Former prison camp in Shkodra turned into museum of communist crimes

Writer Agron Tufa, who heads the Albanian Institute for Communist Crimes, says this museum representing Shkodra will symbolically feature the barbarian and cruel crimes under communism.
TIRANA, Sept. 24 – Known for its anti-communism resistance, the city of Shkodra, the biggest in northern Albania, is honouring its thousands of politically persecuted, imprisoned and killed people with a museum of communist crimes. The museum, which opened this week after four years of reconstruction, is situated in the former building of the notorious Sigurimi secret police which also served as a prison for the politically persecuted.
A 50 metre concrete entrance gallery leading to the former prison facilities where 40 cells operated has been rehabilitated while the museum’s outdoor facilities including the airing yard have been reconstructed and personal items of political prisoners collected. Some audio effects have also been employed.
Among others, this museum also showcases stands displaying items and documents unveiling the torture and violence by the regime against the politically imprisoned for around 50 years until the early 1990s when the communist regime collapsed.
Writer Agron Tufa, who heads the Albanian Institute for Communist Crimes, says this museum representing Shkodra will symbolically feature the barbarian and cruel crimes under communism. He also expresses his concern over the transformation of communism prisons and labour camps into industrial areas which he says is destroying collective remembrance.
A cell where late Father Zef Plumi was imprisoned during the communist regime is also part of the museum. Pllumi’s shocking experience as a Catholic priest in Stalinist Albania is recorded in his moving, 730-page memoirs, “Rrno vet쭠p철me tregue” (I only live on to tell) in 2006.
Fatbardha Sara詬 a writer who was politically persecuted under communism, calls on the former politically persecuted people to document their suffering.
Lorenc Luka, the mayor of Shkodra, says the museum conveys the message that the past must not be forgotten at a time when the portrait of former communist dictator Enver Hoxha continues being featured in several commemorations.
Mark Gjeka, who led the reconstruction works, says the premises of the former prison and the Sigurimi secret police premises have been left untouched. Prisoners’ notes on the walls have also been left unchanged. “This museum will unveil the suffering, torture and executions with or without trials of hundreds of Shkodra citizens who in their efforts to oppose the communist regime and its ideology fell victim to the communist terror and violence,” he said.
The museum of communist crimes built in the facilities of a former prison was supposed to open in late 2012 when Albania celebrated its 100th anniversary of independence. It was built under a 57 million lek (Euro 406,000) fund by the Shkodra Municipality and Culture Ministry, preserving all traces of the former prison including cells and proof of inmates imprisoned for their political views against the regime.
The northern town of Shkodra known for its anti-communism had 13 prisons with around 3,000 politically imprisoned people during the country’s communist regime. Hundreds of them were executed or died in prisons. In 1946, two years after the communist had taken over, the Postriba village in Shkodra registered the first anti-communist uprising which ended tragically with dozens of insurgents killed and politically imprisoned and persecuted during the whole 46-year communist regime.
The Shkodra museum of Communist Crimes will be the second of this kind after the opening of the pavilion of Communist Terror at the National Museum of History in early 2012. The museum in Tirana has photographs of mass graves where many of the executed were buried, as well as handcuffs, chains and victim’s clothes and personal belongings.