French doctor tells unconventional things so far about Enver Hoxha

Yves Polyliquen, the doctor of dictator Hoxha, describes this man's strange attitude, as it was, with a common culture, with attitudes, sights and terrible failures that led him to his supposedly philanthropic goals for the country of the people he led. It also describes his closest loyal ones.

The following material has been cut off with cuts from the book “Mik and dictator”, of Yves Polliquen, a member of the French Academy, praised by the president of the French Repulika at the command “High Officer of the Honor Legion”:

On a plane to the company “Air France”, from Paris Airport to Belgrade, the famous surgeon of the French hospital “Broussais”, Yves Pouliquen, accompanied by the strange “diplomats, took the most special trip to Tirana, the capital of the most closed dictatorship in Europe. The mission: visiting Enver Hoxha, Albania's leader.

It all started in 1979. At the height of the Cold War, between two camps. Science and Medicine were the only ones who could make the exchange and intervention between eastern and western countries. The West offered communist countries elites a care and medical service.

Many were leaders who had benefited Western medical services to extend their life expectancy. On the other hand, the leaders of these countries could not move to Western hospitals. But his health had his requirements. This story happened 37 years ago.

The story of the French doctor, Yves Poliique, is not the only one, but the next. Other prominent doctors had visited the dictator. It's a genuine, impartial confession. According to the doctor himself <x0logics brought into the book I don't claim to be 100% accurate, but are loyal to those relationships and situations, the soul, and all my colleagues and people who accompanied me on my trip to Albania, as well as dialogues themselves with leader Enver Hoxha”.

While in Albania, he recognized the ferocity of the regime that this iron man held over that country, as well as the will of professional doctors, contacts with which they were very rare.

This story is also the portrait of the dictator of the world's smallest communist country, is the result of seeing a Westerner who had the chance to meet at a certain moment, the purest Stalinist of his generation, a man who seriously claimed to be making his country the most universal model on the planet.

Paris- Belgrade Tirana

On May 7, 1979, I was experiencing out of my desire an adventure I would never have imagined before. Almost like in a movie, with all the elements needed to create mystery, anxiety, doubt. They gave me the lead. That very day I stuttered my first replicas.

The crossing from Belgrade was necessary, because then there was no direct flight, as far as I know, Paris Tirana. This shift, as far as I realized, had been considered. They had wanted to avoid it, but the situation of the Leader was getting worse.

Taking into account my extreme concern for preparation, my former consultancy stages, I imagined that even my journey would be quick, secret. So I was surprised to see in the lobby of Orl's airport the ambassador standing on my side almost until I left off on the plane, without even realizing the purpose of this <x0vise” to the airport.

I was even more surprised when on the plane “Air France” placed me in a first - class location with the embassy attaché that accompanied me, although I would feel more comfortable in the common class, as I found it more appropriate, taking into consideration the principles of mysterious guests. Eventually, they wanted to treat me well, which confirmed the ambassador's very presence, as well as that of the attaché all the time to Belgrade.

It was a journey without history, apart from the fact that I had dedicated more importance to that detail in the lobby of Orley's airport.

We also met with Albania's ambassador to Belgrade: S.P. A beautiful, 47-year-old man, as he later told me, with a physics that looked like Michael Lonsdale (the famous actor of the '70s-80s). His beautiful face was enlightened by two bright brown eyes. His French was without blemish. He expressed great sympathy for our language and country.

The embassy he took me to was built in one of Belgrade's most beautiful malls. The hotel he lived in, he told me, once belonged to one of the former prime ministers of the pre-war Yugoslavia. After the ceremony was over, the ambassador told me that he had anticipated a meal in town. I'd like to add that this place's environment was way below what my guests would claim. From time to time, he spoke of a French writer or a mostly historical work that had helped Albania.

The table also discussed broken sticks that they had wanted to oppose and hinder us on our way to the approach. Without forgetting on the other hand, the profound difference that existed in our origins, our cultures, and most of all our commitments...

To find themselves at the airport as soon as possible, Ambassador S. He had expected to come to the hotel early in the morning. They were in perfect precision. It was a little rain. During the meeting, I remembered the troubled night, but it was all good, I told the ambassador.

There was a very nice time when the plane landed in Tirana on the floor of this country's only small airport. Government officials had come out to meet me, contrasting with the mission and the secrecy needed. It wasn't the time. Did they, everyone waiting for me, know the real purpose of my visit?

I doubted until I recorded my presence on the waiting committee, including two doctors I had met in Paris, Dr. K and Y. They knew the purpose of my coming. After a few words of welcome, they invited me to drink something on behalf of the French-Albanian friendship, which had allowed me to be next to them.

