By Father Zef Pllumi
– Father Zef Plum’s book: “Live only to tell me”, tortures in the Church Prison, Shkodër-
Memorie.al / Father Zef Pllumi in his book “Live only for me show”, published by the Publishing House “55”, in the chapter “Brother Gjon Pantalia”, among others, he tells an episode of how he got to know him during his life in prison Drita Kosturin, ex-fiancée of “People’s Hero” Qemal Stafa. The events take place in 1947, in the premises of the Franciscan College in Shkodër, which was turned into a huge prison by the communists after they took power in 1944. In this paragraph, the torture of the communist criminals against political prisoners is skillfully described. Who at that time were mainly the intelligentsia, clergy, nationalists, etc.
FATHER GJON PANTALIA
With my irons they bind us both together. He brought a woolen mattress and blankets; he also had some small containers for food. We got settled, we were happy and we hugged. Brother John, here is the only Jesuit, who, when the ready was dispersed a year before their visitation, came and lived in our Franciscan Assembly. He was originally from Prizren, an only son, at the age of 20, he had left his job as a railway employee and his mother, heeded God’s call, and became a member of the Society “Jezu”. Now he was 64 years old, an average body connected him: his mind and will were even stronger.
Master of all trades, with a good cultural background in the humanitarian sciences. A very lively man, with high organizational qualities and rare skills for practical life. He had traveled to many European countries and was fluent in Latin, German, French, Italian, Turkish and Slavic. At that time Brother John was considered by the people; the main key of the Jesuits in Albania, regardless of the fact that he, as a brother, from the superiors, was only called shoemaker or tailor: he did the work, the honors were taken by others. Before I slept, they came and tied us together, even our legs, so we were tied leg by leg and hand by hand.
We suffered like that together, more or less, for four months, until the first days of May. The next day it was realized that the prison of the Church (alias the Franciscan Assembly) was full of prisoners: there were 68 large and small rooms. Downstairs there were similar halls, in each system they held at least 200-300 prisoners. For every morning, a bowl of water, a ration of corn bread 400 g was delivered to our door. And they gave the cigarette light (only once in 24 hours).
They took us out to the bathroom at 5 o’clock and at 5 o’clock, always with our hands tied. Those whose families brought them food and clothes, they gave them at 12-13. Complete silence was enforced, regardless of the fact that in the first days, the sweet voice of Gac Çuni was tolerated, but he and every other voice was silenced, even coughs and sneezes, which were often interpreted as signals. Two rooms upstairs, and two more below, near the library, where the editorial office of “Hylli i Dritës” used to be, were made available to the investigation.
Among them, the investigators with stun guns, electric current and all kinds of torture that they could think of, closed the processes or the lives of innocent people. The Franciscan Assembly, during the year 1947, was the center and peak of the communist terror: it was transferred there from the first headquarters, which was the house of Pjetër Çurçia (near the English Clock) and then, later, it moved to the Franciscan College, where the Branch of of Internal Affairs, continues to have even today.
I lived in the Church prison until January 18, 1948, that is, more than a year. This is a very difficult year. Today I cannot describe the days of that year, because I will go too long, but briefly, I will tell some episodes. One morning, during toilet service time, there inside the prison, a gunshot was heard. Many soldiers gathered. They spoke in high voices, regardless of the fact that one of them gave the order: “Don’t speak”!
“Don’t take the ghost”! As it was understood in the first explanations, it seemed that one of the jailers had run away, and he had left the leg and hand irons there, in the room. we started off very badly. That day I was left without going to the bathroom: a real torture. Within an hour, they came and checked the handcuffs we had on our hands and between our legs. They pulled them off us, with animal cruelty. After a few minutes, the doors began to creak. From every room, they began to hear the screams, tears and oil of the prisoners. The guard, with a merciless terror, threatened with howls, every sigh. Only in the late afternoon, they began to shoot us in the services personal.
