When the enemy attacks you, it means that you are on the right path, Enver Hoxha said.
Perhaps that very sentence best describes his obsession and the need to order the construction of hundreds of thousands of bunkers on the soil of Albania, in order to hide from the enemy.
Hoxha was the supreme leader, the dictator of Albania since the end of the Second World War, as the first secretary of the Communist Albanian Labor Party.
According to National Geographic, from 1960 to 1985, he ordered the construction of thousands of military bunkers out of paranoid fear of invasion by Yugoslavia, Warsaw Pact or NATO.
The exact number of bunkers is not known, but on the official website of one of them - "bunker Art2" it is stated that it was once rumored that there were as many as 700.000, but the government of Albania says that 175.000 were built.
This very one - the Art2 bunker, which covers an area of 1.000 square meters - tells the story of a secret nuclear super bunker, which today has been turned into a museum, in the very center of Tirana, with the aim of showing visitors how the police from the communist era persecuted the opponents of the regime.
In order to convey the feeling of coldness, crampedness, gusts and claustrophobia, only photos or videos are not enough - you really need to go through the corridors and 24 rooms. See authentic recordings, writings, photographs. Passing through those rooms is a journey into isolation and darkness.
Victims of "communist terror" welcome tourists at the entrance
Behind the Ministry of Public Order in Tirana, there is a stone mushroom, which introduces the tourist to some of the victims of "communist terror" with pictures already at the entrance.
A long tunnel, narrow and cold, already hints that the journey through time will be fascinating, and that event is completed by figures, photographs, videos, but also music coming from certain rooms.
A piece of history is written in front of each room, where, among other things, it is written that since 1944, according to the Institute for Crimes and Consequences of Communism (ISKK) in Albania, 5.577 men and 450 women were sentenced to death and killed.
There are also numerous reports of political prisoners dying in prisons or labor camps as a result of torture or other causes such as suicide. Even in those cases, soldiers were not returned to their families, because under the communist regime, the convict's body remained available to the state for the duration of the sentence, even if he died. However, the real aim was to prevent political prisoners from turning graves into symbolic places for gathering or protesting against the party.
Over the years, public institutions and relatives of the missing have found around 100 human corpses, in some cases unidentified. One of the first discoveries of bones was in 1993, and in 2010 a mass cemetery was discovered near the Dajti mountain.
According to the information obtained by witnesses and documents, it is written on one of the boards inside the bunker, 29 execution sites have been identified in Albania so far, which are suspected to contain other bodies of political prisoners, killed during the communist regime.
The criminal code of Enver Hoxha's regime counted 34 criminal offenses punishable by the death penalty, among which 12 were political crimes, such as "escape from the state", "sabotage of the socialist economy and organization of the state administration" or "fascist, anti-democratic, clerical, warmongering and anti-socialist propaganda”. In 1952, during the mania of "Anglo-American espionage", the death penalty was introduced for all "conspirators against the state".
Some political crimes such as "fascist, anti-democratic, clerical, warmongering and anti-socialist propaganda" were part of the Constitution until May 1990.
The list of people sentenced to death for political reasons during the communist regime includes intellectuals, politicians, merchants, landowners and priests. The death penalty continued to apply in Albania even after the fall of the communist regime, but only for common crimes.
The last death sentence for ordinary criminals was pronounced in Tirana on March 15, 1995. After a few months, a moratorium was introduced, which led to the final abolition of the death penalty in 1999.
Spying among the main activities
Among the main activities of the infamous secret service Sigurimi (Security) was the evaluation of secret video recordings and photographs, as well as audio eavesdropping. None of these activities required court approval, the bunker's signs say.
The Pursuit Service, which controlled even the suspect's movements or his meetings with any regime opponents or foreign spies, was initially taught by Soviet instructors.
To ensure the success of the operation, the Sigurimi used numerous means of disguise and various technologies (almost always produced in the Soviet Union or East Germany), including hidden photographic devices.