It was a long time ago to say that the glass of white wine they offered me and that I drank was not good for me, but it was worth a symbol, although it only made my headache worse and my confusing state.

“Statement” of Albanian capital

... A Mercedes official was taking me to the streets of Tirana. It was time to discover Albania. The car walked at a slow speed in the uncomfortable asphalt on the ovum of the artery connecting the airport to the capital.

The road was scratched by large trucks, which, as I was later told, were rather confidentially produced in China. To be honest, these trucks seemed more like being stuck on the side of the road, even though their drivers tried to make their way.

On either side of the road the grassy fields laughed at the sun and seemed to shine forth. The trees were filled with trees that had blossomed and decorated our way. High poplars also stretched to two sides of the road. I learned from those present that these poplars were of Canadian origin who, Hrushov, had advised leader Enver Hoxha to replace them with figs during his visit to Tirana.

One suggestion that even though I was with migraine, it seemed suspicious. As far as the trees allowed me to see a lot of “mushrooms<x1, concrete, slightly above the ground. I say a lot because in every corner they're almost at the same distance the same view appeared all the way. All that concrete, the cement used for those mushrooms, intrigued me, like everyone else, so I wondered how these people manage to farm?

It seemed natural to ask my friends about their nature. They told me these creatures were destined to shelter citizens and protect them in case of aggression against their country. My conversationators said nothing more, even quickly removed the word from the subject when I saw their silent appearance from this confidence.

I couldn't help but wonder how all the people suffered from paranoids such as their own leader. I knew that their neighbour Tito, recently there was a saint here. Reports with other neighbors were far from loving. Moreover, I suspected that all those measures to defend themselves were justified and that they would have any real efficiency in the event of an armed attack?

What I learned later was none but underlined the opposite. The decision to build these bankers had been born since the People's Republic of Albania. In 1950 the man I had met had ordered that they be built wherever possible, to cover the entire country. Their exact number?

Today, he is still unclear. About 500 of them all over the country. There's an account that each of them has a cost the size of a two-bedroom apartment. So there's one for every five inhabitants, in a diameter of 7-9 feet, at a time when the regime couldn't cover thousands of households. Those bunkers were said to have no efficiency and that they could serve nothing but lovers who made the right bond of love on their floor.

A calm used to control where the vehicle walked, a calm that weighed heavily on the heavy heat of the wagons and chariots with small horses walking on the streets, on which young villagers stood with their trousers in black jackets. These images were found from Turkey's time to the far corners of the Adriatic. Time had not improved them at all.

But this heavy place, decorated with the flowers in the fields, gave me a little boost to Norman's merchandise in my childhood, which had brought him a forced calm, which was broken only by the song of the birds and that of the villagers from time to time. It was an atmosphere like I used to find here.

Tirana, at last, seemed to me like a large asphalt cross, made up of two large promenades. Official buildings -- trade unions, preridium, university -- were erected on the two sides of the mall. At the center was the statue of Stalin, and I believe I even marked it in my notebook during the return. Men and women, dressed in white and black, fashion or obligation, revived walking at that lunch hour, like the rare riders who crossed the street in their official heavy black cars.

Their passage was greeted with fists (a gesture of respect, communist ritual, I was told) by police officers and many soldiers of the dressed people, a little early, springly. We separated from the common part of the city to join the residential section, filled with debt villas previously confiscated by power. Nice view, surrounded by beautiful gardens. Government people, ministers, and so on lived in these modern dwellings. A city forbidden to the people.

A quiet town with narrow roads controlled at every corner by fanatic soldiers day and night. At one of those villas, I was reserved to live during my stay in Tirana. I discovered this at the same time as my associates. As soon as I arrived, I was told to be ready soon. It was lunchtime, and we were going to lunch right after my accommodation.

The Minister of Health would lead the lunch, almost like dinner, at least from the dishes we were served. The other smiling guests, with their drink in their hand, kindly wished for my arrival and enjoyed that rich meal.

Among them, I found, to my delight, my former nurse, the S.S., who had been my assistant at the Dieu Hotel, nine years ago, and Professor Hoxha, with the same last name as the leader I had treated in Paris during his stay, with whom I had excellent reports. The situation was relatively delicate. All I wanted was rest, silence, diet.

The opposite was with the guests. They had carefully prepared my arrival, to this beautiful villa, which was available to me, with personnel introduced to me, including a cook and a room maid. The large beautiful villa had the appearance of a private building. It had been furnished in Ruhlmann style, and decorations date back to 1930. Vazot, the pictures, the statues, were the appearance of an amateur or simply a decorator. Nothing seemed to change since he was picked.