Even now, I don’t know how it became known that Hilë Shllaku had escaped from prison. But for his escape, I pay directly, all the prisoners. Our hands were scarred by handcuffs. All those who were tied together could not move at all, because the handcuffs penetrated to the bones of the other, causing terrible pain. This situation became a permanent method, almost a regulation of the Church Prison. In the second half of February 1947, my fellow sufferer Fr. John Pantalin, they began to interrogate him. When it is said that you want, they told me, the tortures started.
Of course, we didn’t know each other, that are why they asked the investigator, not because of distrust, but because they were so cruel, that they even took the other one and the other one too, because your husband said to you, tortured him to death. After four sessions of self-care, one day he comes to the room, with a wound on his arm, under the elbow. That investigator had an iron rod stuck in his flesh. After two or three days, the fever and chills start. The wound was there, he roared with pain: he could not sleep, neither day nor night. The guard informed and brought a military nurse, who opened the wound and added a fuse.
We were holding hands, so that he was practically without hands, and I needed help, and I endured his pain. That military nurse was in charge for two days. The infection here was so bad, that I lost my mind: pus started coming out of the wound, like water. Meanwhile, the investigator added his own sessions. One day, you didn’t cut our bread or water. When we told the guard that he had forgotten us, he replied that he had the order from the investigator. After 48 hours, without bread and without water, Fratel began to suffer a lot, in addition to arm pains. I was calm.
God had given me a lot of patience, that old man hurt me, as if I had him as a father. Let’s pray to God together, to give us strength. After three days passed without food or drink, he said to me: – “Look Fra Zef, I am very sorry that you are also suffering because of me. Now I am clear that they will leave us like this for a day or two, if not more, after you die. Even when they drop us a hanger, they have olives or cheese, which are salty, but they won’t drop us water. Therefore, listen to me; accept me with hunger, because we will be thirsty. The pains of thirst are greater than those of hunger.”
When it was five days without food or drink, I started to have a rough sleep, while he was very worried. He often said to me: “Forgive me, to God, for this sleep, but I am in pain.” After five days, cut us a piece of corn bread, with olives and cheese together. The brother went and said: – “I won’t take them without giving me water”. – “We’ll call you later.” – “No. We don’t take them.” – “You speak for yourself, this other one takes them”. – “I don’t take them either, without bringing water.” “Patches are on their necks. I’m leaving food for them here, eat it at the dacha, and don’t eat it at the dacha”.
After some 2-3 hours, the guard came to Persia. We thought that the water would fall on us, but he just stopped when he saw me. The dish was where he had left it: untouched. – “Why don’t you eat”?! – “Put the water forward”. He closed the door and left. After an hour, noisy footsteps were heard again in the corridor: they stopped at our door. Three people entered. They had a salt pan. They climbed on top of us and raped us, filled our mouths with a handful of salt, then went back to their work. The deserts of our mouths, which did not have a mouthful, were washed away. In the morning, the skin of the mouth was torn. On the seventh day, I couldn’t get enough.
I felt like I was asleep, I had no pain at all, while Frateli was in pain, not only from the injured arm, but also from hunger. On the ninth day, give us bread and water: full broken with water. The brother died first, so much more, as soon as the plate fell on you, it hurt me a lot, although I look at it with a lot of anger, because you are afraid of me, because you are not leaving me a single point. My plate was too much and I quenched my thirst. When I started hangar, I felt like my teeth were loose. I ate slowly and when I finished the first bite with my fingers I tried: they were really played.
I said to Brother: – “See how my teeth loosen, not one, but all of them, they are easily removed from the flask”! – “Sailors’ disease has fallen on you”. -“Why do sailors’ teeth fall out”?! – “They don’t fall, but they get wet, or their flesh spoils, when they make long trips to the seas. – I don’t believe that anyone else will have it, except the prisoners”. How long this illness lasted, I can’t say for sure, but later my teeth, not only I couldn’t move, but they were so tight that when the time came to remove them, they wouldn’t come out, without even breaking my jaw a little. . After this wave of hunger torture passed, they started treating the brother again in his arm, because he was in a lot of pain.
