By Uran Kalakulla
Part Seventeen
Nazism and Communism
Memorie.al / Nazism lasted 12 years, while Stalinism lasted twice as long. In addition to many common characteristics, there are many differences between them. The hypocrisy and demagogy of Stalinism was of a more subtle nature, which was not based on a program that was openly barbaric, like Hitler’s, but on a socialist, progressive, scientific and popular ideology, in the eyes of the workers; an ideology that was like a convenient and comfortable curtain to lie to the working class, to lull the sharpness of intellectuals and rivals in the struggle for power.
One of the consequences of this peculiarity of Stalinism is that the entire Soviet people, its best, most capable, hardworking and honest representatives, suffered the most terrible blow. At least 10-15 million Soviets lost their lives in the torture chambers of the KGB, martyred or executed, as well as in the camps of the Gulag and others like them, camps where it was forbidden to correspond (in fact they were prototypes of the Nazi death camps); in the mines in the ice of Norilsk and Vorkuta, where people died from cold, from hunger, from crushing work in countless construction sites, in the exploitation of forests, in the opening of canals and during transportation in lead-lined wagons, or in the flooded barns of the death ships.
Continued from the previous issue
The Forgiveness of Life
It had already been 64 days since I had been shackled in the “death chamber”, just like Pjetri in his, waiting every night to be taken out to be shot, just like those cattle when they are taken to the slaughterhouse. It was Tuesday, October 13, 1962. Before dawn, around ten o’clock, I heard the footsteps of Captain Rustem, the crooked head of the Koç dungeons, stop in front of my door. Also, I began to hear the creaking of the door latch. I did not move at all from my place and, when the door opened, Rustem’s silhouette appeared in front of me.
– “Get up, they are looking for you”!
I still didn’t move. I looked the crooked captain up and down with disdain and turned my head away with contempt. As I said, this was the one who took us to the interrogation room. I was used to him and he didn’t make any impression on me anymore. And, surprisingly, I didn’t hold a grudge against him. He had been there for years. Who knows how many defendants he had escorted through the interrogation rooms, who knows how many people sentenced to death he had handed over to the firing squads? He was like those escorts of the dead to the cemetery, a kind of mythological “Charon”. Except he didn’t escort souls, but people who were still alive. And with such work, he kept himself and his family alive. This is how the life of one and a few others in his family was conditioned by the torture and violent death of a multitude of people, many times innocent, even in that completely innocent place, as political convicts that we were. What a beautiful profession that poor fellow had chosen, whose soul had certainly turned pitch black.
– “Get up, I told you”! – Captain Rustemi spoke again.
– “Where should I go”?
– “Walk, they’re looking for you”!
– “Who’s looking for me”?
– “There, your offices are there”, – he answered in that tone of his from a villager in the Tirana district, which I knew very well.
– “I’ve done business with them, there’s time”! – I answered him with annoyance and without playing the part.
– “Allah, Allah! Walk, damn it, because it’s for my good”, – Rustemi spoke again, almost as if praying.
Then I got up. A ray of hope seemed to light up my soul. Had a miracle happened, or was there some new trap? That’s what I thought in those moments, as I left the dungeon. I put on my boots and got ready to follow him, of course with the bars behind my back. But I saw the cigarettes in the bundle of my clothes and turned back. I told the captain that I wanted a handful of cigarettes and to put them in my trouser pocket. He obeyed and did as I told him.
Then I followed him through the long L-shaped corridor, which I already knew very well. And at that time, I didn’t even catch sight of a regular guard. Where had they been?! And why?
Was it as if they were leading me to death and that’s why Captain Rustem hadn’t objected to me about the cigarettes and had treated me so gently and patiently? Was it as if they were making an exception and had decided to shoot me in the middle of the day? Bah, that’s impossible! I had heard, I don’t know where or by whom, that the shootings were done after midnight. And they didn’t come one or two to take you, but a pack of executioners, who snatched you without much ceremony, like a pack of rabid wolves, a sheep from the flock. Then they would shut your mouth, so that not only could you not speak, even to say goodbye to your friends, but especially so that you wouldn’t be able to shout any slogans, as I had made up my mind to do. So where were they taking me?
I continued walking behind the captain, with a strange calm in my soul, even with a certain joy. Meanwhile, no one whispered in the long, almost endless series of dungeons. Not even Peter whispered, as if he weren’t there at all. He must, I thought, have been holding his breath to listen with his ear pressed against the door.
