“They opened Spaç Prison for the first time. I was young, so they assigned me as a miner. After about five days of instruction, they gave me a front there, two wagon operators, prisoners of course, and I started working, but the work was extremely difficult, underground, mine, those pyrite formations, because Spaç Mine produced pyrite for Laç Factory, and the prisoners built Laç, but I was not in that camp. The factory would take it after we extracted it, but the tunnel formations were extremely…, it was very risky there because they would always collapse, and there were gases too.

Were there any accidents during work?

There were many, and I got caught once, but thankfully it was a small black. I even have a scar here on my head, but I was lucky. There were a lot of people there; it was terrifying.

Was the food enough?

No, it wasn’t enough for the work we were doing; it wasn’t sufficient.”

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“I worked in the mine, in the tunnel, only advancements and on production fronts. Just load materials and get out. There were large spaces, a plane could fit inside. They would put in a metal plate, and we filled many wagons: 30-35-40 tons, for three people. While advancement is the opening of the tunnel. I also worked on those, in the third zone.

How were the working conditions?

Very difficult, especially in advancement, where the tunnels were opened. There was mine acid, and in two weeks, it would corrode the thick rail to little pieces. The wagon would shake, come off the rails, and we lifted it with hooks, we carried it on our backs.

Did the guards exercise violence?

In addition to the hard work, when we came out from there, the first two years, there were no baths to wash, no showers, at the mine entrance… they made them later, three years before I was released. After the revolt of 1973, I went at the beginning of 1976, the camp was punished, the prisoner had no right to dignity. If you raised your head up, looked at the guard up high, when we lined up to eat, or for reading the newspaper, he would say: Get up! Whip! Whip!

How many of you slept in the barracks?

Well, from 50 to 60 people. It didn’t take more than 60, but we would be up to 60 sometimes. Up to 50, not.

Were the beds bunked?

One room was 5 m by 5 m. Three-tier. My head, and the one below, reached the foot of the other, reached the head of that one, up to the ceiling. On the third tier, the head touched the ceiling.”

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“I was sent to Spaç. I meet my friends, Nasho, Qani. Qani takes me, he says: come have a coffee. I nearly fainted. They were allowed to have coffee. Petrit, Muharrem’s brother, brought his dinner. We stayed for around ten days and then they sent me to the mine. When I got there, we were in what they called an advancement, when I entered the mine and to the furnace, because you would go for kilometers, it was dripping there, it smelled of mold.

“Oh mother, I said, now will I get out alive? I saw there…, oh Great God!” I almost cut my hand. Thank God for that miner, when I turned the wagon, I would have cut it. In the end, I still didn’t escape. Once I had filled the wagon, which is on wheels, that flatbed. He had put the pipe askew, as I stood, the wagon turned on me, it broke my hand. Luck had it that it didn’t hit me in the chest. It weighed a ton itself, a ton of material, two tons, it hit me there. I go outside, a friend of mine wraps it with cardboard, one Fadil from Shijak.

They keep me for a month. They say: “You broke your own hand!” I was working at 125 percent of the quota, not because I wanted to, but to make a kilo of sugar, becase I had none, my wife was alone, my mother was old, no pension, nothing… Sometimes I would get 1500 leks. And they told me: “You broke it yourself! You’ve done this on purpose!” I even wrote a letter to the camp commander. He was old and seemed to reason a little. I tell him: “Mr. Commander, this is the issue”. “Yes, go”, he told me.”

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“Very hard. So the temperature in the gallery was 30 degrees C. You would undress with just your underwear… Sweat would come out without touching the shovel yet!

Did you need to meet a quota?

Indeed, the quota was quite high. They were Polish wagons, which took 700 kilos, and we did 20 wagons like that, three people.

What happened to the one who did not meet the quota?

Everyone, all night long, would work on the cable car. All night. It was impossible. Or he would be tied to the pole all the time if he didn’t reach the quota until 8 o’clock. After 8 hours if he continued like that he would still be tied. When it got cold, you could freeze. The guards would take him, light the fire, heat him, so that he could melt. This is also a strange thing, doctors were also discussing this at that time because this is a strange force. That is, a person can freeze and live, melt and live. Even science doesn’t accept it, but God…!”

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“Yes, in Spaç. I was in the mine, I also worked as a free man here, in Mborje-Drenovë, and when I went to Spaç , I saw the mine there too, but the change was extremely big. In the Spaç Mine, where the prisoners worked, it was not a mine, or rather, people were not counted as human beings, but as tools of labor.

Only to produce that mineral that they called necessary, necessary for the factories to work, there the man was not counted as a man, there the man was counted equal to a shovel, to a pickaxe. Even the guards were ordered, or so they felt, I don’t know, but when an accident happened and someone died, they would rejoice, show joy and say: “One less problem, one less enemy.” And these accidents were not few.

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“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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Burrel was where I saw the extent of how much a human could bear. Experiments were done on people. I still vividly recall that in Burrel, we would find the gate by seeing our own kind. There were many legless people there, or people with one leg only, walking on crutches, crawling, yet not giving up.

They taught us that we needed spiritual strength in prisons because communism had no mercy. If the regime didn’t have mercy on them, I would never imagine that they would have mercy on us. When I went to Burrel, I was a 22-year-old young man. I was physically strong. I feel happiness and pride in my soul when I say that all my
comrades who went through the same struggle were better than I.

They gave me strength and life. They gave me their food, their ration.

Even today, in my home, hundreds of former convicts are welcome and come and visit. They are like brothers. According to communists, man was an animal. The folded newspaper was 25 centimeters. That was where you were
supposed to sleep. The rooms had cement floors.

You woke up in the morning to the sound of the whistle, made the bed, and were not entitled to get in the sheets anymore, only stay on top of it. They handed us 500 grams of bread, two meals a day, where if you found a single bean or grain of rice you would as well celebrate. The cells were made of cement. Torture was
carried out there. I still remember quite clearly that the iron bars of these calls were used to
tie the Italians’ donkeys once upon a time. Communists turned it into suffering for Albanians.
I saw a lot in Burrel, and that is where I learned about the humane feelings that prisoners had
for one another.

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