One night, my sleep scares me. The brother was awakened by pain in his arm. He asked me: “Why did you get scared”?! I told them that I had forgotten Stalin. But it was not the Stalin of the photographs, but another, a young man, quite handsome and handsome, who called me to his office and took me to himself. At first, I was fine, and then I got scared, because last night I hit a thick stick, which was in the corner of the office, and I got scared and had trouble sleeping. While Frateli was thinking about it, he explained to me whether it would turn out well or not, because we could hear the sound of the guard’s feet walking down the long corridor.
It was about 1 o’clock after midnight. That noise was getting closer and closer and stopped at our door. As the lock was being opened, we pretended to be asleep. The guard came in, woke me up, untied my handcuffs and tied the brother, and put other handcuffs on me. You put money on me and we walked down the long corridor. He sent me to the investigator’s office. Go without! And that face of that Stalin, which I had seen in my dreams: Fadil Kapisyzi. – “I,” he told me, “I am Brother Gjon’s investigator, and since you are together in the same room, I thought I would simultaneously develop the process with you.”
– “I signed the process once”! “It was a mockery, not a serious process. The officer who took you was during the days of the transfer and he left. Even he left a note there, that the process is not finished, that new documents will appear. They also came out. I develop the process properly; you saw where I took Brother Gjon: he weighed 90 kg. now it weighs 60. I’ll do it. comes with 20 kg. I don’t know games, so talk.”
– “Lord, even the process I went through was not a game. I have even blacker hair than Frateli, there in the peach”. – “I know, I know well, Nesti were child’s play. You will let me know that among these hands, the spirit of those strong men has come out. Did you feel it? Speak”! – “I can’t talk, because even the ones I signed were too much.” – Too much huh? You don’t know, huh? I call you now. “But before me, you know me, you’re gone,” said Brother Gjoni. – “How come they told me”?! – “Yes, yes, why did he tell you?” – “For what? When we were out, I never spoke to him; we were not related by age: he was old, and I was young”.
– “No, take him out, go to the room right there,” he said? – He tells me that you beat him and tortured him. Why did they tell me otherwise”?! – “Leave them; tell me the secrets of the Jesuits that you have entrusted to you”. – “To me the secrets and trusts of the Jesuits”?! I am not a Jesuit, but a Franciscan”. – “I know them well: you are all the same. But speak or I took my soul here, like a bird. Speak”! – “Nobody has ever told me.” – “Speak, I took my soul”! – then he grabbed a thick stick in the corner of the room and, you’re done with me.
– “Amen, God,” I prayed, “but when will this curse end?” While he was beating me, I remembered a word. – “Listen, I told him.” – He stopped the stick. – “Do you think that Brother John is stupid”?! – “Stupid Brother John?! But who said this?! The brother was, indeed, the devil of the Jesuits. Only he knows all the affairs of the Jesuits. That’s what we’re here for. Talk about what they said to you”? – “But do you think that he hasn’t thought about this matter, that you can call me and ask me? He told me this”.
– “Did he say that”?! – “Yes, they told me”. – “Then tell me everything, what he told you, when he told you, what the others also told you”. Then he continued with that stick for another quarter of an hour and released me. – “For tonight,” he said, “that’s all you have.” Go to the room, think carefully, we will call again and start the your own process. Don’t tell the brother anything.” He left me. When I returned to the room, Frateli saw me and found me. I was tired of sleeping. The next day I told him that he had found me. He was not at all surprised. – “I really thought that they would call you, but I’m sorry, because it’s a shame for me and for the Jesuits. Let’s do the Way of the Cross together: Always among the persecutions against the Church, there are people for Christ, together with the Jesuits”.
No one ever called me for the Jesuits, while, after a while, Brother John and, often me too, were taken and tied by the feet and hands, in a corridor where the guard used to be; they let us in the camp, day and night, without food, without drink; they marked a point on the wall, where the nose would go, and without any movement of the body, after some time, they felt such great fatigue that they went crazy.
