“Confiscation of property and gold robbery (1944-1955)” is one of the publications made a few years ago by the Institute for Studies on the Crimes and Consequences of Communism (ISKK) and is authored by Alvin Saraçi. The publication sheds light on one of the still unsolved crimes of communism in Albania, namely the robbery and confiscation of property and monetary assets of Albanians. The focus of the study is the years 1944-1955, when the newly elected communist government savagely attacked private property and all the assets that Albanians had created over centuries. The study has five chapters, dividing the process into five phases. It is equipped with official data and facts collected from archives and preserved documentation. The undertaking of this study was made possible thanks to the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
EXCERPT FROM THE STUDY
The law on the confiscation of the assets of political fugitives was issued in 1943, as evidenced by the regulations of the Antifascist National Liberation Council. At the Përmet Congress, the Antifascist National Liberation Council proposed taking control of private firms to supply the Army with their products. Lists of war criminals were issued, which included many political opponents and the defense of power so as not to share it with the parties of Legality and the National Front.
As a result, on December 15, 1944, the law on the confiscation of private property of political fugitives was passed, according to the Soviet and Yugoslav model, which led to the political incrimination of opponents and a large part of it belonged to the aristocratic-landowner class, including large areas of private property in the Agrarian Reform law, as a result of the decisions on the confiscation of private property and the expropriation without compensation of those who owned real estate...!
Also, after the confiscation decisions, lands, houses, shops, goods, factories, workshops, bank accounts were transferred to the state and gold was also seized after taking control of the houses of political opponents. The laws of full and partial confiscation under Law No. 41 on the organization of courts were also extended to political prisoners, whose private property was confiscated…!
The practical implementation of the sequestration decisions and its consequences. At the center of attention of the sequestration decisions of the executive committees were the most important figures of the Albanian state before the end of the War, who were declared war criminals and collaborators with the occupier, even though they did not belong to this category, because the United Nations had made public the list of 385 real war criminals for all states after the end of the conflict, which also included Albanian collaborators.
However, most of them were sentenced as “war criminals” with capital punishment, life imprisonment or deprivation of liberty according to categories, and with a sentence of confiscation of private property, according to the decisions of the special court of April 13, 1945. Although a year had passed after the confiscation decision, the Durrës Executive Committee sent to the “Official Gazette” for publication decisions of some of the participants in the previous governments, such as decision no. 3 dated January 9, 1946, seizing the real and movable property of Idhomene Kostur and no. 5, dated January 15, 1946, of Maliq Bushati, Zef Kadare, Mark Kodheli from Shkodra and Ymer Fortuz from Tirana.
The decisions of other convicts were published throughout 1946. The document dated July 18, 1945, which was the first sequestration decision published in the “Official Gazette”, contains the list of 36 fugitive and sequestrated political personalities of the Tirana prefecture and the Petrelë and Valia sub-prefectures, which excluded from the sequestration only Faik Shuaipi, because after the new investigations he did not appear to be a fugitive, indicating how the political configuration in Albania changed after the War. Most of the fugitives had vacated their villas in New Tirana and the neighborhoods in the center of Tirana, which were taken over by the new political class.
From the list of fugitives of the Executive Committee of the Antifascist National Liberation Council of the Tirana prefecture, as well as the assets they had left on July 11, 1945, there is also data on the new residents of the houses of political fugitives, which are often villas and are made available to the leaders of the partisan army or their allies, but in other cases there are also large houses rented by these deracines and the rent was collected by the state.
The house in New Tirana of Prenk Previzit was inhabited by Sefedin Koleci, a partisan of the IV Brigade, and Ilija Budini, an indentured servant in the Army Corps, Mehdi Frashëri's apartment was given to the Soviet Military Mission, in Ymer Fortuzi's apartment on "Rrugë e Fortuzëve" lived Myslym Peza, while Asim Abdurramani's house in New Tirana was inhabited by Dr. Ymer Dishnica, Sali Vuçiterni's apartment is recorded as having been rented by Beqir Balluku and two other people, and Hamdi Kërçiku's residence was held as a tenant by Koço Tashko and eight other people.
Some of these apartments were also given to partisans and people of good political standing by the Housing Section without rent. This practice, as we will see, would be followed in later years also with the wealthy and merchants, whose best houses would be given to communist leaders after the departure of the previous owners. The Persecution of Merchants for Gold The first phase of the gold collection had been the drafting of a declaration of wealth for each merchant and the payment of the extraordinary tax in Albanian and foreign gold and silver coins, in addition to payment in gold francs.
The merchants tried to evade the exact statistics of gold, which the Executive Committee requested, as it had done with the statistics of the valuation of property and goods. The collection of hidden goods and warehouses of goods was also accompanied by the discovery of hidden gold by all means and by torture to extract it. For this purpose, the third sector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was created, which would prepare three minutes of the seizure of gold, one by the head of the State Bank and the other by the local branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to reports from the Korça Police, 400 kg of gold and 48 thousand napoleons were seized from merchants in this city. The “People’s Protection Bodies” and their local sections in various cities were engaged in discovering gold hidden in jars or hidden goods and in raiding the homes of the wealthy, seizing not only gold coins, but all kinds of cutlery and valuables, such as gold, silver and bronze jewelry, rings, pendants, etc., but also sets of spoons, forks washed in gold or silver, as well as antique objects such as gold works from past centuries, gold coins for decoration, and mementos inherited from family ancestors.
