In 2019 I went to Albania for the first time to meet Edi Dingu, a friend
of mine who organized theater events. When I was there I asked him if heknew any women who had experienced something special during Enver
Hoxha's regime. Edi told me that Bajame Hoxha Çeliku was probably in
Tirana, who had lived in a labor camp for more than thirty years. After
the end of Enver Hoxha's regime, Bajame had asked for political asylum
in Belgium and had obtained it. We called her and were in luck: Bajame
was in Tirana visiting her sister. She would be available to meet us the
next day, before her departure for Brussels. When we saw each other she
hugged me, as if we had known each other forever. She told me that she
was born immediately after the end of the Second World War and that her
father, despite having been a partisan who had distinguished himself in
the fight against Nazi-fascism, had never been well regarded by the
communist regime of Enver Hoxha. He had some small properties in
Girocastro that the regime had confiscated from him immediately after
the end of the war. He was then immediately transferred with his entire
family to the border with former Yugoslavia for a job in the government
service. Relations between Tito and Enver Hoxha were very tense at that
time and there was a rift between the two leaders in 1948. One day
Bajame's father disappeared into thin air. His wife and children looked
for him on the border with former Yugoslavia. They spoke to local
farmers and the local police. Nothing, all trace of his father had been
lost. One night the police surrounded their house. Bajame, who was seven
years old, thought that those men in uniform were there to protect them.
Instead, they burst into the house at night, pulled them out of their
beds, and put them in a truck. They traveled for many hours and arrived
at a work camp. Under a huge tarp, in the cold and frost of that winter,
hundreds of people shared their sad fate. Bajame didn't even know why
she had ended up in a place like that. At the age of seven, she began
breaking stones and stopped doing it thirty years later, when she was
already married and had children. She lived her childhood and
adolescence in that camp without being able to read, write, or dream.
She began to compose poetry and to be passionate about foreign
languages. Some, in that camp, had traveled to Italy or France. Bajame
put together one word after another to give meaning to those sad,
meaningless days. "Do you know what the worst thing of all is?" she said
to me. "that even today, after more than fifty years, I don't know why
they killed my father and took me and my entire family to that terrible
labor camp." I didn't know what to answer her. "Since that day when
those soldiers took us from home, I have never stopped writing poetry. I
have published about twenty books. Now, in Brussels, I live off this."
After the meeting with Bajame Hoxha, Edi and I went to the House of
Leaves in Tirana. It was the museum of the regime's secret surveillance.
There I met Etleva Demollari, the director. She had lived in Italy and
spoke my language perfectly. She was immediately available for an
interview and took me to the place where the secret police interrogated
common and political prisoners. In another room there were bugs, placed
in every suspicious house. Thousands of citizens were monitored and
registered. In Henver Hoxha's Albania, there was not a leaf that did not
move without the consent of the supreme leader.
In the city center I met Nemir Basha, former director of the national
library of Tirana. He told me that the regime repressed up to the
seventh generation. It was enough for an uncle, a grandfather, a distant
relative not to be well regarded by the government, either because they
had lived abroad or because they did not toe the party line, and every
member of the family was denied access to university. It was enough for
someone to wear flared trousers, fashionable in the 70s in the West, and
the police were required to arrest and torture you as a suspected spy in
the service of imperialism. A girl could not wear makeup or sing a
Beatles song. The machine of repression was always there, keeping watch.
When I returned to Lecce I met Diana Doci, who told me the story of her
grandfather. He had gone to study economics in Istanbul and, when he
returned to Gjirokaster immediately after the war, the regime
confiscated his house. He lived there with his wife and six children and
was given a very small space, where two people could barely fit. As if
that were not enough, he was taken to prison and tortured. His
grandmother had to move to Tirana to be close to him. With many children
and the regime against them, they barely survived. In 1991, after the
dictator's death and the financial crisis, the only solution for them
was to leave their country and live in Italy. The journey was daring
and, once they arrived in our country, they were not welcomed as they
had hoped.
The regime did not only attack the working classes but, above all, the
intellectuals who opposed the will of Enver Hoxha, the maximum leader.
This was the case of Tuk Jacova, President of the Constituent Assembly,
former Minister of Finance, Minister of the Interior and twice former
Deputy Prime Minister. Tuk was arrested for suspected contacts with the
Catholic religion, and then died in prison, poisoned by the regime's
hitmen. His family fell into disgrace, his daughter Viosa not only could
not continue her studies, but was subjected to various electroshocks
that undermined her health and mental and moral integrity.
