By Ali Buzra
Part Twenty-One
LIFE UNDER PRESSURE AND SUFFERING
ASSESSMENTS, COMMENTS, NARRATIVES
Memorie.al / At the request and wish of the author, Ali Buzra, as his first editor and reader, I will briefly share with you what I experienced in this encounter with this book, which is his second (after the book “Gizaveshi në vite”) and which naturally continues his writing style. The sincerity and frankness of the narrative, the simple and unmodified language, the accuracy and precision of the episodes, or the lack of a refining imagination, whether intentional or unused, I believe have served the author positively. He comes to the reader in his original form, inviting us to at least get to know unknown human fates and pains, whether by chance or not, leaving us to reflect as a starting point for raising awareness towards a catharsis so necessary for the Albanian conscience.
Bedri Kaza
Continued from the previous issue
After the routing of the Second Brigade forces, the partisans taken prisoner were disarmed and distributed among the villagers’ houses in Zgosht, given food, and then set free. From testimonies recently obtained from Ramadan Alla, 87 years old, from Zgoshti, it is said that Isaku put the disarmed partisans on a truck for Elbasan, since most of them were from Elbasan and its villages. This version is also testified to by Fatime Bajraktari (Biçaku), who learned it from her brother Isufi after the ’90s, a former participant in this battle. Isak Alla was not an educated man and it’s not that he had military knowledge of the laws of war, but he was a noble man, had a manly character, and as a result, he did not mistreat those who surrendered.
Above we mentioned the problem that it is often said that lootings were carried out by Ballists, etc. In fact, this may have happened on both sides, by partisans as well as by ‘Balli’, but it is necessary to mention a testimony of one of Isak’s soldiers, Nazif Alla, who was his cousin. He testified that when they went to Orenjë, Isaku placed him as a night guard and gave him strict orders to shoot anyone who might go out to loot the Orenjë villagers. “Even Kamberi, if he tries,” he told him, “you will stop him with a weapon.” This shows that Isak Alla personally was not for mistreating peasant families, even in areas known as supporters of the National Liberation Front.
In Kostenjë, his soldiers captured the dervish of the Martanesh Teqe, who was accompanying Baba Faja. Because dervishes did not marry, wore beards, and had some characteristics not preferred by other Muslim believers, one of his relatives mistreated the dervish, mocking him, while Isaku was not there. When Isaku came home, he not only stopped these actions but sent two people to accompany him to the village of Lunik. This is testified not only by Zgosht residents, but the case in question was personally told to me by an elderly woman, the wife of Selaudin Meta from Kostenja, who spoke in detail about the care Isak Alla had shown for the Martanesh dervish.
Many contemporaries who knew Isak recount that he was a prudent, brave, generous, and loyal man. At the end of 1944, before the partisan forces came to the village, Isaku gathered all the soldiers of his band, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Shpata tribe. He told them that the communists had won the war and that he himself would not surrender. He gave orders to two or three people to be careful, as the communists might pursue them, while he told his nephew Zylyf Shpata to leave the village for some time and return once the situation calmed down. Together with his brothers, Halil and Kamber, he joined Azis Biçaku, going into exile.
4.1 Isak Alla escapes, while communist terror violently acts upon the families
Initially, in December 1944, the partisans set fire to Isak Alla’s houses. Both their houses were burned: that of the men was a three-story tower, while the other, which was called the house of women and children, was two-story. They took over 300 head of small livestock, 16 cows, 2 horses, a mule, and 2 plow oxen. They took all the collected dairy products. Living witnesses have recounted that most of the small livestock were slaughtered, used as food for the partisans and their command during their stay in the village. Some of the witnesses, who were children at that time, ironically speak today that the Ballists were accused in the past of eating chickens, while we can testify today that the partisans ate lamb meat, which they robbed from the village families.
During the winter of 1944-45, the armed group stayed mainly in the outskirts of the village, in the forest and in caves. In the cave, they kept food and ammunition. Often at night they approached near the houses and took shelter in them. Despite the fierce terror from the state, the village families opened their doors and welcomed the fugitives, with whatever they had at home, both in Zgosht and in Letëm. Immediately after their houses were burned, Isaku and his brothers came secretly and bought the house of Ali Alla’s wife. The latter had only one married daughter and lived alone.
After buying her house, they sheltered there their mother, as well as the women and children left homeless. But this did not last long. The partisans burned this house too, throwing the family members out into the open sky, in the middle of winter. It was an unusual and merciless reaction of the newly formed so-called democratic and popular state, which now fought against the women, elderly, and children of families that opposed it. Afterwards, the family members took shelter in the village of Dorëz, with their cousin Shaban Alla.
Xheladin Alla also became a victim of persecution immediately after the war. He was the son of Avdi Alla, who was a brother of Selman, Isak’s father. During the war period, Xhel Alla was and remained loyal to his uncle’s son, Isaku, in various situations. It is said he was tall, about 1m 90cm, and was distinguished not only for his physical strength, but also for his unmatched bravery and loyalty. When Isaku and his brothers went into exile, he also asked Xhela to go with them. The latter, having small children and also considering the fact that, like his other cousins, he had been a simple soldier in the Ballist band, and thought there would be no reason to pursue him.