"Great importance was also devoted to listening. It can be performed in two ways: using radio bugs or using fixed microphones. The radio bug, about four centimeters in size, operated at a maximum distance of 200 meters, so the presence of an agent in that area was always necessary to receive audio signals and records. It could have been hidden in any object of daily use", it is written in the explanations on the walls of the bunker.
One of the most common ways to hide was called a "corbak" and consisted of a simple wooden slat mounted on the edge of a table, and microphones and transmitters were hidden inside it. A specially modified transitional radio device was mainly used to receive signals: the most used was the "mladost" model, produced in Romania and approved by the Sigurimi, because it was easier to modify.
A Sigurimi operative, disguised as a civilian, would stay in the area where the wiretapping took place, hiding the "youth" radio under his jacket. He wore a listening helmet as he recorded the conversation he was spying on with a small portable recorder.
In addition to wiretapping, Sigurimi also specialized in fixed wiretapping.
Unlike radio eavesdropping, fixed eavesdropping used microphones connected by wire to one or more recorders. Prisoners, foreigners staying in hotels, and citizens suspected of hostile activities against the party were usually eavesdropped using this technique and were therefore listened to directly in their homes.
The main hotel rooms had wired microphones with a central recorder that could be several kilometers away. Prison cells and police stations also had fixed cable microphones hidden within them with a recording room usually in the same building.
In those cases, the Sigurimi used a neighbor's home as a base, which automatically became a collaborator. The microphone was inserted into a hole made in the wall that separates the two dwellings. The installation and masking of the microphone was done when no one was in the house. A recorder was installed in the house of the collaborator's neighbor, and the Sigurimi had a special register in which it recorded all the homes of the collaborators who activated the recorders.
Using a similar technique, but using a special targeted camera in the form of a tube that passed through the wall, photos were taken secretly inside the controlled place of residence as well as "suspicious" encounters that could be made there by its residents.
"Anonymous under the door"
Anonymous letters were a clear and open form of expression of revolt against the dictatorial regime, difficult living conditions, dissatisfaction, lack of freedom.
During the years of the communist regime, this phenomenon was the focus of the State Security to detect the "enemies" of the party.
This phenomenon refers especially to the period after 1967. Anonymous letters with personal attacks, often as revenge, condemn party leaders, certain persons, and unlike letters, where the author was known, here the condemnation was secret. This gave rise to the famous expression of the period "Anonymous under the door".
In these letters, the dissatisfied dared to slap Enver Hoxha, sometimes even writing to him directly. Some of these letters were sophisticated in form - mixed capitals and lowercase letters, without giving any address or allusion to the author. But in other cases, although anonymous, if the letters went from the city post office, the circle could be narrowed down more easily and the investigation became easier for the security agents.
The discovery of the author of these letters was one of the most important tasks of the ministry. In some cases the investigations had positive results and the discovered author was also able to point out his friends, with whom he shared his displeasure.
But in all forms, anonymous letters were the "favorite tool" of the regime, often used to control the mood of the population and track down opponents when possible.
Camps surrounded by barbed wire
Shortly after liberation from fascism, the new communist regime began to take revenge on domestic political enemies. Many of them were shot or arrested, and only a few managed to leave the country, leaving their families behind. The revenge of the regime thus extended to them, for whom real concentration camps were built. In the absence of an official definition and legislation, these places of suffering are today called “barbed wire camps”.
The first two camps were built in March 1945. Surrounded by barbed wire and protected by armed guards, the camps were built in old Italian military bases, abandoned warehouses or wooden huts, in appalling hygienic conditions.
Those who were deported to concentration camps were heirs or relatives of fugitives, political prisoners or partisans who defected from the communist army. There were also many foreigners (mainly Greek monarcho-fascists, German Nazis and Italian fascists). Concentration camp prisoners were forced to work in inhumane conditions, with little food and no health care. They often slept on the ground, sometimes without blankets and without the right to light a fire.
