By Maksim Rakipaj
Second part
Memorie.al / Maksim Rakipaj, originally from Përmet, whose family had helped and supported the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, after graduating from the Navy School in Vlora, in 1972 he was appointed an officer in the Merchant Navy, where he served with dedication until in 1977, on the “Durrësi” steamer, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in political prison, as part of a “group”, which also included his colleague, Aladin Kapo, the son of Hysni Kapo’s brother. Family biography was also the reason for his punishment. After the end of the war, two of his uncles were sentenced to political prison, his grandfather was declared a kulak and in 1976, his father was expelled from the party. Maksi began serving his sentence in the Ballsh camp and in 1979, he was transferred to the Spaçi camp and then to the Qafë Bari camp. He was released on September 12, 1984, benefiting from a reduced sentence, from an amnesty. After being unemployed for a long time, with many hardships, he got a job as a miner in the Mëzezi mine, he worked until 1991. After the 1991s, he started working in the administration of the Municipality of Durrës, he served until 1997 and after that, he returned to the Merchant Navy (the last captain of the transoceanic ship “Vlora”), until he left Albania for Italy, (illegally on a dinghy), where he currently lives for many years. Since the 90s, in addition to various jobs, Maksim Rakipaj has also devoted himself to writing, such as; poetry, prose, fiction or documentary, translations, etc., publishing several books, such as: ‘Prophet – Khalil Gibran’, (translation from English ‘Toena’ 2003), ’20 love poems and a song of sadness’, (translation from Spanish, ‘Toena’ 2003), ‘Alive after the shipwreck’, (published by ISKK, 2014), ‘Bukowski – poetry’, (translation from English, ‘ENEAS’, 2015), ‘Trilusa m’Tirône’, ( translation from Italian, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘Anthology of Arabic-Persian Poetry’ (English translations, ‘UEGEN’, 2015), ‘The Complete Sonnets of Shakespeare’, (English translation, ‘ADA’ 2016′) , ‘Survivor’ (autobiographical novel, ‘2 East, 2 West’ 2018), ‘Nobelists – poetic anthology, (UEGEN 2019), ‘Hymn of happiness’ (‘JOZEF’ 2023), etc. From the creativity of Mr. Rakipaj, Memorie.al is publishing the book “Survivor”, (published in 2022 by “JOZEF” Publishing House in Durrës, directed by Mr. Aurel Kaçulini), where he has described his life chronologically, where the part the main one is that of serving the sentence in camps and prisons, as well as various characters, his co-sufferers that he met in the communist hell, etc.
Continues from last issue
SURVIVOR
CHAPTER I
Before the arrest
Rakipajt, from Mokrica e Përmet
My origin is from Përmeti, Mokrica. Today, only the house remains in Mokrica, a beautiful, three-story building with a large courtyard in front, surrounded by a high wall erected by Rakipaj’s great-grandfathers. About the great-grandfather, Samiti, they confess that he was a wise man, his word had weight, but he was also known as a brave man, ornery, he was always armed, with ax and dagger, tucked in his belt, wherever he went. “These turn the face white” and he put his hand in his belt to the weapons.
He had made a name for himself as brave, Samit Rakipaj, It was not easy to have him as an enemy, because he was not blinded by anyone. It happened that one of his nieces got married in the villages of Tepelena… Samiti was not happy with that, “they don’t treat women well from that area”, he said. After a couple of weeks, he saddled his horse to Tepelena: “I’m going to see how they keep my girl…”! Affinity welcomed him with respect, “Oh, welcome Samit Bey, you honored us by stepping on our door…”!
– “Thank you, my friends, you are bringing me the maid to see and ask her how she is doing here, don’t have any problems, don’t need any pets…”!