However, Xhela initially remained semi-illegal. After the burning of the Allaj houses, the partisans also surrounded his house and set it on fire, but it did not burn completely, as it shared a roof with his brother Tahir’s house, who had not been involved during the war. Meanwhile, Mustafë Shabani kept him as the village courier, and this influenced Xhela’s house to be saved from complete burning as well. The executions without trial, the commencement of house burning, and the pursuit of persons related to the Alla brothers made Xhela not trust the partisans. Under these conditions, he continued to stay in hiding.
One day in January 1945, while hiding in the oak forests near the stream of Funarës, he noticed that Partisan Pursuit Forces were controlling the territory near him. A woman from Zgoshti was passing by on the road, with a sack loaded for the mill. Thinking they wouldn’t stop the woman, he spoke to her and accompanied her towards the mill, to avoid being noticed, but the partisans stopped them. They asked him his name, and he did not lie. The unit commander took out the list where he kept the names of persons for arrest and saw that he was a wanted person. They arrested him immediately and sent him to Elbasan. They kept him for two months in investigation, under coercive measures, asking him to reveal the location of his cousins’ armed group.
But Xhela remained steadfast in the face of the most inhuman tortures. Unable to break him or put him in their service, they brought him to trial, where he was sentenced to 101 years in prison. His property was confiscated at home: they took 30 sheep, two plow oxen, dairy products, as well as some household furnishings, carpets, etc. The children and wife stayed in the hay hut, as part of the house was burned. His only son and eldest child was Ramadani, 13 years old, while the three daughters were minors. From Elbasan, they sent him to Burrel prison. About this, his son, Ramadan Alla, today painfully recounts the story of his father, with whom he could not live and enjoy life, because the communist regime took him away at the most suitable age to work and support the family.
Several times he went to Burrel prison to visit his father. They always made the journey on foot, sleeping outside, in good weather and bad. The last time they went was in 1949, together with his uncle. They spoke with him from behind the bars. “Don’t wait for me; because I’m not coming anymore,” he told them, “we stay day and night in water.” Uncle and nephew left with hearts as sad as can be, from the sufferings their closest relative was undergoing in the cruel prison of Burrel. After a week, they were notified by the Librazhd Branch of Internal Affairs that Xhela had died. Thus ended, at the age of 40, the life of Xheladin Alla from Zgoshti, who had committed no crime, no murder, but was sentenced to life imprisonment because he had been a Ballist, and because he refused to cooperate with the Sigurimi to capture his cousins, who remained in exile as opponents of the regime.
Like many other convicts of the dictatorial regime, Xheladin Alla today has no grave where his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren can visit. The communist prison denied the most elementary human right to relatives and family to bury the dead. Thanks to the dignified conduct of the leading men of the village of Zgosht, their family afterwards had no problems. His son, Ramadani, now 17 years old, bore the burden of the family. After a year, with a fellow villager, he went to Selitë, where the aqueduct was being built. He worked there for some time, and then started at the Timber Combine in Elbasan.
-“Despite not being persecuted,” he recounts, “we had fear, we felt saddened by what we might hear.” Ramadani was a lively worker. He had completed primary education in the village with excellent results. He worked until retirement at the sawmill facility in Steblevë as a manual laborer, but thanks to his intellectual abilities and correct conduct at work, he also performed the duties of invoice clerk and storekeeper there.
Throughout the years of his life, Ramadani lived with the sorrow of finding his father’s bones, buried who knows where by the dictatorship. After the overthrow of communism, he immediately began searching for traces of this tragic event. In 1991, he also asked for help from the Internal Affairs organs in Librazhd to mediate with the prison institution in Burrel. Despite his persistence, it was not possible to find witnesses or the place where his father was buried. Thus Ramadan Alla from the village of Zgosht is part of the thousands of heirs of former prisoners of the dictatorship, who miss the grave of their closest family member.
At the beginning of 1945, the partisans burned three more houses of the Allaj family. Meanwhile, Hamit Alla, son of Jonuz Alla, who was suspected of supplying the fugitives, was arrested. They sentenced him to two years in prison. After the burning of the houses, Nazif Alla’s family temporarily took shelter with Selim Brazhda in Dorëz, where the latter had a sister married to Hid Brazhda, and then with Bajram Brazhda, where he had taken his wife, while Jakup Alla’s family took shelter with Islam Shalja, where he had taken his first wife. After about a month, the families returned to the village and each built a hut for shelter. After 2-3 months, they burned even the huts, taking away what little goods and livestock they had left. They lived like this for a long time with difficulty and hardship, and only after ten years were they able, with great sacrifice, to build stone houses on the ruins of the burned houses.
