The Russian confession that was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Albania: The Guardians saw us from the keyhole

Taisa was of Jewish origin but born in Russia. She met Gaqo Pisha in Moscow, while both were students and came with her to Albania, where she was appointed professor at the Natural Sciences Faculty. In '76 he is accused of spying and sentenced to prison. Right after the 90th, Taisa leaves with her two sons in Israel.

BIBR

Fear turns man into a trap, deprives him of the possibility of resisting. But all the detectives ' work was based on fear, fear. Many have read and learned about the role of economics in social events (False Marks), not least has been said by idealists about the role of ideas (falty Kant), but nobody mentions fear, what role it played in the fates of people. The macabre fear, how it has changed, broken, crippled people and events. Fear...this command suite of history! Under the feeling of fear I spent all my years in prison, although we constantly tried to resist, overcome fear. Me, the sociable man, the fear and prison changed me a lot. Now I've become a completely different person, locked up, very hard to get close to people. Many years have passed since my release from prison, but the ice of fear in my soul has not yet melted. Even now, writing these lines, my old fears still accompany me. ...in my cell, during the investigation, I had such a dream: “in our house we're expecting guests. Everything is ready for their arrival: cake, pies, biscuits, chocolates, my people roam the house and expect to come. And the guests, the family of Gaqo's brother, and some other families of our relatives and friends, go around the house and they can't get in... and they don't come...” I was surprised by this dream, and one of the Albanians, when he heard it, interpreted it this way:

It's quite simple: your house is filled with grief, whereas relatives and friends cannot come and share with you the evil that has taken you... they want, but they can't-can-be-if-one. Yes, the dream really reflected what was happening. Later, in the camp, after I went through all the circles of hell, investigations, trials, I realized and I think I was right: our people behind bars were more difficult than we were. If we were all equal, all equally suffering, equally humiliated, they felt much worse in freedom. They suddenly became unremembered. Most turned their backs, were frightened, avoided. Costa, the best student in his 7th class, the Holocaust, a participant in all school activities, competitions, evenings, activists, suddenly became “a member of the people's enemy”.

Guess how much this bothered the boy. Although he finished the 8-year-old with excellent marks, Costa was not allowed into technicalism by day. He enrolled in high school, but to get a profession, he started working and he went to technicalized... at night. Sasha was not allowed to continue her university. He was forced to work as a simple farm worker, and then he was taken as a soldier. All this time, during the last year and a half of my investigation, I was told that everything was fine in my family. And I believed them... I wanted to believe and believe. In fact, the family was in a difficult situation and lived very closely. After taking the soldier Sasha, they also experienced hunger because with my husband's small pension, Sasha in the army, they bought expensive drugs for the sick Gaqo and lived on the rest of the crumbs.

The situation behind bars was terrible. The arrests continued, people were exiled, fired, expelled from the university. Insurance distributed on four sides all kinds of spy bullshit, saboteurs, enemies. It also discussed radio transmitters who had supposedly been found in our homes. In the magazine “For Homeland Protection”, the Interior Ministry body was published scripts for “cecists”* -- brave Albanians who stood on security guards of the state and uprooted rebels. Anyone who communicated in some way with our families and tried to help would risk entering the circle of persecuted people. Here came fear and spying, as a means of survival. Beatings everywhere - at work, in the family. People were also forced to spy on their relatives or, at best, not to communicate with those in need. All the time of my investigation, the trial, spent in fear for my family. Because of this fear, I lost my ability to think, reason, and to evaluate the state of creation coolly.

