TIRANA, Feb. 20 – For the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the toppling of Enver Hoxha’s statue that took place in Tirana on Fe. 20, 1991, the National History Museum presented the Communism in Its Time exhibition – a description of the rise and fall of communist movements in the 20th century.
The ideology of communism brought millions of people together, but also made over 100 million others suffer as its victims worldwide.
The exhibition’s curator and representative of the Federal Foundation for the study of the Communist Crimes in Germany was there to present its complexity during the inauguration.
February is a month of remembrance for more than one reason.
In addition to communism’s toppling in Albania, it was also 67 years ago a bomb was placed at the Soviet Embassy, leading to the murder of 22 Albanian intellectuals without proof or trial shortly thereafter.
In addition, it was on Feb. 27, 1967 the “war” against religions and religious institutions was first waged, veiled as the “youth’s revolutionary initiative” .
As explained by the exhibition’s brochures, Albania embraced the USSR’s communist ideology after WWII, witnessing the empowerment of the Communist Party and the final establishment of communism, which lasted for almost half a century.
Dictator Enver Hoxha’s rise and stay in power was no different than other dictators’ – fear, propaganda, stripping citizens’ of their freedoms, and elimination of internal and external enemies.
His gradual slip to paranoia and unconventional extremism however, led him to break off ties with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and China and attempt to build a self-sustaining state which failed and ended up in complete poverty.
The posters and photos of the exhibition, which will remain at the National History Museum’s Dictatorship Pavilion until Feb. 28, were resized to be made suitable for publication in schools, municipality halls, libraries, etc, “with the intention of making people reflect on the dark attributes of communism and dictatorships that shaped the 20th century.”
The exhibition’s author is German historian Gerd Koenen, while the publishers also include the German Historical Museum and the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture.
