eh, live shit…”!
…It had been a long time since no one was laughing anymore…! Someone pretended to blow their noses and wipe their eyes…! Memorie.al
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