Memorie.al / “In this article we are publishing a letter of Mid’hat Frashëri written in exile, on December 1, 1946, a full year after the communists led by Enver Hoxha came to power in Albania. This letter from the head of the nationalist organization “Balli Kombëtar” was a call not to trust communism, which he calls “a cholera that destroys the human soul”. The letter in question breaks down his every view on the situation created after the Second World War, his concerns, the revolt, the sadness and the predictions about the new communist system that was being established in Albania. An opponent of the Communist Party, Mid’hat Frashëri was forced to leave Albania in November 1944 and settle in Italy, where it is believed that this letter was written, which we are publishing in full, according to its original.
THE LETTER OF MIT’HAT FRASHUR FROM ITALY, SENT TO ALL ALBANIANS EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD, ON THE DISASTER THAT ALBANIA WAS EXPERIENCING, UNDER THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT OF ENVER HOXHA
To my American friends
Dear friends,
It has been two years since we were forced to leave Albania and become refugees. Today, in the land of exile on the western side of the Adriatic, we are close to 750 Albanians, among whom there are also women, old men and women.
There are 800 more refugees in Greece, left from their homeland, barely saved from the massacres, despotism and terror that have covered Albania. These 1,500 refugees are from all over Albania: Konispoli, Central and Northern Albania, and a large number from Kosovo.
For two years, our first care has been to enter into correspondence with the friends and relatives we have in distant countries: Australia, Turkey, Egypt, the United States of America, but especially with the latter, where our colony is most big. I left Albania in smoke and flames.
Communism was preparing to celebrate its triumph in a communist way, that is, by slaughtering, shooting, drowning, killing and torturing, women, men, boys, maids, big and small and especially the innocent.
We wanted to draw the attention of our brothers, who are far from the Motherland and who had not had the opportunity to be informed and understand the truth. This did not seem a surprise to us, nor even an unbelievable thing, that at least three large radio stations, in the Albanian language, were in favor of the communists and made their propaganda.
But we had to hurry to save the opinion of the Albanians who were far from the Motherland: We had the duty to enlighten their minds and put ourselves at their service for any information they might need.
Those who remained in Albania, we could call them all miserable prisoners, with chains on their feet and ropes around their mouths. We needed, an hour ago, to save our colonies from slavery, if not material but moral. We appealed to the patriotic and human feelings of our distant friends.
We had all the hope of a great change in your colony, that you live in a free country, under a liberal government. You were far from tyranny, far from despotism and far from the Custodian dictatorship. In the United States, you had no Mehmet Shehu, no Enver Hoxha, no Tito. Then, we also remembered your patriotism of 1919 and 1920.
We remembered how long ago, all together, as one man, you stood up and fought for the independence of that Albania, for the borders of that Albania and for the honor of that Albania. Most of you, I know and you know me personally. We had, therefore, not only the duty to enter into correspondence with you, but also the right.
Hundreds of letters have been sent to you, not only from your friends like me, but also from your brothers, cousins, nephews and nieces. Some have not been answered. In any case, it was necessary to enlighten their opinion, so that they would still delay in learning and understanding the truth. And this truth every day became more tragic.
The crimes of the communists during the war were followed by other crimes, the executions without trial or, with street trials, with laws and without laws, kept multiplying. God only knows the number of those who drowned. Most of them were neither executed nor massacred in prisons, but killed and dismembered with knives, on the way.
Are there 16,000 or 26,000 prisoners today? How many of them are sick and ready to die? How many families are interned in Kruja, Berat and elsewhere…?!
Want to ask about reforms? I tell you. The most beautiful reform, in the creation of which the communists of Albania have confessed a true skill and intelligence, is fear: the mother and the father, to be afraid of the maid and of their son. The Albanian is afraid of his closest tribe, lest he report him to the police, according to the Russian system, G.P.U. and N.K.V.D.
The happiness of the people? A good happiness indeed! The democratic and popular government of Enver Hoxha has given a handful of soil to farmers, farmers and those who had nothing. But all the product of their sweat, itself in the government barn, and the poor farmer, peasant or proletarian, must come to the office every week, get a bite from the communist official.
From the very beginning of the communist regime, all goods, medicines, medical and surgical tools, everything that was found in Albania’s drugstores and warehouses, was sent to uncle Tito, and this as a reward for the service that Tito did by killing nearly 50,000 Kosovar Albanians.
Wool, hides, petrol and oil also went to Yugoslavia. Many of the items that the organization UNRRA gives go to Yugoslavia or are handed over to the loyalists of the communist regime.
