By SIMON MIRAKAJ
Part fourteen
Camps under the shadow of Tomorri, 44 years of internment
– Memories –
Memorie.al / I put these memories down on paper after a long period of hesitation. This is probably because the subjects were always fresh in my mind, which followed me mercilessly during the years after the fall of communism. But there comes a moment – when time takes its course – and the images of horror and suffering came fading to me – almost the suffering passed into oblivion. Then I decided to repeat the most impressive events – first in my mind – until they took the form of these narratives. As dim as these accounts may seem – they create the idea of the harsh reality and misery of the camps.
Continues from last issue
Origin
The moment you start to reason, you also have questions about the world around us, about the missing justice or injustice. One question always remained constant. How is it possible, how can a child be called an enemy, this accompany him for 45 consecutive years?
We are originally from Iballja e Puka. In his writings, Father Paulin Margjokaj, in “Hylli i Drita”, says that Prel Memeti of Mirakajve, together with Frrok Bajraktar of Bugjon, also took part in the League of Prizren.
Our grandfather, Bibë Mirakaj, together with Frrok Bajraktar and Dom Gaspër Thaçi, raised the flag in the village of Qelëz in Puka, on December 8, 1912. While our uncle, Col. Bib Mirakaj and Pashuk Bibë Mirakaj, led the detachments against the Serbs, protecting the borders ours. In one of these battles, Col. Bibë Mirakaj was wounded in the leg.
A general, who in promoting the book about the squads that fought against the Serbs, says that; the Serbian army was many times bigger than the detachments led by Col. Biba and Pashuk Biba, but with their bravery and patriotism, they did not let the Serbian armies advance in Albania.
At the time of the fascist occupation, Col. Bib Mirakaj was the deputy minister of the interior and later, the minister of the interior in the government of Malik Bushati. The reason for the cooperation was the unification of the Albanian lands, which was realized. After the capitulation of Italy, they engaged in an uncompromising war against communism.
The father in the mountain led his squad, while the uncle, Pashuk Biba, was killed in the mountain together with his uncle’s son, Ndoc Mirakaj, who had returned from his studies in Italy, who was in his third year of engineering, to fight against communism.
We, the families of the three brothers, were exiled. Our internment begins in Berat in 1945, when I was two weeks old. For two days they left us on the river bank, guarded by armed soldiers, and then they took us into the abandoned houses.
With the break with Yugoslavia in 1949, we were sent to the infamous Tepelena camp, which was no different from the Nazi camps. For days, children died from hunger, from diseases, and in this camp, there were about 2500 internees, mostly women, old people and children.
The cemeteries were changed three times, and today their graves are lost. The camp yard was mined by the Italo-Greek war. Many died from these mines, in, after the death of Stalin, the Tepelene camp was closed.
We were sent to Lushnje, to the Savra camp. Life changed a little there, there was no hunger. The internees began to work, of course in heavy work. We started school, I finished primary school in Savër, while the seventh year in Lushnje. Before I turned 15, they told me: “You and your brother must appear at the appeal every day, in the morning and at dinner.”
After finishing the seventh grade, we continued high school, but always making the appeal in the morning and at dinner. In Savër, we stayed until February 1969. The class struggle had intensified.
In 1967, we were in Savër, but they isolated us and did not allow us to go out into the city, even though it was no more than four kilometers from the city, until in 1969, they sent us to Gjaze, a village further south, away from the city.
There they introduced us as; “very dangerous enemies”. When one of the people of the Party asked the operational chief of the State Security, Apostol Çepeli (who was covering the internees), what right do they have to move, he calmly answered that: “They have the right to move 700 hectares of land, if they cross it, give a bullet to the forehead”.
We were declared an open economic and political war. The brigadiers were ordered, so that we could be sent to the less paid and more difficult jobs. However, evil did not defeat us, we read and learned foreign languages even though we were very tired from hard work, we listened to music, and we listened to news from foreign stations, but very carefully, being very careful. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were freed. This happened on July 4, 1989.
As a family, we have 950 years of prison, exile, and several shootings. That’s why I asked the question, when I looked at these so-called people: “How is it possible for a person with a conscience to find satisfaction, seeing the other suffering without guilt”?! All the former political persecuted who came out of the camps and prisons did not take revenge, because they do not know revenge. This completes the statement; “Noble people”.
Everyone, according to the circumstances, tried to build his own life; of course he did not feel good, when he sees today that those who caused this tragedy are part of the high administration. In 1992, I enrolled in the Faculty of Law (of the State University of Tirana), without severance from work.
I had started working in the archive of the Ministry of Order. I graduated from the faculty in 1996 and later graduated from the Military Academy in 1998, because the Law courses were known, so I took some exams to get the Diploma of the Order Academy.
In 2002, I started working as the Director of the Institute of Former Political Persecutors, where I served until October 2013.
I have said it and I am repeating it, that; the former political persecuted have not received and will not receive what they have given, they have given people’s lives, they have lost their youth, their wealth, they have been destroyed physically and mentally. Life has no price. Lives lost never come back.
Idriz Seiti
I was going to “Taiwan” one day, to drink a coffee. It was a beautiful sunny winter day; I was looking to find a table in front of the fountain. I hear a voice calling me:
“O Mirak, come…”, – I turn my head, I look at an old man at the table, he was alone. I saw him, I didn’t know him, maybe I said to myself, he’s calling me because he doesn’t have any money, I’ll pay for the coffee.
I approached you.
“Sit down – he tells me in a commanding voice. – You don’t know me”?
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t know you…”!
– I am I.S., (Idriz Seiti was called), when he told me the name, which I had come across in the archive documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a former major officer of the former State Security, I wanted to get up, but I held it yourself.
“How did you inform me”? I asked him. “I saw you on TV”. – The waiter came and I ordered a coffee.
“Please how much are these”? – and I took out the money.
“I called you”! – said Idriz Seiti.
“Thank you, but I will pay for the coffee.”
“Okay, thank you.”
He was dressed no worse, he was in pain.
“I also imprisoned Mr. Mirakaj, that after the murder of Mehmet Shehu, I was arrested as a friend of his. I was sentenced to 10 years, I did it in Burrel”.
“You, sir, were not against the dictator, because you served him with great zeal, but he was against you.” – I tell him. “But can I ask a question, how come you didn’t become men once?! But Enver Hoxha put you against each other, (killing). You started with Zai Fundo, Mustafa Gjinish and others. We knew what would happen to the other Enver Hoxha”.
“You got it, Mr. Mirakaj, we were not men, but a bunch of criminals” and his lip trembled.
“I came across your name in documents, because I worked for several years, in the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. You held a high position in the former State Security; you were the Head of the Internal Department, etc.”
“Yes it is true”.
“You have a crime on your back. The crimes that you have committed, on innocent people, there is no sea that washes them away”.
“Yes, you are right, I also followed your father in the mountains, if we had caught him, we would have killed him.”
“Do you have an heir (child)”? I tell him.
“Eh, I had two sons, one was drowned, the other was driven mad, I saw a man with a black bag on his arm with books, and he is my son. – You, – he addressed me, – you are doing well, and you have suffered a lot”.
“I’m sorry; I’m answering you, because I behave well. I’m doing well, because I trusted God, you are in this state, because you trusted the devil”.
“I would like to stay with you, because you are a good man, because I know you well, as a family, but I’m leaving, because I don’t feel well. I was good; I’ll see you again, because I want to talk to you, because I know a lot of things”.
Rose. He could hardly drag his legs. I looked at him with regret. He had tied his pants with twine.
Another meeting was not possible, after a while, he passed away. Memorie.al
The next issue follows