– “You have the maid for beauty, hardworking, wise, you can’t hear her voice, it’s as if she has come, she is with the women up on the mountain, they are making wood for the winter”. When he saw his granddaughter loaded with wood, Samiti was confused:
– “What about you, why didn’t you call me a villain, because you needed a mule and not a bride?! How come, my niece, you are charged like a donkey! Servant, let’s go back home, these people don’t care”. And since then, brides from Mokrica were given only in the villages of Kolonje or Përmet.
Grandpa Sabriu was more laid back, a wise and peaceful man. His great-grandfather found a bride from Pagria. Sabriu had seven sons with him, all tall, most of them blond and blue-haired: Njaziu, Hysenin, Fejzon, Xhafer (my father), Sami, Enver, whom we called Neka, Gani, and a girl, Xheka, my unforgettable aunt. To close the old quarrels with the other rival family in the village, he gave the only daughter he had as a bride to them.
But even so, Sabriu was not so laid-back… those who remembered him, told about him that when the Greek Andarts came for reprisals in the villages of Përmet, during the First World War, he went at the head of a gang of his village loyalists in the village, counting the killed, the damage, then he went to Greece, even to Athens, to take revenge and he had made a habit of killing one more than them and leaving the words: “Greetings from Sabriu of Mokrica”!
Sabri’s sons started the war as ballistas and ended it as partisans; only Njaziu did not turn out to be a partisan, as he was a Zogist, he had attended military school in Modena (Italy) and went to his father’s side to support the family and Fejzua, who worked as a municipal secretary, in Tetovo. Nekja, Ganua and aunt were minors those years. After the war, my Sabri asked him: – “O Xhafer, what do them say to this king, who took the place of Ahmet Zogu”?!
“Enver they say,” replied my father. “Like our Nejja? God willing, be good and loving like Nejja.”
For the first two boys, things went wrong: In 1955-’56, Njaziu was sentenced to 17 years in political prison, Hysen was arrested and killed without trial, in Tirana prison, and Sabriu himself was declared a kulak. Nekja, who was growing up, remained the pillar of the house, was engaged to a girl from Malindi. After the grandpa kulak was announced, the word came from the affinity that they called the engagement broken…!
“What are you going to do, O Neke?” – asked Sabriu. “What am I going to do? Next week is the wedding date, according to the word given; there is no other man who will take Sade, but me”! And the next week, he went and brought Sade on a white horse…! When Nekja went to his father-in-law’s house, he received a bad reception: “From this house, there are no brides for the kulaks!”
“Ama and I, I don’t take anyone else but Neke”! Good Sade had burst out, which poured towards her lover. No one dared to move. The wedding took place in Mokrica, but the grudge of her tribe from Malindi was resolved only after the 90s. They never forgave their daughter, who married the son of the kulak and the brother of two “enemies of the party”!
Paternal grandmother
Grandmas…and who doesn’t love them?! But when we don’t have them, we remember them with pain; we remember how much they loved us, how much they did for us and how little we did for them. I don’t remember my grandparents because they died when I was born. Paternal grandmother, we used to say; mother, as it is said in Përmet, lived in Tirana, with the youngest of 8 children, my late uncle, Gani. There were seven sons and one daughter, not forgetting my aunt, who I could not find alive when I was released from prison. Even today, we remember the mother’s scowls when she teased her sons: “I tell my mother-in-law, don’t you see how beautiful these boys are… do you know how it turned out? Because they are beautiful, beautiful… You had maids, they kidnapped you, without even thinking, that they have you”!
My little uncle, Ganiu, lived in Tirana and after the death of his grandfather and the imprisonment of his two brothers; he took his mother to his house in Tirana. The mother was a laid-back lady; she spoke with a sweet voice, which she never raised. Even when he laughed, his eyes were laughing more. She told beautifully and humorously, stories from her sons, when they were small, with a kind of thin humor, almost English, but melting gas. Every time I went to Tirana, he was very happy when he met me. His soul ached for the boy, who was a political prisoner for 17 years in Burrel prison.
