By Ahmet Bushati
Part thirty-three
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
HAZELNUT – My short-lived diary
One of those days, along with food, some large hazelnuts came from home, which gave me the idea to carve the initials of the names of the ten members of my family, plus an “S”, with the sports pants that were used at the time, into the bag of my pants, plus an “S”, so that, like them, it would remind me of Sime. The realization of the first letter for each name would consist of a series of small holes, carefully and patiently opened with the needle of the pants bag on the smooth surface of the hazelnut, which, with the passage of time and use, would take on a light brown color and a pure shine.
The eleven hazelnuts would be for me like eleven photographs, like eleven of my loves and weaknesses, which in the evening, I would notice by focusing separately on each of them them, and I would not let anyone out of my hands, so that I would not have to go through a complete imagination. I would remind the people of my house to gather in the evening inside that small room, like inside a box, where one window of which would look out over the courtyard during the day, while the other would look out over the Tarabosh Castle, a room where I too had nurtured and cherished some of the most beautiful dreams of life for several years.
I would imagine my father sitting on the stilts there in the corner of the room, always silent and thoughtful about the fate of the survival of the ten people in my house and in prison. I would remember the good grandmother who, together with her two daughters (our aunts), had been widowed and childless for many years – for whom, my sisters and I, would be the only joy of them. I would remember with special longing my mother, with her angelic tenderness in her gaze towards me, and also with longing and pain, my still immature, wise and diligent sisters, who would exchange only one head between them. And so I would remember Sima, with the lively expression of her beautiful face, with her sometimes impetuous gestures, with her intelligent and confidential gaze, which she would have directed at me so many times, and I would remember her especially with that nostalgic accent of her deep voice…!
Such emotional states, I had deliberately allowed myself at a time when I wanted to believe that the last tortures, as difficult and prolonged as they had been, had finally closed their chapter, and in the future, as the days passed, I would think of I also made a diary, that is, by means of symbols carved on hazelnuts, I would record the prisoners and the events that would be related to them. Thus, while on one side of the hazelnut I would carve the symbol, to remind me of the event that had happened, on the other side of it, the number of the prisoner’s cell, to which that event was related.
Thus, for example, to remember the death under torture of Muhamet Spahia, on one side of the hazelnut I would carve the figure of a boot, because Muhamet Spahia had boots on his feet, while on the other side of it, I would carve a 4, to remind me of the number that his cell had. Ultimately, I had recorded various events and impressions of the prison on over thirty hazelnuts. During the period of my terrible tortures, those hazelnuts with their history and precious memories for me, would were lost.
The painful death of Muhamet Spahi!
The April meals and the trains of the last few days had made the musty smell in my dungeon worse than before. Then the deep silence of the prison, with more dead people inside than alive, sometimes seemed like I was inside a catacomb, just as the guard, the only “living thing” I could see, sitting there like a zombie on the bench with an automatic rifle on his knee, also seemed like something superfluous and unnecessary.
So one day around mid-April, at a time when the prison was immersed in its saddest misery, the sound of footsteps of some people who suddenly and brutally entered the corridor made me immediately rush to the door, when I would have looked with pain at a man over fifty years old, who with his hands tied, was walking just in front of two policemen. I suddenly thought of the misery that must have covered his sad house on that occasion.
The despair that had taken possession of him was easily read on his face. The heavy blue arches under his eyes with a distracted look, as if they were telling me about the suffering that man must have endured that morning up there in the interrogation room. Even his red eyes must have spoken of the despair he was suffering seeing himself imprisoned, at a time when the house was demanding him as a husband and as a parent that he should be. His gait, too, supposedly restrained, in reality seemed strained and abnormal. It would not take me long to understand that the man above all else was suffering the difficult dilemma of being a parent and husband on the one hand, and an honorable citizen on the other, in whose favor, time would show, he had made the choice.
The day after his arrest, at a luncheon, a safërtasi holder with only two small brown bowls in it, rested near the door of the dungeon with no. 4 and I could read the name “Muhamet Spahia” on the cardboard label. Starting from one day back and continuing for several more, I would hear him in a pleading tone, addressing the policeman, saying: “Can you tell them to tell me that one of the safratas is enough for me, so that they can give me either the one with yogurt, or the other with olives, one, not both”? I truly understood that this good man and family man was seeking to make his last sacrifice on that occasion for the benefit of his already destitute and miserable family.
His appearance, which, so to speak, reflected a mountain of worries, the soft and sad look in his eyes, as well as his age, aroused in me special feelings of pity and compassion, making me feel spiritually connected to him even though we had never met. In the early morning of April 30, 1948, I saw Muhamet Spahina being taken upstairs to the interrogation room. The two-three hours that prisoners were usually held for an interrogation session had passed, and he had not returned even after another three or four hours. For every movement I heard in the corridor, I would constantly rush to the door, hoping that I would finally see him being returned.