I even discovered family pictures that were stored in the comedy. She was probably taken from a bourgeois? To compose it, of course the ranks of the library were filled by the great prose of the Albanian leader. It contained 90 whole volumes of this large graformin, some 40 of which were translated into French.

I am telling you that I used only the rooms I had been assigned, the bedroom, where I hung my clothes, the big closet, and the marble bath, trying to imagine the fate of the one who built it for myself but who had to abandon it. I had to get ready for lunch...

I ran from the dining room. To my great surprise, when I thought they were already gone, they were back there, waiting for me, filled and satisfied with lunch. Nobody had run away, they couldn't leave me. They had a mission to fill my evening. And they were. I had to play my part.

I was taken to the great square, which I had spent during my arrival, to my large, reserved country, in front of a building that I thought was a cultural building.

The building was inhospitable, Soviet stylin, and it had taken its toll. I assisted a type of opera in which the lyrical songs of love were replaced by patriotic songs and where uniformed characters appeared in the background of a red flag, rifles, and hammers, willing to die for their homeland sooner than for love. Workers, peasant soldiers, made up the choir, as well as the folk dances in that hall that I was convinced that instead of pleasing me, it was tiring, even though its purpose was to educate the people.

I perceived their inspirations confused with those of these little people's defenders, like the Soviets in their heavy uniforms bearing the message that tomorrow's “sings”, to the Chinese with the effects of the flag, and that the fast boolers on the stage rolled in front of us. Despite the honor I received and expressed with gratitude, I was thinking with deep stress and regret about demonstrating this communist stereotype art...

Meeting with Enver Hoxha

I remember that the residence of leader Enver Hoxha was not far from the villa where my fellow citizens came and asked for me. I had had a great night, and I felt so good on that beautiful morning. I was immediately taken away. She, the residence, at first glance, seemed to be isolated from others. I recognized it from a simple gate opening in a front garden.

I was not surprised by the fact that the leader Enver Hoxha was there, with that exact military detail, in his first appearance, standing, in his first steps, with his arm stretched forward warmly, with a broad smile, all over my face, expressing his joy waiting for me. He showed me his gratitude that I had agreed to come to Tirana and that he also cared about my trip to Tirana.

All of this in French ecstasy, with emphasis, that was nice to me, so easily twists the r. I warmly thanked him and immediately expressed all my satisfaction.

After that welcome, he ordered me to follow him. I noticed his big body, his slightly heavy shift, and his impressive silhouette. He led me to a square room on which there was a platform, where there were two big coughs, his and his left, mine. He invited me to sit down.

In front of us, we were invited and placed, over several chairs placed on the side, other visiting people, 10 or 12 people, doctors, or government members waiting for us. I'm adding that witnesses of this meeting were not placed in a favourable position. Given the fact that their cartons were placed, they were not in front of us, and they were forced to make a painful roll of their head to see us. That seemed to make a lot of difference and attitude.

Enver Hoxha was speaking in French, one thing I thought not all in attendance knew and shared with us very hard. He recalled the causes of my call to Tirana, underlining the admiration he had for French medicine and renewed his thanks once again for this satisfaction of coming to Albania.

I gladly assured him, in support of his speech, and I was moved by the faith he had given me, and I also broadcast his respect for him and the professor who started me here, Paul Milliez. I remember that we didn't last any longer in this direction. What I mean is that I was impressed by all the moment when it came to medical assistance, the leader rejected it with a quick right-hand gesture, a gesture which all in attendance and others approved in a fear - inspiring way, apart from two ophthalmologists who stayed with me, but who shared some sort of fragile concern with others.

A brutal, meaningless gesture, some kind of “I've seen you with”, which meant, among other things, some kind of hatred that had been caused by repetition or custom. I was shocked and felt that no king, since I had known him, could so express himself in such a way. I also want to underline that I noticed the modesty of the circumstances that brought us together was special. We were filmed while the president was talking. After our shoulder, a camera placed on three legs, behind it an operator, filmed the meeting.

I didn't know until then that Enver Hoxha had the urge to record any kind of public event meeting. The film Robert Qafzezi and Mesut Tugan made for the renowned Arte station in 1997, on Enver Hoxha's Albania, had released terrible and highly pathetic private archive sequences. Who knows that our meeting is also evident in the pelicon that history, without evil, can forget?

As soon as the president showed that the official reception was over, that protocol, because several ministers were supposed to be present, it was to show why I was there - medical consultation.