“You look like the raven Njazi, who burned my life”, he used to tell me when we were alone. For the eldest son, Hysen, everyone was careful not to talk to him. They had shot him in prison without trial, in ’56. “Why didn’t you take me, oh god, you took me the best of boys”, she said as if to herself, when someone carelessly put her cheek in his mouth. He called him “monk Hysen”, as they say in the villages of Përmet, when the dead are buried. I found it one day alone. It was 1970 and I was on winter break. I knocked on the door, nothing. I pushed it and saw that it was open. The mother was alone. Crying silently. “Come, mother’s son, come. Today I found out, raven, how they killed my son. God damn it!
Then, when my uncle came, I got to know the story. It was a game concocted by the State Security with its men, in the prison of Tirana. It was meant to simulate a mass prison break, to then legitimize terror across the country. There were also policemen who were part of the group created by the State Security, who plotted to escape from prison and then escape abroad. One of the policemen, who was part of that group, thought of taking Hysen as well, because he was very powerful.
Someone who was associated with him was told to convince Hysen to join the group of those working on the opening of the underground tunnel that would be used for escape. Hyseni, who probably suspected a trap, refused. “No, I don’t have to run away, because I have a little time left to be free. Good luck to you, but I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me anything. I don’t intend to talk to man, keep calm.” The policeman decided to eliminate him. Just before it got dark, he called her supposedly to talk and took her near the barbed wire. He gestured to the soldier, who was guarding that part of the wire fence, as he had learned before.
A long volley from the machine gun and Hyseni fell dead. Giving up his soul, he only said: “Why”?! The family in those years was told that; was killed while trying to escape from prison. Their grandfather had been declared a kulak; they had a brother in Burrel, so none of the Rakipaj brothers cared anymore about the fate of the deserted Hysen. In the early 1970s, someone who knew this story, after making sure that the mother was left alone at home, went and told her about Hysen’s last moments: “My soul can’t take it, my mother of Hysen. I found out that I have a bad disease. I have a little time left to live. I said to cleanse my soul. Hyseni appears to me at night in a dream…! ‘Why, he tells me, why’… but I didn’t kill him, I didn’t know that the policeman wanted to kill him, that’s how…”!
– “O evil mother you, for bothering me…! Poor me, I feel like my black boy was killed today. Here’s father Tomorr, you idiot…”!
In 1974, my other uncle, Njaziu, was released from Burrel prison, after completing 17 years. Njazi Rakipaj had been suffering from cancer in prison for years, but he was released only after serving his sentence. A total of 17 years in prison. The mother could not see him free. She had died two years ago, burning for her sons.
…Perhaps, during my investigation, my investigator was right when he said that I had strong family reasons to be an enemy of the APS and the “people’s” government…!
The other grandmother, from the mother
She was a special woman, I was her chosen grandson, we called her; ané…since I was a child, he used to caress me with the words: “father has your mother, brother has your mother”…I was the first son in my mother’s tribe, after 3 generations. Married to a well-known lawyer in Korça, Eshref Hysenàj, with a house in the center of Korçë, with many properties in Voskop, in the village of her father, Selim Lillollit, a former officer of the Turkish Empire… “I was a great lady “, said the other side, “I carried two bags of gold with me, a small one for expenses and a bigger one, just in case, then the war took place, these who are and shine on us came to power, I miss you, I see gold with eyes”!
When grandfather Eshrefi died, leaving him with four minor daughters, grandmother fled from Korça and returned to the house left to her by her father, Selim Efendi, in Voskop. They show that; when Voskop became a cooperative, the party’s envoys also called the grandmother; “take the rifle, friend Mejhide, you too, today the village has great joy…”! Aneja took the rifle and shot the land: “Damn the land, now that I killed it…today there is no joy for me, it is my land, which I bought with blood and gold from my father, no man stole it, like are you kidnapping me…”?! He escaped from imprisonment because he had minor daughters and thanks to acquaintances and friends.
