Albanian-American activist Prof changes lives. Sami Repesti

Prof. Sami Repishti, survived by Communist prisons in Albania, passed away on Wednesday, November 27, 2024, at the age of 99.

Prof. Repisti was born in the Dudas district of Shkodra on April 6, 1925. After studying for a year in Florence, Italy, he returned to Albania in 1943. He was arrested from 1946 on charges “intelligence and propaganda against state”.

For 14 months he was subjected to torture by State Security.

I went through a very difficult time with torture by the most inhuman to think about. Even today, my body is still moved when I remember the way we were treated, how badly we were treated”, he said about the Voice of America in June 2019, his life and suffering during communism.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, of which he suffered 10 years in the Shkodra prison and forced labor camps.

In 1956 he is released from prison, and 4 years later, in 1960 he flees to Yugoslavia. A year later, in 1961, he moved to Italy, and in 1962 he eventually migrated to the United States.

He continued his high French studies by receiving his Ph.D. from the University of New York and the University of Paris. He had a long career as an educator and a teacher. All his life in the United States, Prof. The rapper had a continuous activism on Albanian-related issues. In 1996 he founded the Albanian-American National Council and served as its president until 1998.

He has testified several times before Congress and fittingly represented the Albanian-American community at the White House and the State Department. He has long been a leader of the cultural and political activities of this community and was a respected member of it.

Prof. The rapper is author of the books “Under the Shadow of Rosafa”, where he describes his suffering during the communist regime and “Pica Loti” dedicated to his fellow prisoners in prison. / VOA