A small screening salon was prepared and comfortable even equipped for that purpose. Then I had the opportunity to objectively do the elements of an examination that I had done in a distance until then. My illusions, of course, would be classified. I could, with the presence of Albanian otalologists, who had made preparations up to detail, make a very thorough observation that our patient expected with pleasure, patience and kindness.

This examination met one that I had encountered in my consultations in Paris with one of my common patients. No caricio, no rejection of my proposals and traces that left behind any medical examinations, which sometimes the social position of my patients taught me.

In a way, a normal attitude that allowed any fantasy that ever allowed the strongest was confusing me. Based firmly on all the information I had collected that was also available to me by my Albanian colleagues, I compiled my patient's conclusions, and assured him that he had chosen the disease and the consequences.

The latter would allow us to have additional interventions in a not too distant future. I found that it caught some kind of uncertainty in the fact that they took into consideration and it had to be reassured more to reduce effects by detailing the therapeutic actions I predicted.

Wherever the advantage of the program was being held, I gave him further assurance and security. I had the satisfaction of giving all the right elements, unlike what my colleagues served me in the basements of Bruce and being able to draw up my patient who had been entrusted with me, a verdict for the first time needed.

The core of my mission was fulfilled. The patient and I were conscious. He thanked me again with persistence. He begged me and acquitted me that he couldn't wait any longer, and he gave me a second conversation, the next day, where we would talk about his eyes. And, satisfied, he said that we would benefit better from getting to know him better. Following me, he told me that he had anticipated a afternoon tourist visit to Durres and Roman Durracimi for me.

Second Meeting With the dictator

He was convinced that we would be reunited this Friday afternoon to better complete the interview needed to leave in half two days ago and make “a deeper recognition”, as he suggested, following me that day. He waited alone, without witnesses. I found it in the office. A room of common size and appearance, with walls decorated with wood, like his entire office blocked by a window with a modest curtain opened.

Everything was fine, in her place, books in the library, files in the registers. The environment was that of a professor who lived in a cottage outside the city, and decorated with an amazing simplicity, that only an object or a piece of the armchair would give birth to some bad taste. A quick eye made me realize that I was in a shelter from a thinker's teacher. That's where I thought he wrote all those political pages.

Right next to his desk, he invited me to sit down. I had before me the absolute leader of the Albanians, what made a whole people tremble, what some of my fellow Christians believed was the true successor of the Communist faith, what others hated. He was there, in front of me, to submit to my examination, trusting me with some of his privacy, which I assumed was very jealous.

Who was I to him? Pardje, still, a stranger but recently thanks to my Albanian colleagues a man who had the keys to his future. True, that as they and I knew his secret, but by contrast with them, I was free, and that freedom gave me a very special role, so that I could keep him in possession and not let him get out of control. It was an advantage that I had not been advised but imagined, that it followed as much as the hesitation.

I had noticed that at their consultations and observations in the basements of Brusce in Paris. But it was a decision that had been made in full trust, and I felt it in the first few minutes of conversation, which was also the essence of all our relationships.

On such loving promises, I noticed that he stood before me with a simplicity that he had from nature. He wore a light gray suit, with correct cuts, nothing more and a dark tie.

He was grinding on his face, very young, though he had steeds of 71 years, a smiling milk, with a wide smile, with very fair teeth, between fleshy lips, eyes with thin, smiling eyebrows, which met and knew how to express kindness and joy. At least that's how I looked at it. It seemed to me right then, in those circumstances.

Moreover, I found this to be the impression that various people, such as when holding a workman's hand or carrying a baby, should give it in public presentations.

A white brush covered the wide cover that a white man gave even greater. He desperately wanted to embarrass me, with heat, which did not give him any harm, because the high expectations and medical examination of the previous two days, which had been healed with some intimate gestures or questions, had already erased any hesitation on his first encounter.

We quickly came to the conclusion of this examination without insisting at all. Our decisions were clearly explained, and besides some practical details, we did not go further. Another relationship took place: The doctor I was once replaced by an ordinary Frenchman. It was natural to compliment him on the language he spoke so easily.

He had learned it during his stay in France 40 years earlier. He told me that he had learned French in Montpeller in 1930, where he enrolled for studies thanks to a state scholarship. He had excellent memories from that time. Then he knew Paris, where he studied philosophy at the University of Sorbonne. It gave me the satisfaction of believing that he was a great amateur of French literature, quoting Shatobrian, Lamartin, Vinji, Verlen, Rembo, even Bodler and <x0->

She told me that French was like a second language, which she had practiced not only in France when she studied but also in Belgium, 1936, until the month she finally returned to Albania. He had been a French professor in Tirana and then in the Korca Lake. He remembered that time with great enthusiasm, and I saw in him much satisfaction remembering those impressions of youth and also speaking French, which did not often happen in Tirana.