Poors if they can and in the gech, let them eat nettles. Meat is no longer sold in Tirana, bought or sold. For clothes, clothing and underwear, fabric, fabrics and others, don’t say a word, because the shops that were full of loot are empty today. Even if there is a thirst to sell anything, it is given only to those who have received tickets from the government…!
This is the situation of Albania. This is the condition of the poor Albanians, who have the happiness of living under the shadow of the “democracy of Tirana”.
Unfortunately, the damages are not only material. For poor Albania, with no more than a million people, as if this world war and foreign invasion were not enough, as if the Italian-Greek war was not enough, which took place in the arboretum and caused a lot of destruction, people and houses, but this is where the red cholera of communism comes, that with the hand of the Albanian, slaughters the Albanian, brings a misery and a suffering that our country has never suffered until today.
With thousands of people who disappeared from the brutal hand of the communists, as well as with hundreds of millions of gold francs that were melted in the fire for the pleasure of the reds. I don’t know which of the friends we left in Albania will remain materially and morally unharmed? Which of the tribe members and relatives will have escaped the bloody hand?
If communism had not come, today Albania could be the calmest and least damaged country in Europe. On top of all these material sufferings, he also added the spiritual suffering of an entire people, whose hearth collapses, whose fire is extinguished, whose entire future is broken and an abyss opens in his life, mistrust from his servant, son, sister, mother, father, lover, tribe, neighbor, literal; overturning the moral and social equilibrium.
How will the poor man pick himself up after this disaster and when will he be able to start a normal life?! Don’t talk to me about the political services that the communists might have done, fighting the occupier. Their bravery was limited, with more Albanians burned and killed, with dozens of cities and several hundreds of villages destroyed, which would have been the guardians of the homeland.
Add to this the destruction of Tirana that was caused by the communists, at the same time the Germans were fleeing. Do you want to talk about the political effect of the installation of the Moscow regime in Albania?
The immediate topic of the politics of the communist gang in Tirana has been the breakdown of relations with the two Allied Powers, England and America. Both liberal Powers of the world are hostile to the “democratic” clan of Tirana, due to:
That the red agallars have put Albania in the hands of Russia and Serbia: Enver Hoxha and his gang prepared plans on how to make Albania a Serbian province, even then, they have the courage to say that; have fought for the freedom of Albania!
That the sejmen of Russia, nearly 6000 people (officers, clerks, professors, industrialists, organizers, military, but mainly spies and policemen of GPU) today are the real rulers of the Albanian land.
That the behavior of the Tirana authorities was hostile and uneducated, this brutality with insulting intent, had started against the Allies, since the end of 1945. But two more important actions still became the cause, that the whole world, that world who wants peace and justice, to feel anger and hatred against the government of Tirana and these are:
The rivers of Russia as far as Sazan and Saranda, I mean in the Ionian Sea and near the Eastern Mediterranean. The cannon shots of the English steamers of the war, from the coast of the Albanian sea.
From this misbehavior of the quisling government of Tirana (we say “quisling”, because it cannot be called Albanian, a gang that takes orders from abroad, and even more so from a country like Serbia, which has always confessed hostility against Albania), the Greek government has found a cause, a pretext, to formulate absurd claims against our country and its demands have awakened a favorable echo, next to one of the great states, whose vital interests are being harmed, when Albania brings Russia to the Mediterranean .
Now, my friends, I don’t want to tell you any more words. I am appealing to your conscience and your feelings. You don’t need my advice or my prayers. Our colonies have a tradition of patriotism and service to the Motherland. Your duty is told to you by your human feeling and your intelligence.
I am addressing this letter to those who know what parental love means to me, who feel the longing for the Motherland and who always keep alive the nostalgia of their distant hearth. Blood does not become water. Not even man can become a beast.
Communism, I have not the least doubt, that you yourself have understood, is a terrible disease like the rabidness of dogs and wolves, it is a cholera that destroys not only the body, but even more, the heart and soul of man . I’m sure none of you like these diseases.
Therefore, you also have a task, even more imperative: to join the anti-communist path, which has started not only in Albania, but also in America.
Do not forget that Albania is in a delicate moment. Remember your responsibility, before the story. Our colonies cannot remain indifferent, they are in free countries, they are far from the territory, far from the bloody threats of the Koçi Xoxe, and any indifference of theirs, when the homeland takes away moments of agony, takes the form of a hateful crime.
We are sure that you will fulfill your duty. You will build a wall against communism, with your will, with your heart and with your patriotism. With this conviction, I wish you health and good work. Memorie.al
Mid’hat Frashëri
In exile, on December 1, 1946.