The lonely grandmother dreamed of spending her old age with me… when she suddenly got the news about my arrest… within a day she came to our house, in Shkozet (Durrës), on the side from Voskopi…. –
“Don’t be upset about the boy, – he told my parents… – Shyqyr, here in Durrës, they told me that the head of the branch, they brought Lirim Pëllumbi, he loves me very much, I have the same as my mother, he says, how many times who sees me…! You know that when Lirim’s father was arrested, it was in 1946 or 1947 (he was accused of murdering Raqi Qirinxhiu and stealing the florins that Raqi kept as the quartermaster of a partisan brigade), my husband Eshrefi, went and he brought home his wife with all 4 of his children…during times of mourning, humanity was dying for bread, we kept them at home for several months, almost a year, with all the good things, like that. And Lirimi has no way of forgetting, let me tell her, to bring my son home…”!
…My father tried to change his mind: “stay away… don’t add to our troubles, because I know your head”… my mother hid his shoes so that he wouldn’t come out, but she didn’t have the strength to world, to keep it inside, there were many hopes for Lirim Pëllumbi…! He took a pair of shoes he found and ran straight to the Department of Internal Affairs….at the counter: – “Tell your chairman that his mother has arrived”… the policeman ran to the phone – fellow chairman, he has arrived …- Bring it up quickly…”!
They hugged… – “How do I like you, my mother Mejide, since I left your mother…”?!
– “Listen to me carefully, because I also have you as my son and I came to you, because I am running out of money… you took my son from me, in prison…”!
– “Wait a minute, my mother… you only have maids, let me tell you their names; the office, the shower, the Medihan… and…, don’t tell me the name of this one you came…”?!
– Maksim Rakipaj, they say, I have him as a son, brother, father… I have him, evil mother, put your hand on my heart, I really have Maksim, the son of a maid, I love him more than if I had born him myself, you m “I know the problems…”!
– “Aha… bad job… Maksim Rakipaj, eh?! Your son’s nephew means… what can I tell you, the deserter, for the ideals of the Party, I’m telling you, here I swear, this job is difficult, but I will try, so that they don’t shoot this Max of yours , it’s not that he stole a bike and come on…”!
– “What? What?! Don’t let them shoot him, mor gidi edepsez?! And what have I done, my son, for you to shoot me? Who did he kill, who did he steal…?! This Party didn’t kill him then, for mules with gold, who stole and killed Raqi Qirinxhi, or did you forget…?! Haram I saw the love and bread you ate from me…! But know, O Liberim Pëllumbi… know, that there is God! And I curse you with my soul today; – Oh God! my son came home and you died in prisons… you were soulless… and listen to me here, if my son’s salvation is up to you, I don’t want that salvation – kill him, because that’s the only thing you know how to do …”!
…Out of shock, the deserted side even forgot where the bus station was and walked all the way to Shkozet…!
– “Pupupupu, what did I do on a dark day… I killed the boy with my own hands…”?!
– “Did you really say all these things to Lirim?” – I asked him…!
– “Why do you say, I’m afraid?! The blackness of what I did to the boy, the worst point, the worst…”!
– “If you told him, well done – he said to her, – when Max finds out, he will be happy for you, you can be sure…”!
In all the prisons of the world, a strange mechanism is in operation in spreading the news, extremely efficient, sometimes even before something happens; the news reaches the front of the prison. Thus, among other things, came the news of the arrest of Lirim Pëllumbi, and the most beautiful place of suffering and punishment was determined – Spaçi!
It was late ’81 (maybe early ’82)…! Ever since I had learned about Lirim Pëllumbi’s incident, with my grandmother, I had attended his trial several times… being a prosecutor, judge and defense attorney myself – I did not find any extenuating circumstances – it had to be the man, with the best spirit filth in the world, one who sought to find macabre pleasure in trying to terrorize a poor old woman (whom she called “mother” and had once saved her life, as a family).