Finally, Rustem took me into a rather large office, where behind a desk I saw two people, a well-dressed man in civilian clothes and another next to him, also a civilian, whom I recognized immediately. It was the captain of the Qeros, who had taken us from the court to prison when we were sentenced and with whom I had spoken, after pushing me down the stairs, almost breaking my neck.
Usually, I had been greeted with a look of terror and threat at the investigator’s office. But this time, those two faces were smiling at me, as if with kindness. They invited me to sit in the usual chair in front of them, and he, who was the first to appear, with a somewhat handsome appearance, spoke to me gently, always with a smile on his face, as if he had known me for a long time and was a kind and friendly friend:
– “Hey, Uran, how did you do, are you a little upset?”
I was surprised by his behavior and question.
– “How did I get through it? The question is this? Like in the dungeon of death, tied up, how could I get through it”?
– “We know, we know, that’s how these things are. But don’t worry, I’ve come to inform you, in the name of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, that your life has been spared”!
I was left speechless in those moments and no more words came to my mouth. What was this? This suddenness, as if my tongue went numb and my mind seemed to freeze for a moment. I don’t know how my face could have turned pale or red. I believe that with the announcement of the death sentence I had turned red with anger, resentment, hatred, but now, with the announcement of the pardon of life, how should my face have turned pale or completely white? I don’t know!
It was clear that the two people charged with such powers were examining me with notice at that moment, because they no longer had that previous enthusiasm. Perhaps they did not want to miss any of the signs of my shock, like those doctors who do tests on a sick person, to see the effects of a special injection, which they do for the first time on their patient. But, finally, they, like me, gathered themselves and the eldest asked me, with the smile that had already returned to his face:
– “Well, do you have anything to say”?
– “Yes, I do”.
– “Come on, speak”!
– “I wanted to ask, did the Supreme Court leave the decision that the Military Court gave me in place”?
– “Yes, that’s right” – my interlocutor answered with difficulty.
– “The evil of the Supreme Court”! – I said ironically and continued: – “I still think that the decision was completely unfair to me and my friend, that we had not done anything to deserve such a severe sentence, the maximum, death”!
– “Okay, okay,” the interlocutor observed, “those things are over now, the end is what matters. Life forgives you. Do you have anything to say?”
I thought for a moment and said to myself: “What do these people want from me”? Then it seems that I found what they were looking for. They wanted me to thank “comrade Enver” and the “Party” and add that; “may they both live as long as the mountains”. But I had no intention of giving them this pleasure and I simply said, just this:
– “Thank goodness that my son did not remain an orphan, at such a young age”! I would like to add that it would have been lucky for my wife too, that she would not remain a widow, as young as she was then, but I felt ashamed and did not feel it anymore. Displeased, the captain and his elder brother twisted their lips and then the first said, addressing Rustem, who had called him to come in: “Listen Rustem, this man’s life has been spared. From now on, you will not put the irons on him. I will also put his sleeping clothes inside”!
And then he addressed me: – “Listen, for now you will stay where you are, until a place is found in the prison”. I did not feel it, as if the prison were a hotel with designated places, because, as I learned later, they crowded you into a room there, like sardines in a box, or like bullets in a shell. However, I did not feel it, because it occurred to me that they had not yet decided which prison to take me to and, on the other hand, in that dungeon, even though it was called, as always, the “death chamber”, I would be better off than before. I would have my own sleeping clothes; I would sleep comfortably, without irons behind my back; I would have those few foods and cigarettes inside, as well as the rubber band where I poured the thin water…!
But something occurred to me as I glanced around the room and noticed on one wall, a shelf full of books by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. And so I asked the first one if he could give me some of those books to pass the time. But he refused my request, as is the right of humanity, and I did not insist. I never learned the name of the captain of the scumbags, but I did learn that of the first one. His name was Rexho Hyseni, a Cham by origin, with the rank of major and the position of deputy head of the State Security investigation, that is, the deputy of the black general, Nevzat Haznedari.
Don’t be surprised by the rank of major for that position he held, because, both in the army and in the Security, as in the Soviets and the German Nazis, it was not the clothes that always indicated the position, but the trust they enjoyed in the party and the Security, its employees. Thus, a lieutenant of the Security had more power than an army colonel, just as an SS or Gestapo lieutenant had in the Nazi army. Don’t they say that pigs all have a mug?
