Confession of convicts in Enver Hoxha prisons: Consider what tortures they suffered

And then I was mentioned. I was taken to the bottom of the pole, and I was tied there. Snow put... After eight hours I was taken, dressed, tied up again and taken to the hole... ”

Kyo

Ilyaz Kayo, recounts his story of his 10-year sentence in Spac of Mirdithe, a story of unprecedented torture, as he describes it.

Taken from memory.al/ Online Crime and Communist Victims Archive

Full Witnessing

I was arrested on January 22, 1977. Before I was arrested, I was arrested in front of the people. Two months later I was arrested. Detectives I've had Bujar Himmch from Elbasan. Cool torture. I had just finished school seven years old. I didn't know anything else. I didn't know what politics was. I was a villager who worked in the field, urinating. I was taken for my father, my father would be released from prison. My brother's out. Dad wanted another six months to get released, I've been arrested. I did six months' investigation. Irons, wood and blood. I was sentenced to a ten - year sentence and sent to Spac, Mirdiday. I went to Spach, I didn't know what the miner was. I went into the gallery for the first time, my friends said goodbye, okay. There I heard that word for the first time. Work in the gallery. Don't make the standard bind against the wire pole with the rails and the irons and the bridge, the drills. Make it a month's hole. In the hole you'd be standing without your shirt, you'd be with a thin shirt, no socks, no bare, no blankets. The temperature outside could reach -20 degrees, it was January. Count on what torture! Don't make the norm, Commissioner Shain Skura said you're going out with the stretcher. I have one occasion when I was working there when I was making the beer, the policeman, the fig tree, and the air comes in. What did I tell him? Come on, he says he's got a Galleria Coleman, a schoolgirl. When I get to the gallery, it was Martin Peter. Martin was up to the edge of the mineral and waved it off. A prisoner took a piece of board and put it out to her. And Cola was under it. We took Martin out, calculated how many of us stayed, when we pulled out Cola was dead, they took her to the morgue. We went to the camp to eat bread, but without eating the bread, the appeal would be that it was rain, that it was snow. You went to camp to eat food, food was beter. It started waiting. Dry cut with worms. Fortunately, I had family names for others. There were people who had no family. We had a doctor named Abdulla Gashi was Kosovo, but he was staying in Elbasan, a good man. He was a prisoner, on his day off I called command, get up to work. No, he told her, I deliver my shirt and I go to the gallery. There were intellectuals who finished school in the West. At first, there was a Jelal Copenhagen shot in 1979. About 100 people were arrested. Fadil Cocoman, journalists; Vangel Lezo, they shot all of them. When they took them firing, they took pictures from behind the wall and then fell to the ground.

How was a security associate identified in prison?

These guys were first unknown. Where are you from? From Berat. You got that support, you gave it to him and the tobacco package you helped him out, say he's a good guy. There are two roads here either with me or with Command. In command was spies. For me, it was the gallery, and it was the norm for the camp. When you found out this was evil, it was late. That the days were coming out, that's all she's got, that he had 40 days and he was out.

Have you ever written a complaint letter?

I didn't. I come from a family of nationalists. I had my grandfather with Ball Command with 300 soldiers back. Who would I do? The dictator? I knew who he was. They only had, they had nothing else. They had people who made Buros political. It was one occasion that this person was from Lezha so elaborate that they had also made spies and made letters for release. This job went three years and a few years, had graduated from technical school. He jumped from the second floor to commit suicide, but he broke his leg. What did I tell him? Dogs lied to me, spies. I had a police officer Lazer Koci, he said don't connect the prisoners you don't have a right to connect them. In Spaci's revolt, that word came out, and the job was to deliver his hat, he didn't turn it in. His father dies. I comforted him, that Lazer Koci. But the other cops were German, Nazi. They dragged you in, and when they put me in the hole it was January 3rd,69. On foot and hands every day.

How were blankets distributed in cells?

He used to pick us up at 6 p.m., and then he took it off at 6 in the morning. There were no blankets in the hole. This thing I saw in the gallery, I was young as a miner. I didn't know how to get a beer. I've been tied up for eight hours to my fainted stove. They pour me a bucket of water, and then they even drag me up and tie me up. Eight hours later, I was taken eight hours. I got dressed up and they take me to the hole. I had very good guys, I had Fatos Lubona. In prison, nationalist propaganda, witnessing, or spies rejected you. They were intellectual politicians, such as Jelal Copenhagen. Jeremiah refused revenge. You have six witnesses here, I have ten. If we kill them, all the people will be wiped out like this. I'm out in '79, got arrested 25 years old and barely found a wife. There's some people in Berat who are shaking and saying that he can handle the wood. You have no idea what the investigator was. My friends put eggs in their armpits, spoutes in their fingernails.

My name is Ilyaz Hakki Kajo, I'm from the village of Perista, Lapardha. I did 10 years.