Keeping him in torture for so many hours was impossible, given his age and physical weakness. Sometimes I wondered if they had released him. Only when the light in the corridor was fading from the darkness and the early twilight of the approaching evening, would I see Muhamet Spahina returning, exhausted and completely exhausted, held by Ismail Lulo’s arm, so that he would not fall from his legs that were being taken away as he walked. With a broken face and looking at the ground, he whispered with helpless anger every word that he could barely get out of his mouth, so that they would not understand him. As far as it seemed, he spoke with anger so that his interrogator could hear him, who, after torturing him there in his office, continued to follow him to the dungeon.
This investigator, Muhamet Spahia’s murderer, was a young man between twenty-five and thirty years old, somewhat swarthy in his face, with very black hair, eyes and eyebrows, who always wore gray and who had a deep voice with a pure Korçar timbre. Everything indicated that Muhamet Spahia had resisted the torture, while that investigator, leaning against the still unlocked door of Muhamet Spahia’s dungeon, continued to threaten him, not differently, but like a beast its more fragile prey. Muhamet Spahia, left on the cement there at the entrance to his dungeon, roared without stopping in a deep and hoarse voice from the helplessness and breathing that had become extremely reduced and difficult. Even though it was clear that the victim Muhamet Spahia was in the final agony of his life, the investigator, with an evil spirit, always continued to demand justice from him, so much so that before leaving, Muhamet Spahia, even though he had very little life left in his body, would address him with cruelty: “We are not finished with you yet, we will continue”, and when he turned once more to Ismail Lulo, in a stern tone, he would order him: “Pour water”.
But does a man as exhausted as Muhamet Spahia get wet, and moreover on the verge of death?! As per the investigator’s order, Muhamet Spahia was dressed and on his skeletal body, which was wrapped in only a shirt and long white pants, they threw two or three buckets of cold water, enough for him to die quickly and surely. Muhamet Spahia, for his part, gathered a handful of them and, unable to move, from a place somewhere near the door where they had been thrown from the beginning, abandoned and alone before his death, began to call out with a voice that would break the soul: “Allah, Allah”!, never to rest again, for about three hours before he died.
As the hours passed, the night came and became much cooler, and at one point a torrential rain began to fall, which would not stop until a few hours after midnight. When the guard had left the other side of the corridor, I, who had been overcome by a pain and revolt that I could barely contain for so many hours, called out to him: “Don’t worry, don’t worry”, and he, who surprisingly heard me so well, answered me with a sigh: “Yes, sir, but they wanted to get two of my bloody friends out of me who had entrusted me with everything, and I had no way of doing that job”!
So Muhamet Spahia was dying for a trust left to him by two of his friends and for a trust he had given them. His mournful refrain, “Allah, Allah”! With touching notes of lamentation and helplessness, sadly traversed the entire corridor and penetrated dungeon by dungeon, deep into the vulnerable soul of each prisoner. On rare occasions, his calls for more faith in God would alternate as if in a fit of rage, in a kind of protest, albeit a gentle and human one, which was summed up only in the words; “I won’t do it!”, “Didn’t they understand if he was talking about the investigator, or maybe even Ismail Lulo?! So, did the great austerity not exclude from its rule even the wise Muhamet Spahina, who on that occasion, no longer belonging to life and, before merging with death on the threshold, was emerging from it?
I don’t believe that any of the prisoners slept that night. His painful agony, which lasted for several hours, would end with a few weak gasps, like difficult exits of the soul that would always become weaker and rarer, so much so that towards the end they would sound like the faint cries of a child. Noticing this state of his, someone there must have once given the order to take him out of the dungeon, as if he were close to death, and very soon I would see the policeman who, until a little while ago, had Muhamet Spahia, who had been alive, in front of him like a rag, so much so that his arms and legs hung like a stork’s, like the remains that were from a body that no longer had life. He dropped it somewhere on the other side of the corridor and soon Muhamet Spahia was no longer heard from, which made me believe that his life had finally ended.
With this belief, I was somewhat relieved in my soul as if for a tormented friend, I said to myself: “Thank God he finally escaped”! and only then did I remember that my legs, from standing so long at the gate, had completely broken. At the time when citizen Muhamet Spahia was about to give up his life, beyond our prison yard, up there in the Sigurimi building, his employees, reckless and criminal, without knowing that they had murdered an innocent man that day, were celebrating with drinks and singing the May Day vigil. As if for fun, a few hours before dawn, some of them, like the executioners Fadil Kapisyzi, Dul Rrjolli, etc., would not go to their homes without visiting us one by one through the windows, as if we were species in a zoo.
They would pass by Muhamet Spahia’s corpse indifferently, while Xhemal Selimi, as one of the most ignorant in that prison who was falling behind them, would kick it, and mockingly add: “I also wanted a Turkish signature,” referring to one of those most insignificant formalities, as in this case the redundant signature would be, regardless of the loss of a human life in their Security, but nevertheless, once the victim Muhamet Spahia died, nothing would happen to him, not even the kick of a criminal like Xhemal Selimi, nor the torture of that investigator who had just killed him more painlessly than if he had been killing a chicken.