A similar fate befell the partisan Liri Berishova. Immediately after the
end of World War II, posters with her image were raised during the May
Day demonstrations to celebrate the victory of the communist regime that
had defeated Nazi-fascism. Then Liri married Nako Spiru who was not well
regarded by the regime. Nako was imprisoned and "made to commit suicide"
in prison. Liri could not even name him or request his body and had to
continue living her life as if Nako had never existed. To silence her,
they sent her to Moscow to represent the government but then the regime
cut ties with Breknev and Liri was accused of revisionism. When she
returned to Albania, she was sent into exile in isolated lands, in
places where she lived a survival life. Her daughter Drita, twenty years
old, became seriously ill and remained in hospital for several months.
Liri was not allowed to assist her during the last days of her life.
Drita died alone, in a freezing hospital in the center of Tirana. She
had a great talent for poetry and published the book "Light that flows
from the Abyss", with a preface by the famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.
I had the opportunity to meet and interview various members of the
family of Tuk Jacova and Liri Berishova who told me about the widespread
repression against all members of their family. In Palermo I spoke with
the Albanian writer Ismete Selmanaj Leba who has published various
books, including "Strange Virginity", "Children Never Have Guilt" and
"The Translator" in which she tells the story of her country. Torture,
prison, repression. Electroshocks, punitive rapes.
Marbjena Imeraj told me about financial pyramids and how she fled her
country. In Rome, with many difficulties, she managed to realize one of
her dreams: to become an actress. Aurela Anastasi is a law professor at
the University of Tirana. She has worked on various feminist projects,
including one in particular for the protection of women victims of
trafficking. Vjollca Mecaj was a judge in Enver Hoxha's government. She
is the only woman, among those interviewed, who had no problems with the
regime. Indeed, with all the contradictions of the case, she had to
apply the laws that had been created ad hoc to repress any type of
dissent. Her interview is very important because it makes us understand
how the regime, when it does not encounter obstacles, manifests
itself as a simple bureaucratic apparatus that protects its citizens.
The most touching interview is certainly the one conducted with Barje
Artan. Having entered a labor camp at a very young age because her
father and her entire family were opponents of the regime, Barje, rather
than bow to the will of fate, became a rebellious girl. She read,
studied and wrote poetry. She was considered a subversive to be
punished. She ended up in prison several times and for several years,
she underwent severe electroshocks even when she was pregnant with her
daughter. The regime made her life impossible by sending her from one
labor camp to another and, as if that were not enough, they kidnapped
her son and left her without a place to live. In Tirana I also met
Gjergj Shyti who told me about his cousin Gjnovefa Cakerri Qirko.
Gjnovefa was a scholar, she loved art and literature and taught children
to read and write. Her brother decided to leave Albania after the Second
World War because he did not accept the repressive regime of Enver Hoxha
and the government, unable to hit him, hit her. Men in uniform took her
from the school where she taught and forced her to break stones. Night
and day, in the heat, in the cold, in the harsh weather of the harsh
winters. A piece of bread to feed herself and off to work the next day.
I couldn't meet Gjnovefa personally but I managed to phone her. She was
very sick but had a delicate voice. ?I would like people not to forget
us, she told me. I will do my best, Gjenovefa. I promise you?
These are just some of the testimonies collected over the years, in my
travels between Italy and Albania. They were published by the
publishing house Sensibili alle foglie of Rome in a book entitled:
"Donne d'Albania. Voci dissidenti contro il regime". The introduction
was edited by Irene Strazzeri, professor of Sociology at the University
of Lecce. Speaking about the condition of women, Irene Strazzeri writes:
"Freedom of choice was completely absent in communist Albania. Not only
were abortion and homosexuality forbidden, but the old patriarchal
cultural patterns were entirely reabsorbed by the new socialist course.
Sexual freedom was not socially accepted, reproductive rights were not
recognized, and above all women continued to be the only ones
responsible for care work. A triple burden weighed on the female gender:
they had to work, participate in political and propaganda activities,
and take care of domestic work and child care exclusively. They were
undoubtedly the most exploited subjects".
My research is certainly not exhaustive of the complex political and
social reality of Albania. I have tried, through the stories of the
protagonists, to give voice to those who have never had a voice. The
women I have met and interviewed have resisted many forms of repression,
inside and outside society. Inside and outside the family.
Reading the book, one wonders what we would have done in their place.
Or in the place of those torturers at the service of that terrible
repressive machine.
Once the book is closed, one is left alone to dialogue with one's own
conscience and to honor the men and women who had the courage to oppose
a regime of which, even today, we know very little. But, the little we
know, is enough for us to take a position on what was the work of the
communist leader Enver Hoxha and his fanatical followers.
*Isabella Lorusso, author of the book "Donne contro", CSA Edizione.
Interview with anarchist women who lived through the Spanish civil war.
She graduated in Political Science from the University of Bologna.
She has lived in Spain and Peru teaching Italian in the country's
cultural institutes and universities.
She currently lives and works in the United Kingdom.
https://www.libreriasensibiliallefoglie.com/collana-ospiti/471-donne-d-albania.html
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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