From Luljeta Progni
– On the wall of the Military Academy in Modena in Italy, Pal Thani’s “Gold Medal” is displayed, but there is still no grave where his family members can mourn him and place flowers.-
Memorie.al / In November 1991, a delegation from the Italian Foreign Ministry was stationed at the “Dajti” hotel in Tirana. It was the time when Western countries were trying to support Albania, on the new road to democracy. Part of the Italian delegation was also a lady named Ksandra Tani (Thani). In addition to being part of the diplomatic mission, she had an assignment to perform in Albania. Her husband, Franco Tani (Thani), had given her a phone number with the Shkodra prefix and the name of Terezina Pali Zorba. Ksandra would call Terezina to make an appointment at the “Dajti” hotel, where the Italian delegation was stationed.
The visit to Albania, which had just emerged from the dictatorship, but more the meeting with Terezina, would mark the life of Ksandra, who anyway knew a little more than her fellow diplomats, about the past of communist Albania. Franko, her husband was an Albanian, the son of Major Pal Thani and his Xuljeta, the beautiful soprano from Modena.
At the height of the Second World War, when the bombings had started in Rome, Major Pal Thani and his Italian wife, Xhuljeta, left for Albania.Pal Thani, the boy from Shkodër who had excelled at the Military Academy of Modena, with the “Gold Medal”, because of his love for the Italian soprano, had decided to stay in Rome, but the war completely changed the fate of his life.
Juliet was pregnant and travel was not so easy in wartime. After a tiring journey, they arrived in Shkodër and settled in their apartment, with mother Katrina. After a few months, in the fall of 1942, the son, Franko, was born and life was going on quietly in Paul’s hometown. Within a short time, the communist dictatorship would be established in Albania, and Pali and his family did not even think of the tragic fate under the communist regime.
In 1945, the persecution of opponents of the communist regime began, and this list would undoubtedly include all intellectuals. This would include the two sons of the Thani family, Major Pal Thani and Colonel Mark Thani, both studied in Modena in Italy. Many of Shkodra’s intellectuals escaped or hid in the mountains, hoping that the situation would improve. Paul stayed in his apartment, hiding in the basement with his wife.
He stayed there because of his wife and infant son, considering that she was a foreign national and staying in isolation without her husband would be quite difficult. Their son Franko was only 3 years old. As the days passed, the persecution intensified and Pali was forced to leave the apartment, to hide somewhere in a mountain near Shkodra.
The daughter of Maria, Paul’s sister, Terezina, an excellent high school student, who had been involved in the Anti-Communist Movement, would become the main support for Paul and Julieta. Terezina’s connection with her uncles, and especially with Paul, was very important, because she had grown up in her uncles’ apartment and they had influenced her upbringing.
After Paul’s departure to the Mountain, Terezina would be the main support for the Italian woman, who was living the darkest days of her life, trapped in a basement, with the fear that they would come to arrest her and, not knowing the fate of her husband. But not many days would pass and the State Security would arrest Terezina, but also Julieta, to take her to prison together with 3-year-old Franco.
When Paul found out that his wife was in prison, he surrendered. After the surrender, State Security released his wife and son from prison, but did not release his granddaughter, Terezina, from prison. For about a year and a half, the Security officers used the harshest tortures on Paul’s body. Terezina would also be constantly under torture.
One of the most tragic moments of Terezina’s life would remain the day when the executioner Hilmi Seiti brought Paul to the window of Terezina’s cell and tortured him cruelly, killing all the prisoners. Terezina would confess many years later, that she would never forget her uncle’s screams of pain, when the executioner of the State Security mercilessly abused his body.
According to the witnesses of the time, Pal Thani died in torture. The State Security notified the family that Pal Thani had died of a heart attack, but they refused to hand over the body to the family. The tragedy had plagued Paul’s family and especially Juliet, who with a minor child, three years old, wandered the streets of Shkodra, looking for her husband’s body, or an explanation for his fate.
When she realized that it was a lost battle, Julieta was advised by Paul’s family to take her son Franco and head for Italy. It was not easy, because Xuljeta was allowed to return to her homeland, but her son would not be allowed, because Franko had Albanian citizenship. Pal’s family members found a clandestine opportunity, through a ship that left that fall of 1946, from Durrës, towards Italy.
Juljeta and her son, accompanied by Paul’s mother, Katrina and other relatives, stay a few days in a hotel in Durrës. There they had been able to secure a passage through some relatives and Julieta and her son entered the ship, always fearing that if they were discovered, the State Security would take their son.
As luck would have it, they were not discovered and Juljeta together with her son Franco managed to arrive safe and sound in Italy. She returned to her family. Franco grew up with the love of his grandparents, while Julieta spent her entire youth with the memory of the love that had that tragic end. In Juliet’s empty room; there was only the photo of Paulo (Pal Thani), where she woke up every day, with the permanent greeting: “Il mio Paulo…”!
There was always a candle in the room, where Juliet prayed for his soul. Within the spaces left by the regime, Juljeta corresponded with Terezina, Pal’s granddaughter, who had been released after a few years. They exchanged letters and postcards on holidays. Terezina kept in her precious archive, the photographs that Juljeta and Franko sent her. One of the photos is from 1960, when Franco was 18 years old. After the photograph, there is also a dedication to the cousin, Terezina.
Juliet passed away before the communist dictatorship was overthrown. While the son, Franko, maintained ties with Terezina and her family. Terezina Zorba visited Franco in Italy in 1992, while Franco never came to Albania. Apparently, he never wanted to see with his eyes that scene, where the tragedy of his parents’ love was played out.
The tragic end of Pal Thani is one of the 6,000 stories of Albanians who were unjustly killed by the communist regime and whose graves disappeared on purpose. On the wall of the Military Academy in Modena in Italy, Pal Thani’s “Gold Medal” is still displayed, but he never had a grave, where his family mourned him and placed a flower.
Note: The story is based on the testimony of Elena Zorba, Terezina Zorba’s daughter, who confessed the whole ordeal of suffering in the dictatorship to her daughters. Terezina Zorba is the wife of the famous Shkodran poet, Zef Zorba. Kujto.al is collaborating with the daughters of Terezina Zorba, to bring authentic testimonies and testimonies of the ordeal of two families, Zef Zorba and Terezina Pali Zorba, shootings and imprisonments, during the communist dictatorship. Memorie.al