When I got out of the dungeon, I didn’t really think about my neighbor and fellow prisoner, Pjetrin. But when I was returning, I felt a pain, a great pity for him. And the question stuck in my mind: will they call him too to announce the pardon of his life? God willing, yes! What if they don’t call him? Oh God, don’t let that happen! He is even better than me, an only son and he has an old and suffering mother, orphaned from a very young age, almost as much as I had left my son when I was imprisoned. He is no more guilty than I am, and probably even less. Then?!
Rustem put me in the dungeon, after I got my sleeping clothes. I was in front of the dungeon door, in the dirty corridor, which was an open space, where the rats from the neighboring toilet were roaming. And after that, he closed the door and left with that monotonous step of his, dragging his feet on the cement. In those moments, I felt a tightness in my chest. Why didn’t he stop in front of Pjetr’s door, open it too and take him like me? Could it be that tonight the firing squad will take him, to kill him? Oh God, oh God, oh God!
And despair and pain for him, took possession of my soul. And this pain, completely erased the joy of giving life to me. While Rustem was wandering around and had not left, my neighbor had not noticed, but as soon as he heard Rustem leave, he began to knock on the wall, as we usually did during all those long and endless days when we were bound with irons. But he knocked and, this time, I did not answer him. What could I say to him? Was there a more difficult answer in the world than mine?! Could I tell him that this time I had escaped the claws of death, and he had not? Could I utter such an answer to him?!
Despite the fact that I had enough hatred for him during the investigation and the trial, even if I had had him as an enemy, I would never feel, neither pleasure, nor indifference in such a case. I must have been very cruel, a real son of a bitch, if I felt such feelings and maintained such a mean attitude, when the other one next to me was about to set off, so young, in the prime of life, towards a death as cruel as it was unjust!
Pjeter continued, insistently, to knock on the wall. And I didn’t answer at all. What a mess! But, at a sign of time, I heard some footsteps approaching in the corridor. I recognized them immediately. It was Rustem coming towards us. Oh, how good! But the steps were slow, as if he could barely drag his feet, as if lazily, leisurely. And I began to get nervous, then cursed:
“Come on, come faster, you piece of shit, move your feet”! But at that moment, a bad thought flashed through my head: “What if Captain Rustem, didn’t come to Pjeter at all, but called some other defendant, to the investigator?” Oh God, what horror! It seems that Peter had also heard the footsteps, so he had stopped knocking. He had probably put his ear to the door and was listening. But this waiting, full of anxiety, finally passed because Rustem approached and stopped in front of the door next to mine. It was dungeon no. 9, Peter’s death chamber. He opened the door. Then he called. And I heard, this time with my ear pressed against the door, their footsteps as they left towards the long corridor.
A great relief seized my whole soul, as if at that moment someone had lifted a heavy burden from my back. I lay down on the mattress, rubbed my hands with pleasure and joy, and began to think about how terrible it would have been for me if they had not called Peter, but for the same job, as they did with me. How would I have been able to face that night, or one of the other nights that lay ahead, when, on one of them, that fatal friend of mine, the executioners would come to take him away, to slaughter him? Surely, I would have heard of such an event. We had already become accustomed to staying awake all night, without sleep in our eyes.
But my waiting, too, seemed to be taking a little too long. Why?! And here the evil thought began to gnaw at my soul: what if Peter had not been summoned to inform him, like me, of his pardon, but for some other business, the name of which I could not think of? I do not believe that I have ever passed another interval of time, so anxious, as the one I passed then. Another minute, it seemed to me, was an hour! When, at last, (I cannot say how much time had passed), I heard the approaching steps again.
Hey, thank goodness! And I continued to listen. My conscience almost killed me, that I had not answered his knocks earlier. Yes, what was I saying? That I had been pardoned? And he?… Were there moments more delicate, more difficult, more impossible to endure? Finally, they reached the door of dungeon No. 9. And, as in my case, the same action was performed. And when that door closed with my friend inside and Rustem left, then (almost at the same moment, but now with hands without bars), we started to hit the dividing wall, from both sides of it. No longer with the tips of our fingers, but with both palms: clap, clap, clap, with all the strength we had.
It was our anthem of victory, of returning to life, it was the hope of the future, the victory of life over death. Many may have read the book by the great Russian writer, Dostoevsky, when he describes his prison, especially when the executioners put him on the gallows, with the rope around his throat, and, in that state, they spared him his life. Dictators sometimes play such fatal “games”. Thank God, the Albanian communist dictator spared us such torture. Should we be grateful to him for this? Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
