TIRANA, Oct. 27 – U.S. Ambassador to Albania Donald Lu has encouraged Albanians to visit the former notorious Spaৠprison of the politically persecuted under communism to hear the stories of brave Albanians who survived and perished in this site.
In a visit to the Spaৠin northern Albania this week, after the former prison was recently announced by New York-based World Monuments Fund as one of the world’s 50 at-risk cultural heritage sites, Ambassador Lu said he was struck by the irony of the story of human brutality at this prison juxtaposed against the beauty of the rugged mountain landscape of this area.
“A visit to the prison at Spaৠis a sobering reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought for freedom and against tyranny, and all too often died in that pursuit,” wrote Lu in a post on the embassy’s social networks.
SpaৠPrison was a notorious labor camp established in 1968 by the communist government of Albania at the site of a copper and pyrite mine, in a remote and mountainous area in the center of the country. While only one of many such sites, the political prisoners held at Spaৠincluded some of the most prominent Albanian intellectuals of the twentieth century, granting it a special place in the collective memory of that era.
“SpaৠPrison, the notorious labor camp, is in an extremely advanced state of deterioration, and deserves to be transformed into a modern place of remembrance,” said the World Monuments Fund organization in its 2016 World Monuments Watch.
A notorious labour camp in communist Albania, the organization describes the forgotten site as a powerful place of memory that deserves to be preserved for future generations.
“The inclusion of SpaৠPrison on the 2016 Watch recognizes a new effort involving institutions, civil society, and private citizens—including former political prisoners—to create a modern institution of remembrance out of the prison’s remains.”