Terror on the village of Zgosht did not cease during 1945. On March 14 of that year, precisely on Summer Day, the partisans set fire to the houses of Zylyf Shpata, Isak Alla’s nephew. Regarding this, Qerim Shpata, Zylyf’s son, today tells us about the event, which he learned from his parents. Zylyf Shpata’s family at that time consisted of three married couples. Zylyf had left and was working as a master craftsman somewhere in the highlands of Shkodra, with the Lilaj family of Zabzun. His brother Hysen was a livestock keeper and stayed with the sheep in lowland areas they rented every year. Latif, their first cousin, with whom they were inseparable, was summoned by the Partisan Command, apparently of the XVIII Brigade, which had its headquarters at the Qoshi houses, and they tortured him, forcing him to tell about the Alla brothers. He could not return home on his own feet. They beat him severely, crippling him, so relatives went to get him by horse, holding him by the arm all the way.
Qerim’s mother, the wife of Zylyf Shpata, described the horrifying event of March 1945, which she lived through with deep pain. “Latif,” she recounted, “was taken by the partisans and we didn’t know what they would do with him. Zylyf himself had left, while Hysen was with the livestock in the field. After the partisan brigade arrived, they first took about 100 young goats we had at home, as the sheep were at the summer pastures. As we were told later, a part of the young goats were slaughtered at the Qoshi houses, where the brigade and partisans stayed. They asked me to prepare dinner for the partisans who had come there. The women of the house put bread in the oven several times. The table was never cleared. One group would eat, and then others would sit down. We served curds, jam, and buttery mishavër. After they all ate, I began to sweep the crumbs from the table, as was usually done after eating.
The partisan commander told me: ‘Don’t sweep the crumbs, we’ll sweep them. Take the children outside, and bring me oak wood and straw, because the houses will be burned.’ ‘Where will you leave my children outside?’ she replied. ‘We have orders, the house will be burned, so do as I say,’ the commander now spoke harshly. And so, after they ate and drank their fill, they set fire to the houses, leaving us outside.” (Films from the dictatorship era about the war period are still shown today. It is not difficult to draw conclusions: despite all the patches made, they still show that the Ballists ate and drank in the villagers’ houses, but did not then set them on fire. And this act of ingratitude happened and was carried out on the orders of partisan commands.) After this violent and barbaric act, they went to Dorëz and that same night burned the houses of Sherif Hidri, who had a sister married to Selman Alla. After the burning of the houses, the Shpata family, consisting of 16-17 people, took shelter in Ismail Shpata’s house until 1949. In that year, Zylyf returned and together they built a two-story stone house on the ruins of the old house.
Under conditions of severe pressure and terror on the village of Zgosht, considering it a center of anti-communism, after the liberation of the country, many village men suspected of helping the Alla brothers, who were in hiding, were beaten and tortured, while in Zgosht several people were executed without trial.
In 1945, Xhel Qoshi and Shefqet Qoshi were executed without trial. Regarding this, Haki Qoshi, now 81 years old, has recounted that Shefqet Qoshi and his brother Ramadan Qoshi were both mobilized as partisans with the XV Brigade. Shefqet’s profession was military. For some time, he had been dressed as a gendarme. When he decided to go with the brigade, Isak Alla found out and told him not to go because communists are not to be trusted, but Shefqet, with the idea that he had been a simple gendarme and had not been involved in combat actions, decided to go. Together with his brother, they reached as far as Gjirokastër. There, he was summoned by the Brigade command and accused of intending to escape to Greece. There, in the presence of soldiers and his brother, Ramadani, they executed him without trial.
At the moment of the execution, those present have recounted that he met the bullet with his chest, expressing that; “I do not want communism”. In the brigade with them were also two or three other villagers from Zgosht, among them Veli Alla, a witness to the event. Shefqeti was only 27 years old, newly married, but communist tyranny knew no bounds or human reason. Xheladin Qoshi was a shepherd in the mountain with the livestock. He was Shefqet’s uncle. After torturing him in the cruelest manner, accusing him of maintaining contact with and helping the fugitives, they executed him without trial. His grave is still today in the Mountain of Zgosht. Despite the pressure, persecutions, and violence exerted on the village inhabitants, Zgosht protected, sheltered, and helped the group of fugitives.
The Chairman of the National Liberation Council in Zgosht was chosen to be Mustafë Shabani. Mustafa was a wise, prudent, and loyal man. During the war, he had not been involved, but his word was listened to. The elderly in Zgosht testify that Isaku, during the years of exile, had met and consulted with him several times. He knew better than anyone where the armed group was, but the state security never learned anything from him. Even Isak Alla, although in difficult and dangerous conditions, trusted Mustafë Shabani, the wise and loyal man of the village of Zgosht.
Being the chairman of the Council in the village under very difficult conditions, with the patience, loyalty, and intelligence that characterized him, he knew how to protect the village and the group of fugitives who were pursued step by step by the army and State Security forces. Thanks to the manly stance of Mustafë Shabani, Xhemal Alla, etc., (who were later in governance), the families of the village of Zgosht were no longer persecuted. With the exception of Isak Alla’s family which was interned, in Zgosht there were no other families classified and declared as rich peasants (kulaks), although all the men of the village of Zgosht during the war were members of his Ballist band. / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