He then quietly passed the fact that during his stay in France and Belgium, he had come into contact with Communist sympathies, from whom he had come completely obedient and with whom he had even cooperated with the quality of the journalist at “Humanie”. He didn't tell me anything about it, but I felt how the reminisces with the past, with his accidental life, revived him.

Méw seemed to be quite another person, happy that he had before him a fellow speaker who spoke to him freely without consequences. It was the chance to test even some of his ideas, which were not like the usual, undeniably confirmed. It was as if he were facing his normal ego, the obedient masochist. Did he get any clues for me?

And if so, who gave it to him? He could not know my political ideas, nor my youth, which at one point was linked to Communists, which melted like sun ice cream during Hungary's invasion by Soviet troops.

For a moment, I noticed that his tone had lost its joy, which had earlier seized the time of his youth. It got heavier when we were talking about his favorite subject, the situation in his country, affirming that once he took power and leadership of the post-war country, he was the savior.

He gave the conversation another tone - but always warm and friendly. He felt that until now I had heard him with great interest, fully sharing his cult of knowledge, recognition, and his definition of freedom had come to grips with my beliefs. But this was much like the religion you had to trust - sharing the same faith.

At that time, Mrs. Hoxha came to see us and invited us to the living room next to the office we were in. Her husband had introduced me as a great theory of Communism, much needed at his side. She conducted the Marx Institute of Studies and her loving appearance as a family mother contrasted with what I learned later from those who worked with her, not rejecting her tranquillity and discretion at all, believing the durability.

No impression similar to that family meeting around a candy she had designed for me, just as my mother once prepared for a friend. The so-called dessert had a strong sugar content, according to the tradition of Turkish pastries, and to satisfy calories at the moment.

This was accompanied by a local champagne that the owner of the ossuary, who was very familiar with its values, told us that he was much like the French wine that he had taught them the secret of making. A conversation with minor, looser, and quieter interventions developed in this simple amate of provincial taste.

Next came meetings that he had had with Stalin. I felt proud to have been by his side several times since 1949-1951, and he continued to grow as his only authentic political heir.

He was touched when he remembered the meetings he had had with him, the way he had waited every time, so hotly, touched by his savings, but that he later insisted surprisingly on dividing the lands, which were so precious to people, and the way to deal with the disobedient...

The Leader then asked me about the politics of France and that of our president, Valeri Giscar Desta. My position was neither in my role nor in my competence to get into a debate on this subject.

When we once again came to his office, Enver Hoxha returned to the role of artists, the subject we had touched earlier: “In a socialist country, the artist should never create for himself, but for his people, he told me. No expression should represent his own feeling, his condition, but be inspired by people's values, folk, especially. I'm giving you an example”

And he went in to look for a disk he put in a compact and he had him listen to. I have forgotten the name of the Albanian singer who seemed very talented. I was listening to a music with strong folk notes, but I wasn't dare to say I was so screwed up. I allowed myself to say that it was difficult to separate the spirit of the artist from the environment around him.

I highlighted the fact that folklore had been a source of inspiration for many great artists such as List, Chopin, Brams, and many others, whose works best express their relationship with the people they came from.

Our conversation ended on this subject. As he desired, we made a deep acquaintance. We had a great afternoon together. He really wanted us to have no witnesses, especially when it came to his health, no doubt thanking me for coming to Tirana, but I also believe, for his pleasure in expressing himself in French with me. He had the opportunity to experience what he and France were connected with former French professors...

He told me that before I left for Paris, I would come and say hi before I left. I kept my word, and the car that would take me to the airport the next morning in the company of my colleagues, ophthalmologists, led me to his home.

At the threshold of the solitary gate of his cottage he received me as on the first day, but this time his wife and children were surrounded. This split got me honest and filled with some sort of emotion. This French foreigner also concluded the moments of calmness and memories of his youth.

When I shook his hand and thanked him for his reception, I promised my commitment to retake, as he had fixed me. Welcoming Mrs. Hoxha, thanking him for the reception as well as knowing his children, I noticed a detail that surprised me greatly: they were wearing western shoes and clothing. They had the stamps of bourgeois, even though not signed by the greatest western tailors themselves.

This strange detail struck me in contrast with their parents ' attitude, especially with ideas that were so hotly supportive. It was a secret pollution of the Marxist leadership that was badly imposed on an entire people.

Evidence that he was never a prophet to his people. Just before we split up, Enver Hoxha handed me a block that put some pictures of our meeting. I took the car waiting for me and when she was rushing our hands, they were shaking to say goodbye. /Mapo/