After 5-6 days or a week, they would return our room. Brother Gjoni hurt me in my soul: I had won for him not only respect, but a love like having a father. He also respected me, because I was a deacon. He often said to me: – “Brother Zef, don’t think that this plague will pass quickly.” You are young Catholic Clergy would go “usque ad unum” (to the end), only then, freedom will come. You will reach that day and you will show yourself, for the past and today. That’s how I believe.”
He left me several wills, almost secret, for the Jesuit House, but the long time made them all invalid: he did not foresee the total destruction that Communism would bring. When they returned him to the room, after all those tortures, he had lost his human appearance. It hurt my soul. We didn’t have any other when something, except 400 gr. corn bread, in 24 hours and a splash of water. I gave half of the 400 grams to him, because it was obvious that it was a lot of money. His fat body had turned into a skeleton. He used to tell me: – “Brother Zef, the old man eats a lot, if he doesn’t eat, he dies.” But the young man also needs a hangar, a lot, so don’t take it away from him!
– “I don’t take it away, but I don’t have an appetite, – he said, – corn bread is dry and moldy, I don’t like it”. In truth, I was always his, but apparently he needed more than me. Gac Çuni, a teacher, lived in the next room. He was an artist, a born singer, with a lazy voice like a nightingale. His room was so small that it didn’t fit two mattresses, so he was alone. We had a hole in the brick curtain that separated us, with the tails of wooden spoons. Bira could eat an olive grain. I’ve forgotten who played Gac, the little boy. For sure nana. Like Fratel, the family of the writer Zef Harapi belonged to him.
Nobody liked me. When we were alone, we used to talk to each other at night, daughter, you talked for many hours, with Gac. Before entering prison, he was a teacher in Bajze i Kastrati, beyond Koplik. He told me his semi-pastoral idylls, his lovers, his ideals and his sufferings. Freedom, it was far away. There was such a lazy and, oddly enough, born composer and poet. This entire terrible situation we were living in, all our dreams of hope and freedom, he had composed as music and words. Today, I don’t remember them, but throughout my life, they have been in my ears and in my heart. He sang softly against the dungeon wall, when the guard stood at the other end of the corridor.
I was no longer in prison at those moments. A brother had to escape. He was accused as if he had met him, and this contained a great crime, for the communists. He got to know Brother Gjoni and was interested in following his movements with his ears, when they took him to themselves. Later, Fratel was returned to the room, as if shot into oblivion. His arm also started to improve. One day I said to him: – “I’m sorry that I’m drinking, because in this country, it’s better to be with the wise, than with the wise: Go away, they ask you”?!
– “They are looking for, it is not: the secrets of the Jesuits. They don’t know what they want, they told me the Jesuits and the Jesuit Province. Finally, they ask me to release a statement that the Jesuits, like most Italians, were also fascists, that Father Cordignano and Father G. Valentini were friends of the Albanians. All this. “I,” he said, “do not accept that you released any statement to them, as if you were releasing the tip of your finger, to cut off their arm.”
They also started to clean the corridor and the bathrooms. As difficult and inconvenient as the work was, it was manageable and seemed like a privilege. I used to clean many rooms, where the prisoners were. In a dungeon without windows, Dr. Kol Prela, the deputy, who had come to the defense of Father Gjon Shllaku. Beautiful and precious. The first secretly: – “How does the job look like”? – “They will shoot me,” he said. I don’t foresee any change until five years from now, so maybe yes”
When I returned to the room and showed it to Brother, he told me: – “Kola as well as Paulin Pali, are the two most prepared people among us, for western politics, than the oriental one, which is based only on lies and infidelity. As for the five years he told you, you should understand that in politics, five years are twenty-five years, so trust me: before 25 years, we have no freedom”.