The year 1946, which was also the year of nationalization, would bring great pressure on merchants and the collection of gold would be carried out by all means. The first phase of the collection of merchants' gold included the years 1946-1948 and the second phase the years 1950-1952, while political opponents were sentenced to confiscation and their gold was confiscated continuously throughout the first decade. In the years 1952-1954, the sequestration of gold was extended to other social classes that had gold.
The consequences of the use of force to extract the gold from the merchants led to their imprisonment. They were left without food and lived on dry bread for months. Then their families were also imprisoned and subjected to constant psychological pressure, with torture that aimed, under the threat of violence, to psychological collapse and to report the gold. In Durrës, the merchants were even sunk with their entire bodies into the ground and only their heads were left outside, until they handed over the gold. As a result, in Elbasan, the merchants Sulejman Domi, Xhaferr Çelirama, Mateo Papajani, Refik Muftiu, etc. died in prison for gold.
In Tirana, Cen Alimehmet, (as he himself claims), after the goods of his shop and the house in “Kodra e Kuqe”, which had been turned into an Orphanage, as well as the shops in the center and the lands in Mëzez, were seized, he was forced to hand over 3 thousand napoleons in 1946 and other amounts in 1951 and was detained by the Internal Affairs Branch, to find out where he had hidden the gold. He did not resist and showed the place where he kept the gold, came home and found another 900 napoleons.
The same fate awaited other merchants, such as Tod Çoka, who died from torture because he refused to reveal where he had hidden the gold. Other merchants who handed over the gold were Hoç Këllezi, (father of former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Abdyl Këllezi), as well as Murat Begeja, Tahir Gjinali, the Radheshi brothers, Mihal Dovana from Durrës, etc.
Many large merchants were sentenced to confiscation of their movable and immovable property as political opponents and were sent to the Maliq labor camp. According to the memoirs of Skënder Stefanllari, a survivor of the Vloçisht camp, the merchants became victims of the Maliq swamp under the threat; “show the gold, or you will die in the swamp” and were subjected to tortures that could not be conceived by the human mind. The merchants who died in the swamp were Sotiraq Lako, who was buried in the swamp, as well as Kosta Fundo, Bexhet Frashëri, while the merchant Koço Misrasi hanged himself and had his gold teeth pulled out.
In July 1948, Skënder Stefanllari recounts how, after false accusations were leveled against him that he had allegedly created a prison court headed by Niko Kirkë, with the role of prosecutor to condemn the communist regime, he, moved in the seat, clashed with the camp guards and, after they hit him on the head with a belt and he fell unconscious, saved his life by taking him on his shoulders by the great merchant from Durrës originally from Kavaja, Alfons Dovana.
Only 100 kg of grain for former Prime Minister Koço Kotta
Decision No. 183, dated July 16, 1945, with proposal no. 1/115, dated June 15, 1945, of the Commission on the Study, Administration, and Seizure of the Assets of Political Fugitives in Korça, decided to seize the assets of the imprisoned former Prime Minister Koço Kotta, which included, according to the mortgage inventory, a house in Korça, two vineyards and some fields in the villages of Vinçan and Pendavinj in Korça, as well as 32 shares as co-owner of 299 shares of the coffee, salon and cinema "Majestik", together with their shares managed by the anonymous company "Cinemattaro", worth 500 gold francs each and also included the inventory of household objects, which also included those of antique museum value, such as a portrait with the "royal coat of arms" in glass, a set of dishes (silver) and two empty chests, and only 100 kg. of grain were left to the family. until the final decision.
Confiscations of Soviet Embassy victims
On April 13, 1951, the Tirana Internal Affairs Branch handed over to the Tirana branch of the Bank of Tirana 28 napoleons, 25 pounds, 9 Turkish liras, a gold coin holder and jewelry, as well as 113.590 lek paid into the state budget and 30 Italian banknotes from 1 thousand to 30 thousand lire out of circulation, confiscated by the Supreme Military Court with decision no. 64, dated February 27, 1951, of those executed unjustly accused of the bomb at the Soviet Embassy: Lluka Raskovic, Tefik Sheku, Haki Kodra, Reis Selfo, Manush Peshkëpia, Ali Qoralli, Qemal Kasoruho, Petro Konomi, Hekuran Tresake, Mehmet Ali Shkupi, Reshit Shima, Sabiha Kasimati and Pandeli Nova.
On March 24, 1953, the Police had decided that the amount of 31 thousand lek should be returned to Mediha Libohova, the wife of former Minister Eqrem Libohova, for the jewelry found, because no confiscation decision had been made against her, but the Minister of Finance did not agree and requested that they be transferred to the State Bank by legal provisions, without compensation.
Hamit Matjani's Florins
In 1954, 7 kg. and 870 gr. of gold, confiscated from saboteurs Zenel Shehu and Hamit Matjani, were entered into the State Treasury, consisting of 607 napoleons, 1 half napoleon, 317 pounds, 315 half-sterlings, 1 two and a half dollars, 27 Turkish liras, 1 ruble worth 7 1/2, 3 five-ruble pieces, Austrian gold coins weighing 5 gr. and a half./ Memorie.al