After the amnesty in November 1982 (Lirim Pëllumbi was expected to arrive in Spaç any day)…I was reduced to 2 and a half years from my sentence and in the first days of December, I was assigned to the first group to be transferred to Qafë-Bar (the camp of Qafë-Bar had been emptied of ordinary prisoners and would be filled with us). So bored, the unforgettable Sokol Sokoli finds me – “don’t be bored, man of the earth, it’s the same there, like here… then there, we will all come, because the news has come out that Spaçi, there are more close”!
– “No Sokol, I’m not bored because of this, but I have a problem…”, I told Lirim Pëllumbi’s conversation with her grandmother…!
– “Do you leave it up to me to end this conversation properly?”
…Sokol (one of those shot in the Qafë-Bari revolt), thank you, was as big as a bear and very powerful, with a pure and naiv soul, like a child…the Italians would call him il gigante buono…!
– “Hey Max, can you leave me a loan, did you leave it with the other friend?” Soon there is no time, the police are coming and half an hour you leave for Qafë-Bar! What do you say, should I take his soul myself – and he was showing me the calloused palms of his hands…”! I didn’t want to burden Sokol, he was sentenced to 25 years, they could shoot him…!
– “No, Sokol, you didn’t want to kill me, but I wanted him to suffer every day and little by little…”!
– “Come on, let’s do this work, this dog is in trouble and the hang’s swimming pool, it’s too late…”!
After a couple of months, Sokoli also comes to Qafë Bar…!
– “But you’re a man, I teased him, – is this how the friend’s order is carried out…”?!
– “Eh Max… We released the crow, I can’t tell Pllumi, he was taken to the ordinaries’ annex, in Spaç, he was not a political convict, but I have the trust…! Do you remember Mhill? We are a villager, and a little taller than me… you are an ordiner in Spaç… there are the wires, when I was going to the second shift, I shouted to him when I saw him: – Ooo Mhill!… – O-oja, give me back, you also told me about your trust. Mhilli asked me: – Did you kill me, didn’t you…? – No, I don’t mind, but every day there is a little… and Mhilli takes the bequest, better than me, because you told him, I have the bequest from a friend of mine…!
…. The New Year was approaching, it was December ’84, my mother ordered me to go to Korça and bring my grandmother to us, to celebrate together. I stayed in Korça for a couple of days and around December 20th, we had our tickets, got on the bus and as soon as we took a seat, my grandmother said: – “Stay here; I’ll meet that friend of mine, here… that one there”. And it came out. I also got off behind her, a little later, so that she wouldn’t realize that I was following her… she seemed a bit irritated…! I was greeted by an old woman dressed in black (she was Lirim Pellumbi’s mother), I was sitting a little far away, so that I could follow their conversation… after the first greetings, my grandmother asked her: – “Yes, Lirim, where is , How is it”?!
“Eh, the mother’s release, they put me in the womb, didn’t you hear about it”?!
– “No,” said my grandmother, “I had heard it, but I wanted to hear it from your mouth as well, so that it would taste better for me.” Do you remember when I came home and told you what you did to me, when I begged you to be easy with my son? Do you remember how you answered me? I hope they don’t shoot him, he said… do you remember that I told him that there is a god who hears, sees and puts everything into perspective? That’s how I prayed then… for my son’s place in prison, O Lirim, I prayed to God and there was God, really! Here is my son, let him be your mother”…and he turned to me, grabbed my neck, kissed my forehead and turned to her again: – “Here is my son, he is more handsome than he was before, my mother will marry him, my aunt will warm me, with a couple of sons and I will die happy… stay healthy, we are going to Durrës, to celebrate the new year…”!
Rarely had I seen a happier grandmother, maybe only on my wedding day, who never left the line without dancing… good, sweet one… your love kept me alive in those dark years, I still feel you like you were my guardian angel…! /Memorie.al
The next issue follows