In the morning, Ismail Lulo, his face yellow, took the corpse in his hands and, having walked a short distance down the corridor, threw it into a cart that was waiting for him outside, at the entrance to the prison. Another policeman passed behind him with an old blanket in his hand, with which, apparently, they had covered him, and soon we would hear the creaking of the wooden and metal wheels of the cart that seemed to be moving away, swaying with the corpse of a man finished for life, so much so that even a grave there in the bed of the Kir River, would not require anyone’s trouble.
Such were the men of that time in general, wise as well as brave. Respectable and respected were the men of Shkodra and all of Albania, including our indivisible Kosovo, from where Muhamet Spahia, who had perhaps come as a refugee, was also respected. Communism demanded the trust of his two friends, but could not take it away, and his honor, but could not take it away again. Finally, it had his life in its hands, and it took it away cruelly.
The impression of winter and the pain of an unintentional murder!
Despite the darkness in my dungeon and the dampness on the cement slabs that had not yet been properly dried, I had understood and felt the arrival of spring outside for several days, and several times during the day or even at night, I would nostalgically remind my city of Shkodra of its wonderful spring with its lush greenery in the courtyards of houses and gardens, where year after year, the ever-present grass and flowers, in that season, give off a strong, sweet scent. I would also remind my Shkodra of the waters, sometimes “shallow” and sometimes deep, along with the majestic, waveless lake, which in springtime seemed to spread freshness everywhere.
And on that occasion I would also remember that “meal”, when after a joyful day spent by the “dreamy” lake of Shkodra, on the way to Shkodra, the sun in the west, we noticed with wonder how its calm surface in the color of rose, shone like a mirror far and wide, while from the west, the horizon behind it, somewhere above the mountains of Krajë and high above Rumi and beyond, the sky was ablaze in a bright red, making us, from all that was above, take with us a true feeling of happiness, and from within ourselves, we felt a longing to be near that lake of ours in the days to come.
Next, I would remind Shkodra of its “snowy” mountains, still covered in snow in places, convincing her once again, as if from afar, that there was no other place like Shkodra in spring. I would also remind Shkodra in spring of its evenings at meals, when even shy couples of lovers would walk the streets like ghosts seeking to hide inside the temple of darkness, and among other things, I would remind Shkodra of its joyful children, who, after a day of play, would part and greet each other with a; “good night”!
I would remember many things about Shkodra during that spring period, not forgetting my imaginations of the former apprentices, generally young ones, who, after a long day of work in various shops or workshops, where they had been hired for a small salary, would be heard in the streets and alleys returning home late at night, singing songs that we had heard when we were children, as the only sign of the night that they were in and how far away the night brought us, not forgetting how deserted and dark the streets were in those late hours, they would make us experience mixed feelings of wonder, sympathy and melancholy for them.
And of course, on that occasion, I would also remember my house in the spring: its large veranda bathed in the light of the sun against the morning sky; the garden too, with its newly-planted vines and a low, transparent mass of steam above them, drawn from within the damp, spring-scented soil on a sunny day; and I would remind my garden of its grassy bed under the mangroves, here and there sprinkled with white daisies, and the first violets along its hedge-covered walls.
Thus, even if the living lives of people were rotting and dissolving in the prison cells, spring somehow managed to penetrate inside them, and as if by chance, somewhere awakening hope, and somewhere, killing even worse their languid souls. On one of those evenings, while many fragments of memories were coming to my mind, quite suddenly and as if by surprise, a butterfly was brought into my cell, one of those small butterflies that don’t even have color and that in summer circle around the lights that are on inside houses. Thus this short-lived butterfly, apparently trapped behind the lights that the policeman had forgotten to turn off for me, was not coming out.
A thing like that, that a butterfly comes from outside, where life goes on, to be spoken to inside a prison cell by a prisoner separated from his agony, makes an impression on him, and he takes it as something that connects him with the life of the living. So, when I saw that butterfly that was brought into the prison cell, I immediately jumped to my feet, out of great desire to have it for a few moments in my “company”, with my hands clasped together, so as not to damage it, in haste, I folded it between my two palms, as if for an additional pain, which I had to suffer seriously later, without need.
Without having been a prisoner myself, you have no way of believing that such events, so insignificant and naive, can cause a prisoner real remorse, as for any other murder, even if committed unintentionally. The arrival of spring outside and the drowning of that butterfly, I had fixed, the first in an unwritten poem, but remembered for a short time, and then forgotten, remaining only engraved as a “sun with rays” on one side of a hazelnut, while the second, on its other side, with the image of a supposedly dead butterfly. With deep shock, I recognized my former childhood teacher after a few days. I experienced real shock, when for the first time, in a person I had seen several times with his hands tied and with torn pants, I would finally recognize my former childhood teacher Mr. Qazim Dervish! Memorie.al
