“What year did you go to Spaç?

In 1974. At the end of 1974.

What work did you do in Spaç?

In Spaç, we worked underground, in the tunnel for 8 years, 7 and a half years, half of which was spent here. Without leaving the gallery for a single day, in the mines.

In what conditions did you work?

The conditions were very difficult. You went in and you had no guarantee that you would come out alive or not because there were many cases of fatal accidents in the tunnels. One night, there, the tunnel fell and took three people, young men. They were from Malësia there. All three were killed, and so on.

Were all three killed?

All three were covered by the tunnel.

Do you remember their names?     

Yes, I remember one, they used to call him Kolë Mani.

Was he young?

Young. All of them were. They would put the young men in the mines.

Those who died in the tunnel, where were they taken?

Command would make a coffin for them. It was a designated place for graves of convicts, prisoners who died. They were in Shën Pal, there they stayed with guards. Even if you died there, they wouldn’t give you to the family. “When the sentence ends – they said – then the family can take it.” That was how it went.

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“How did prison staff behave with prisoners?

We had the staff there… it was local, from Mirdita. There were 4-5 gentlemen there, one Gjet Qubi, another one, a Prenga, Mark Qubi, I don’t know, they were good guys, they didn’t bother you in vain. But there were some there: one Preng Rrapi , another Ndue here and there, who beat you senselessly. Even there, if you ended up in the punishment cell in Spaç, especially during winter, if you were sentenced to 15 days or if they increased it because you were not working according to the requirements, you were at risk of not making it out at all.”

Have there been accidents or mistreatment in prison?

Yes, yes, there were beatings from time to time, but that camp was ruined after the revolt, the famous Spaç Revolt indeed. It was ruined right there and then. Guards became all-powerful. They didn’t even care about officers and commanders, at all. They would beat you black and blue.”

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“At first, they sent me to a room that belonged to the second area in Spaç, which dealt with the extraction of pyrite, and from there, the next day, they gave us a pair of boots and a pair of brown clothes, we were sent to work, at the second area. The working conditions there were extreme because…  the acid, the stench of the acid burned your nose when you went up to the second area and the closer you got, when you passed by the galleries, they gave off steam because the temperatures outside were lower than inside.

….

The food was rancid. It was… in the morning you had rice or different soups. It was soup with dried cabbage or dried spinach, or dry leeks, when the dish was first separated from the pot, the worms would be removed, so that the food could be distributed among the plates of all convicts, who were divided as eight people per table. In a word, it depended on the shift we had: first, second, third, and there was breakfast. When we came, we had rice, as a soup of course. Even at dinner we had tea and apple marmalade, breakfast and milk. Powdered milk that was eaten by the guards too, the convicts who were inside also ate. With this we had to do eight wagons, two sets of troops and a pair of tracks. This was to reach the 100 percent quota.

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