Liri Belishova

“In 1959, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the liberation of Albania from the fascist occupiers, it was thought to make a film about the National Liberation War. For this, he asked the Soviet Union for help, and they sent the famous director, Churai, and the writer Arkady Pervenchev. They had many meetings, Enver Hoxha also met them. The orientation was to make an epic, grandiose film.”

“I was very young. But, maybe the instinct of self-defense also worked subconsciously. Only after Stalin’s death, especially after the 20th Congress (although he also revealed only the tip of the iceberg), could not continue with illusions, with excuses. The historical importance of the report on Stalin was that now his own party said these things, they were no longer “slanders of imperialist enemies”

“We didn’t have the opportunity to read literature that criticized the communists, but we didn’t listen to the radio either, calling the devil’s literature heresy, treason, like a believer. But the bitter reality, no matter how much I tried to justify the things I found in different ways, opened my eyes. The tragic liquidation of Nako Spiros shocked me a lot, but I also saw this more as the fault of the Yugoslavs and Koçi Xoxes.”

“There are others who have suffered more, but I will talk about them below. How did I hold on? Mainly, that I was right. Yes, my life turned dark. Not only five thousand people were killed. We are also killed who took our souls chika-chika. How heavy and difficult was the process of disappointment for me…! Communism was the whole meaning of my life, an illusion, an extraordinary dream. Extreme indoctrination had turned us into fanatics.”

“My father, grandmother, mother and two mother-in-laws died in deep sorrow. It was 30 years that destroyed my life. When I left Tirana, I was only 34 years old, in full bloom, when I returned, a broken old woman. And, the most terrible thing was that my children suffered in prisons and deportations, or from other persecutions, the five brothers with their families and the husband’s relatives, up to cousins and friends.”

“I lost my five dearest people; Meet Spiro and her second husband, Maqo Çomo, two brothers, Fatmir and Bardhyl Belishova, and above all Drita, my daughter. An unbearable pain, which can only be understood by someone who has suffered such a misfortune. All victims of the communist dictatorship, for which I fought and worked with extraordinary dedication.”

“A tragic life, the tragic life of an Albanian woman.”

“In the end, I want to say that Nako Spiro, this crime shocked him a lot and together with other important issues of the War and after the war, made him reflect on Enver Hoxha and Miladin, on the Communist Party, on communism as a doctrine and as a realized system in the form of communist dictatorship.”

“The memory of Ramize and Nako Spiros has connected me a lot with her family. I am honored to have friendly relations with them. I have had Ramizena as a friend since the “Nana Mbretneshë” Institute, and we were in the dormitory together, but we became especially close during the War – she often came to my house for lunch and to sleep, she became like home.”