IN BURG, GREAT INSITATION

On the second day after the arrest, the button behind the door moved with terrible scratches, the door opened, and the guard called out: “Grab your stuff! ” I didn't know what things I had to collect. She pushed me, showed me the mattress, blankets, and water security. After I gathered them all together, she led me through the corridor, stopped by a door, and pushed me inside. There I saw a woman about 35 years old, I don't remember her name... she had a Greek name, a Parascrow, a Polyksen... and I don't remember her face. If I met him at his age right now, I probably wouldn't know him. Those first days of the investigation, when I had lost my ability to reason, I realized that this woman was a spy and that I had nothing to talk to her about. I was afraid, but there was nothing I could think of but home. I thought about my sick husband, the boys. They were alone, they had no money. We lived hard, from my salary to his retirement... but now, how they're gonna live with that little pension... they had to buy expensive medicine. What about Sasha? How will his life turn out? - I was just thinking about them, talking about them. Whatever questions asked me during the investigation, I only talked about the house. From my first interrogation, I asked to write a warrant on behalf of my son to receive my salary. I knew there was no money at home. What a vicious, ruthless monster was to be his system and his state security organs, to put me in jail, to be separated from a seriously ill man! They knew very well that I hadn't done A WHAT's wrong was not my fault. This could be the conclusion: They can do whatever they want, sue me for anything, give me any punishment. After a few days, my neighbor knocked on the wall and began to tell me something that was supposedly told from the adjacent cell. I trusted him. I didn't even think everything was set up. “wa! That's where Nina Pumo was. Knock! Ask him how he is! I prayed to him. She knocked and started telling me about Nina. A few days later, after the next knock, she told me that Nina is accused of spying, which includes Nadya and Zoya. I got laid. “Nadja?! What's Nadja doing here? Nadya has long been sentenced to seven years for agitation! The neighbor knocked on the wall and answered from there: “Naja was brought out of the camp; now they accuse her of spying. They have accepted and signed all”. Only later when we were sent to the camp and met Nina did she tell me that she had never been in a cell next to me and that she could not knock on the wall, so she never knocked, but my neighbor acted on behalf of the investigators. They wanted to scare me and they got it. I was convinced that investigators could do whatever they wanted to me, accuse me of anything they wanted. I was absolutely sure that none of my friends had ever been spying. We stayed in Albania only for the sake of our children and families. Soviet specialists and counselors, until the breakdown of relationships, worked in all areas of life in Albania, in the army, in industry, in finance... everywhere. They had full information on the situation in the country, they were able to recruit real spies and agents, of value, what I believe they had done. That's why I didn't know about it then, even now. These spies, however, had to be searched, found, and that was not easy. And so... grab, arrest, fear, threaten, torture, and... done, the agent network is discovered!... Decorporate and praise to the brave Albanian hammers, the security workers! But for the little people, for their children, for the men, no one wants to know. Man is a... nothing! ... It's been a few days. The neighbor again communicated with a knock on the wall with the cell from our left, then said to me: “The trial took place, and Nadja was sentenced to 18 years of freedom, Zoya with 15, while Nina with 14”. I can't tell the horror that caught me. Even now, when so many years have passed, when I remember that time, I am again caught by a wave of terror. Now there must be more fear, all left behind, but torture with fear is terrible, traces and shadow remain for life. I felt like a helpless roach over which it crashes like a concrete block, Communist tyranny. After a few days, my neighbor was taken away from my cell, so I began the epipey of the initial imprisonment, which lasted about a year and a half. If you could open the window of my cell and look inside, see a creature in the middle, between the four walls, sitting on a dirty straw mattress and with a window so high that you could never look out and see what was going on there, with a door full of bars and lock, opening only three times a day for personal need and for taking food. He would surely be surprised, how that prisoner is still alive and does not end his own life! Yet, man very often survives even in extreme conditions. Days go by, and he gets used to this terrible life. The cell! It was... a stone well, with its surface nearly five square feet and 6 meters of altitude. There we slept. Far above the floor was a small square window with bars, no frame and no glass. From there, a little light entered the day, and in the sunny days on the wall opposite it, the stain of light moved. From her position, I learned to determine time without error. I tried to use that little ray of sun, moving through the cells, and putting my face in front of it, sucking up fresh air drops from the window. More hot air was introduced there in summer, and in cold winters. However, it was fresh air. The day began with noise and spin. In the morning with their slaps, the service officer changed his shift, then the opening door noise, the carrying out of personal needs, the silla. We drank a bit of hot tea, no sugar, and a lot of bread from it. So began the long day of overwhelming calm. Unbearable silence and sometimes shouting to make the soul ice, foot noise, and rest again. The Guardians were doing their jobs quietly, walking, approaching the door to see from the hole what was happening in the cells so easily that from inside they could not see someone from the hole in the net. Suddenly, in the midst of this calm, there were frightening scratches, blisters that made you tremble, leap upward as the heart began beating more frequently. The door opened the cana and a rude voice said: “day, you, get up!” Walking through the corridor, in the middle, the walls and doors were painted with brown paint, lots of doors, all nearby and near, all hanging massive locks. Everything was meant well, every little thing was designed to break you, crush you, scare you. The man with everything can be learned, but I never got used to the noise of the bars and locks, the scratches of the door, when it opened and closed, with the crackling of the lids on the doors of the cells. During the detention, there were meetings, there was total darkness and disinformation, no books, no newspapers, no paper, no pencil. To avoid going mad, I made up a variety of things: I pulled out of the dirty straw mattress and “I wrote” with it on the floor, combined any words, some crossword puzzle. When the door opened, a quick move was enough to turn everything into a hand of straw. One day I was soon taken to the interrogator, and I was unable to hide my crossword puzzle. When I was returned to my cell, the overseer Vasilica, who was noted for watchfulness and exceptional cruelty, read the words on the floor, thought that I had a hidden cause, and went into the cell with a hearing, but the straw was scattered. I saved you without screaming or swearing. The door was closed and I was left alone again. To deal with something, to put forth extended hours, more than anything else my mother - in - law helped me. I tried to recall verses that I had once memorized and loved very much. Most often, I remembered Pushkin, Lermontov, Eseni, and Simonov. I would recite them in a low voice first, then out loud. Open the door window and shout the Guardian's angry cry: “Enough!” I was starting to repeat the poem in a low voice. I remembered a lot and repeated them again and again. This helped me move to another world, very far away, and at times I felt like never going back to her. When we later met in the camp, I learned that Pushkin's mother - in - law had also saved my friends, had helped them survive, not to lose their minds. The first few days when my neighbor knocked on the wall, I wanted to learn this way of communication.