During this time, I met many people that I did not know; when we reported to the Brother, he explained to me who they were, that he knew them all. I had many opportunities to win their trust and, by chance, I had a relationship with the visitor or, with words: don’t accept, because I didn’t accept” or: “I accepted under torture, but you are a penny” , etc., etc., “that in court, I will not accept”. This was a very dangerous action for me, because in the smallest case, I would be subjected to incredible torture.
Thank God, it didn’t happen to me. One such case brought me to Father Paul’s room. When the guard opened the lock, a young girl came to the door and took my broom. I became very curious.
Secretly she said: – “Who are you”?! – “Drita Kosturi”. For me, it was a completely unknown person. Do you think it could be she, some provocateur spy, to bring out the secrets of the Pater Pal desert?! When I returned to my cell, where I was tied hand to hand and leg to leg, with Brother Gjon Pantaline, I immediately met with the room next door, where Gac Çuni was alone.
That hole in the wall was also our secret phone. He asked me about all the news or miseries that happened to me during the cleaning hours.
She asked hurriedly: “Do you know who Drita Kosturi is”?! He repeated my question, but with great surprise, he added: – “Why, they didn’t even put him in prison”?! – “You know him”?! – “No, no, I don’t know him, but we heard from him. They have the engaged of Qemal Stafa. How can she be in prison”?! “Perhaps it can be someone else, who has the same mother; here you can’t understand the church”! And really, the church was not taken care of, it was not even understood, why this source was also fueled by my fellow prisoner, Frater Gjoni, who could be considered, the man who collided with my life, the best announcer of characters and affairs of this earth to be confused.
After a few months, it happened that I was the neighbor, with the room where Pater Pali was. In this case, he was alone. Those secret holes, between the floor and the wall, lined with the tails of wooden spoons, were no more secret to us prisoners than we all knew. The signal that the speaker on the other side was not a policeman, or a provocateur, was the clash of handcuffs against boards. – “Father Paul, are you alone”? “Now yes”. – “Who was that Drita Kosturi”? – “An angel is sent by God, to comfort me”. – “Don’t you have doubts about it”?! – “Doubts? What doubts?! She is a girl, you know, a real idealist”!
– “She has the engaged of Qemal Stafa, a communist”! -“Communist maybe yes, but with that sincere ideal that characterizes the youth. Don’t judge people like that. He is an Amazon, who fights against every tyranny, therefore also against communist tyranny”. – “Then why did they bring it to you”?! And he told me how, during the torture of the investigation, he had no patience. It wasn’t just for him; they wanted him to take care of others. In a moment of expression, he lost his judgment, went into a crisis of insanity and jumped from the window.
He had lost consciousness and, after he had regained consciousness, he could not move: the disc had broken. That’s when they gave that girl, who had studied in Italy, to Medicine. She had served her, not as if Pater Pali was her father, but as if he were her child. – “I will never forget her sacrifices for me and I am ordering that; if the day of freedom ever comes, she should be considered as a friend of the Franciscan Order”.
Around the middle of April, I was taken away from Fratelli’s room and taken to a lonely corridor. To Fratel Gjoni, they send another one. Who is he?! God knows! But as it was said later, he was the brother of one of the local leaders of the communist government, maybe the prosecutor’s spy. Who knows?! The fact is that after a month, Brother John was buried in one of those rooms, which were connected to the Church, and was thrown down. The height is great and Frateli broke his legs. They took him to the Church and wrapped him in a blanket, again in the room, where he was. What a beating they did, even though they broke their legs. What screams did we hear?!
We prayed that God would help him and we, because we were very afraid. For a few months, I didn’t notice them; I didn’t even let them walk down the hall when it was bath time. I could never understand it. But towards the beginning of September, he felt his ghost again in a corridor where he leaned his nose in a circle they drew on the wall and left him like that on his leg for several days, tied up, not daring to make any movement. After a few days, I still don’t know what kind of torture they did to him, but his screams terrified all the prisoners. He died there in torture. Memorie.al