Concentration camps of this type were built in nine different areas of Albania by 1953. The largest and most notorious of the camps was the one in the town of Tepelena (1949–1953), which was condemned by the US government at the United Nations in 1955. Compared to the Nazi camps for the level of cruelty towards to which its inhabitants were treated, the Albanian concentration camps were inhabited mainly by women, the elderly, and especially children.
The horror of the concentration camps is still a dark point in the history of Albanian communism, with almost no official documentation. According to the latest calculations, as stated on the website bunkerArt2, based on several documents found, over 3.000 people, not including children, were detained in these camps. Those who died in these camps, from disease or hunger, number in the hundreds, but even here the number of victims is not final and known.
"Re-education and rehabilitation" through suffering and work
The end of the war (1944) in Albania coincided with a period of political revenge, which later turned the communist regime into a system of governance based on the arrest and persecution of political opponents, starting with former leaders, intellectuals, merchants and landowners.
Eight prisons in Albania were reserved for political prisoners who were labeled as "enemies of the people", seven for regular prisoners and three mixed. Over the years, the regime opened new prisons in all major centers, dedicating them to political prisoners and all other criminals.
The official purpose of detention for political prisoners was "re-education and rehabilitation" through suffering and work.
In addition to prisons, the regime began to build labor camps. These were places where convicts were forcibly taken to public works, to mines or to engage in agriculture. Almost all prisoners who were able to work were assigned to these camps, and over the years their number exceeded the capacity of the prison. The largest public works in Albania, during the years of communism, were carried out through the forced labor of prisoners.
Among the prisons intended for the most notorious "enemies of the people" was Burel, it was considered a prison from which it was impossible to escape and where political prisoners lived in inhumane conditions. Since 1946, the largest and most notorious was Spač, which has remained open since 1968.
Life in communist prisons, as well as in labor camps, was very harsh: political prisoners, often accused on the basis of false evidence, or on the basis of evidence obtained through torture by the Sigurimi, if not sentenced to death, often died of disease, starvation or difficult working conditions. In order for the prisoner to get an extra piece of bread, or a piece of soap, he was ready to further condemn his cellmates even by lying.
In the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Albania, according to a 2016 report published by the Institute for Crimes and Consequences of Communism (ISKK) in Albania, there were 1990 male and 26.768 female political prisoners in camps and prisons until 7.367. There are 984 of those who died in prison due to the conditions, and the other 308 lost their mental capacity. According to the same source, 5.577 men and 450 women were sentenced to death and killed. The bodies of prisoners who were executed or died in prison during forced labor or illness were not handed over to their relatives.
In the best manner from Orwell's 1984.
The large number of bunkers built in Albania in the period from 1960 to 1986 are a reflection of both personal and collective paranoia that reigned in Albania during the reign of Enver Hoxha, says history professor Marko Radojević.
"That fear spilled over to the entire Albanian society, I would say very consciously and purposefully, because in that way the whole society was more easily brought under control, and hence the large number of bunkers intended for defense against a possible enemy, which were the most visible manifestation of that fear and paranoia Radojević told Magazin.
However, he believes that there was no real danger of an attack by the Warsaw Pact and NATO on Albania.
"If there was a possibility of a conflict, it was at the time of INFORMBIRO's resolution towards KPJ and Yugoslavia, which Albania wholeheartedly supported, despite good and almost idyllic relations with Yugoslavia until then. Indeed, at the time of the IB resolutions, there were frequent conflicts on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, but even then there was no real danger of a large-scale Yugoslav invasion. From this perspective, the construction of so many bunkers was definitely not only not expedient, but on the contrary - counterproductive, bearing in mind the huge financial resources spent on their construction", explained Radojević.
"In the best manner from Orwell's 1984, it was necessary to build a narrative about an enemy who is just waiting for an opportunity to overthrow order and government, and all this at the price of bringing the entire country to the brink of starvation," he added.
"In the end, the whole system of rigid Stalinist communism in Albania was not brought down by any outside force, but collapsed by itself - which additionally shows all the senselessness of such a concept of bunkering the country," Radojević points out.
Bonus video:
