From Uran Butka
-The tragic story of the great nationalist families that were hit by communism-
Memorie.al / The totalitarian communist regime essentially attacked true culture and art, in order to create a culture and an ideologically tendentious art that would praise the red pashalars, as happened with the class works of socialist realism. The Pipa family, one of the most cultured and anti-conformist families in Albania, was punished because it did not side with the communist regime. Mustafa Pipa, a well-known jurist, was a member of the Dictation Court, when this court was independent, during the Zog Monarchy.
Myzafer Pipa, the son, graduated in Law in Padua, excelled as a champion of culture (he directed the cultural magazine “Fryma”), of patriotism (as an anti-fascist, he was interned by the fascists in Ventotene and by the Nazis in the Pristina camp) and especially sublime justice. He defended with unprecedented courage the innocent nationalists, democrats and clerics who were convicted by military trials in 1945-’46, publicly opposing Koçi Xoxa, Aranit Çela, etc., but was arrested and tortured using barbaric methods, such as red-hot iron, with which they pierced his body to the bone, until he died in torture.
His brother, Arshi Pipa, who had a doctorate in Philosophy in Florence, teacher in the high schools of Tirana and Durrës, did not agree with the Stalinist regime and the socialist conformist culture. He was arrested, accused of being associated with the Postriba Movement and imprisoned in prisons and extermination camps, such as in Burrel, Vloçisht, etc., which he described in the work “Prison Book”. In 1957, he escaped from Albania. Professor of philosophy and literature, in some of the most famous universities in America, Arshi Pipa, stood out for his creativity and scientific studies in the field of literary criticism, the language of Albanian and world literature, politics, sociology, journalism, etc.
Although far from his country, he was seen by the communist regime as a dangerous enemy, and even the Prime Minister of Albania, Mehmet Shehu, was eliminated because, according to Enver Hoxha’s accusation; “krushqi did with Arshi Pippa’s granddaughter”! The blind process of primitive revenge, of annihilation and alienation, in the first place worked against prominent noble and bourgeois families, who supported and were included in the ranks of the “National Front”, Legality, or Northern Leaders, included in the ranks of “Independent National Bloc”.
Big families, like; Lepenica, Muço, Dosti, Golemi, Ermenji, Quku, Hekali, Fratari, Cfiri, Bushati, Cakrani, Pali, Petrela and many others, were punished because they were associated with the “National Front”; the Kupi, Çoba, Luli, Allamani, Mena, etc. families, because they were with Legality and so on. For example.; the head of the Kazazi family, Halit Kazazi, a nationalist and anti-communist, was shot without trial by communist terrorists. Jup Kazazi, trained in political science in Italy, resigned as minister of fascism and fought against the Italians in the battle of Rec, August 1943. Leader of the anti-communist resistance of Postriba, he committed suicide, surrounded in 1946, in order not to fall in the hands of the communist rulers.
Together with him, his brother, Seit Kazazi, also graduated in Law, former commander of the “Besnik Çano” ballistic battalion, which fought in Kosovo, was also killed, where the fighter of this battalion, Hamit Troplini, was also martyred. The other brothers, Zenel and Hamid Kazazi, were sentenced to heavy prison terms. That was not enough, but the communists also shot their uncle, Abdulla Kazazi, and their uncle, Rifat Koplik, without trial. Rasim Kazazi, died from torture in the cell. Cousins Sabri, Bektesh and Bexhet Kazazi were sent to prisons. All Kazazi relatives were persecuted, expropriated, while the children were deprived of schools and assigned to the most difficult jobs, with picks and shovels.
This tragic fate was also suffered by the families who refused to join the National-Liberation Front, which was nothing but the disguised Communist Party. Colonel Muharrem Bajraktari’s family, although they refused to join the Communist Front, fought against the Italians, the Germans, and the Communists. But he suffered a tragic fate. Muharrem Bajraktari himself, after resisting with weapons until 1946, escaped from Albania, while his brother, Bajram, injured in the attempt, was imprisoned and shot.
The Kryeziu family of Gjakova, with Gani, Hasan and Said Kryeziu, collaborated with the National-Ç Movement without joining the Front. But it was hit and destroyed by the National Army Forces of Albania and at the same time by the National Army Forces of Kosovo, when the black leaders were fighting against the Germans to liberate Gjakova. From the heard Gashi i Tropoja tribe, Ramë Muja stood out, who formed one of the first anti-fascist squads in Albania, but the communists caused him three deaths at once: they poisoned him with a woman, then he was taken dead to an ambush and they shot him with a gun, to show that they killed him in an effort and not infidelity, then they hung him on a rope in the old Tropoja.
The same thing happened with the great fighting families of Preng Cal from Kelmendi, Mehmet Ali Bajraktar from Has, Ymer Bardhoshi from Puka, Ndue Palit from Dukagjini, Llazar Fundos from Korça, and other families, who helped and shed the blood of the sons of them, in the patriotic war against the Serbian, Italian and German invaders, but who did not join the Communist Front, according to the totalitarian slogan: “O with us, O against us”. Communism shot, imprisoned, exiled the prominent heads of these old Albanian families, who had defended generation after generation, their homeland and freedom, while their wives and children were exiled to the camps of Tepelena, Vloçishti, etc.
And, if it did not spare these patriotic and anti-fascist families, the regime was merciless against the families of those people who had collaborated with the Italians or the Germans, such as; Shefqet Vërlaci, Gjon Markagjoni, Mustafa Kruja, Kolë Bib Miraka, Halil Alia, Hysni Dema, Prenk Pervizi, Vizhdan Risilia, Kadri Cakrani, etc. Of course, collaborationism is morally and legally reprehensible at all times, but the responsibility is personal. But communism generalized this as a phenomenon and for one person, damkosi punished a family generation after generation, with all the innocent children, persecuted and tarnished a tribe, a province, an organization or a party, even Kosovo, for collaborationism.
This anti-human and anti-national policy served the unlimited power of the Albanian communists, but also the Yugoslav interests in Albania and Kosovo. The culmination of the feverish activities of the communist government, to annihilate the Albanian right, where the noble families were also part of, was the creation and functioning of the military trials, the Russo-Yugoslav experience, from the end of 1944 onwards. Only the “Special Court” of Tirana, on March 1, until April 13, 1945, judged in 31 sessions, 60 nationalist intellectuals from prominent pro-Western families.
After the war, the few noble families who had joined the National Liberation Front, remembering that they were fighting for a democratic Albania, were gradually eliminated. A good part of them joined the democratic opposition groups, because of the different opinion, but also as a reaction against the establishment of the communist dictatorship in Albania. Yes, the opposition was not allowed, because those who acted outside the National Liberation Front were considered enemies and were immediately destroyed.
Member of Parliament Gjergj Kokoshi, doctorate at the University of Paris, great patriot and democrat, who had put everything into the National-Liberation War, first Minister of Education after the War, declaring that; “where there is no pluralism, there is no democracy”, he ended up dead in the Burrel prison, while 37 opposition personalities, from large families, such as; Suat Asllani, Sami Qeribashi, Qenan Dibra, Musine Kokalari, etc., were shot and imprisoned. Musineja, from the prominent Kokalari family, the first Albanian writer, intellectual with broad democratic culture and vision, graduated in the West for the Arts, founder of the Social Democratic Party (October 1943), publisher of the newspaper “Voice of Freedom”, testified in court :
“I am not guilty. I am not a communist and this cannot be called a fault. You won the election, but I’m in jail, I shouldn’t be. I am Sami Frashëri’s student. With me you want to condemn the Renaissance…”! This fate also suffered the “Opposition Group of Deputies”, which had its beginnings in February 1945. “Today’s regime in Albania is a totalitarian regime and is not suitable for our country, for this reason. I think that Albania would have been adapted to a regime in the form of Western democracy”, – declared Shefqet Beja in court, whom the communists hanged on a rope in the middle of Tirana.
Sheh Karbunara, a cultured patriot and cleric, signer of Independence, organizer and delegate in the Lushnja Congress, supporter of the Anti-Fascist War and opposition MP, was shot together with his son, Hysen, and his family was persecuted. The prominent intellectual, scientist and MP Selaudin Toto, founder of the Institute of Sciences in Albania, translator of Ed Durham, was also executed.
The class struggle knew great growth and success. The state machine worked with blood. Enemies, Anglo-American agents, saboteurs were invented. The engineers Abdyl Sharra and Kujtim Beqiri, from prominent families of Vlora, were hanged on the rope, as well as the well-known engineers, Sulo Klosi and Riza Alizoti, from families with a lot of history and contribution to Albania.
Those remnants of prominent families that survived the genocide of the first post-war years were annihilated throughout the period of socialism. The climax of this holocaust is the massacre under the pretext of a bomb in the Soviet embassy. They were shot without trial and without guilt, intellectuals who had nothing to do with this incident, such as; Sabiha Kasimati, one of the most prominent women of Albania, the first Albanian scientist, Pjerin Guraziu, Jonuz Kaceli, (who was killed in the investigation), Zyhdi Herri, Manush Peshkepia, Reiz Selfo and Tefik Shehu from Gjakova, Anton Delhysa from Prizren, Mehmet Shkupi, Gafur and Myftar Jegeni and Haki Kodra from Dibra e Madhe, and others and were buried at midnight tied with barbed wire, in a common pit near Ura e Beshir.
I’m going to dwell a bit on the Jegeni family, which made contributions during the time of the Albanian League of Prizren, in the assemblies of Dibra and in the fight for the protection of Albanian lands, with Shaqir beg Jegeni, Tefik beg Jegeni and Riza beg Jegeni. From this family, two prominent figures later emerged, Gafur and Myftar Jegeni, academics with studies completed in Italy, soldiers of the national army, who fought on April 7, 1939 against the fascist occupation, Gafurri in Vlorë and Myftari in Durrës with Abaz The cup. After the war, they withdrew into private life, because they did not want to serve the communist regime.