The neighbor told me she was knocking according to the alphabet. A knock, two B. But although I knew the English alphabet, I couldn't get to “clicking” because I had very slowly repeated the alphabet. Then I decided to memorize the number of each letter and count the knocks. And I did. It didn't go wrong! After being released from prison, I read Fatos Lubonja's book: “Penal Punishment” and learned that men used to communicate a more efficient way, but we women, we didn't know that ABC, so we knocked on every letter. We used to talk about something, we used to learn something from the women in nearby cells... we spent time! Knocking was very easy, even at risk; guards and guards were constantly searching, approaching the tone, watching and catching the violators. One day, the guards came to my cell and only because I convinced them of their undignified appearance and told them that I did not know the Albanian alphabet, I escaped the dungeon. We usually called on the evenings when the bosses left home, and the guards were finished and gathered at the end of the hall to whisper among themselves. I remember two separate cases during the “connection”. Next to my cell, on my right, there was someone taking food differently than ours. Instead of the black skin that the others gave us, that's where they'd take the cigar, meatballs. I knocked and asked about my name. “Mina”, she replied. Later, when we were in the camp, I learned that there were two sisters, Minas and Nadira, two young rural girls, charged with a made-up case... for cowwork. For that I will write below in detail. During the investigation, Mina became seriously ill. The process was political. Mine's life had to be preserved until the trial was held. My neighbors on the left had noticed Mina's food and began to ask me who is in that cell. I started knocking: “M-I-N-...” That's when I heard the signal; the neighbor scratched the wall, which means: “I got it, you can't go on with it”. Six months later, I met my neighbor at the camp and learned that the letters “min...” she had taken as the first word “minister”. It was a time when nearly all the political and state elite were introduced into prisons, so the presence between prisoners and a minister was not surprising. Next chance. It would have been October 1, 1976. I was taken to the investigator who was reading the newspaper. I gazed at the newspaper as a water burn. I haven't known what was happening in the world in five months. I read: “Mao Ce Dunn's name was not. What happened? I did not ask the interrogator because I could receive any serious or ridicule words. When I got back to my cell, I thought I'd ask my neighbors; they were fresh “”, just a while ago. I was afraid to ask open text. In Albania, I used to keep quiet, not ask. I finally made it up: I knocked on the question: “Will Mao Ce Duni come to Tirana? Answer: “He's dead. ” “My God! I thought so. Maybe with his death something will change and we will be released? Unfound Hopes Unfounded! Fear, lack of hope, loneliness made their own. Suddenly, I started hallucinating hearing. I felt as if I heard Sasha's voice calling me " “Moma, Mom!" I thought terrified that he was arrested, he called me... and I almost choked. This went on for a few minutes and passed, and then it started again, more and more. I guess I'd come to a faint state; I'd lie down long, still, or I'd tremble, I'd scream. In such cases, my cell was brought to my neighbor so that I would not be alone for some time. Then the neighbor was pulled out, and it all started over.