They arrested both of them and shot them without trial in 1951, together with 22 other intellectuals and their families exiled them for 40 years. The absurdity of the communist persecution was that, apart from their families, all the other families of the Jegeni tribe were also interned, thanks to the zeal of their son-in-law, Haxhi Lleshi. In 1976, the President of the Republic, Haxhi Lleshi, exiled his wife, Haxhire Lleshi (Jegeni) after 40 years of marriage, along with his son Rushit, as well as his wife’s brothers and cousins, to the remote village of Mollas in Elbasan. , thus giving the typical Stalinist example, how the class war should have been done in Albania!
They took away their lives and dignity from large families, but also illegally confiscated and nationalized their properties, even the villas and houses where the red pashalars settled. It was a shameful and shameful page, suffering and humiliation in communist prisons, it is enough to remember Burrell, where the most prominent men of the nation ended tragically; Spaçin, where the biggest revolt of political prisoners broke out, from which the four martyrs were shot: Pal Zefi, Dervish Bejko, Hajri Pashaj and Skënder Daja, from well-known families, and hundreds of others were sentenced; Vloçishti (let’s remember the bloody self-sacrifice of Colonel Sulejman Vuçiterna and the walling of the helpless on the embankment of the prisoners’ canal), the Tepelena camp (I can’t get rid of the patched shirt of Genc, the son of Muharrem Bajraktari).
We were in a class in Tepelena, he used to come to school in the height of winter barefoot, with garter belts and only a shirt with all patches on the waist, sewn with his mother’s hair) and other prisons, where torture was applied more illegal and where many people from large families lost their lives in slave labor, whose graves are not known even today. Sentences were reapplied in prisons; “for agitation and propaganda” (!), so that the convicts from these families would not come out alive. Xelal Koprencka, from the prominent Koprencka family of Skrapar, was sentenced five times and finally shot. About 12 types of inhuman torture were applied. Myzafer Pippa’s body was pierced with a red-hot iron, until the iron touched the bone, until he died, while Drita Kosturi’s teeth and hair fell out from the use of electroshock and other monstrous crimes.
The monstrous class struggle particularly hit prominent families branded as reactionary. The class hatred towards them and their completely innocent generations, reached the proportions of “wolf fury”, as Mid’hat Frashëri says. Any relationship, even romantic, between young people of different class affiliations was punished. The most typical case, but also the most sensational, was the attitude towards Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu himself, when his son got engaged to a girl from the prominent Turdiu family. Not only was this relationship violently broken, but the prime minister paid for it by suicide or murder, while his wife was locked up in prison and died there from torture. A lesson for everyone else!
The children of large families were deprived of high schools, of offices, of art, even sports, of the regular army, except in work units. Remember those talented people from our class, who just shone in high schools, who for a gesture, for a word, or for a verse, even for nothing, were expelled from schools or, imprisoned, like; Bilal Xhaferri, Pjetër Arbnori, Visar Zhiti, Sherif Merdani, Maks Velo and hundreds of others, ending with the poets of Bërzeshte, Vilson Blloshmi and Genc Lekë, who were shot for some lyrical verses in the 70s, as well as the teacher and the exiled poet Avzi Nelaj, who was hanged on a rope by the dictatorship with the signature of Ramiz Ali in the days when she was dying. He wasn’t satisfied with that, he buried him vertically in a deep hole and stuck a high-voltage concrete pillar on top of the corpse, so that not even a mole could be found!
The communist regime also employed pseudoscience, as in all the countries of the Evil Empire. The role of heredity, genes, and tradition was denied, the subject of genetics was removed from schools, and noble families and their heirs were beaten to death, to pave the way for the caste of subjugated people, the ignorant and ignorant. Instead of natural evolution, violent revolution arose in the cult, instead of reason, the guillotine arose, instead of citizenship, blind obedience was established.
Dr. Mentor Petrela, one of the scions of prominent families in Tirana, told me that an American scientist, studying the DNA of the Tsar of Russia, executed by the Bolsheviks, concluded that today’s Russian would need about 150 years, to reach the level of Czar’s DNA. The blow and polishing that was done to the brain of our nation by communism, as well as the unnatural interruption of half a century of genes, brought an incalculable damage to the Albanian being and life, not only at that time, but also today. This is best proven by the painful and traumatic transition of these years of democracy, where non-noble and non-citizen mentality, idolatry and false idols, which came from nothing, have dominated.
The reason is that communism destroyed the system of moral and civic values, elaborated over the centuries, and a system of values, on which today’s life and civilization functions, has not been established. We are in an existential crisis of values, which the individual and our society need, to be cohesive, healthy and balanced internally and integrated externally. The system of human values, orients and enriches individual and social life, helps the Albanian man to become noble and citizen and protects society from today’s moral and spiritual destruction.
Because we are heading towards a moral desert, where arbitrariness, moral depravity, abuse of power, illegal profiteering and Rasputinism are dominating. The moral deformation of today’s Albanian life comes from the attack and abandonment of the traditional system of human values, but also from today’s lack of effort to gradually make possible a common system of values related to humanity, identity Albanian, mutual respect, solidarity, tolerance, altruism, moral ethics, cooperation, fair competition, correctness towards the rule of law, etc., such prominent properties of big personalities and families. Memorie.al
