EstOvest: the suffering of Albanian Christians during the communist regime

The RAI broadcast "EstOvest" has returned to treating Albania focusing on the suffering of those innocent, that is the Christian community, persecuted during the communist atheist regime of Enver Hoxha.

Il servizio

Over fifty years of harsh repression since the winter of the '45, with the upsurge of the years' 60 is 70 when atheism entered the Albanian constitution and having a gospel at home could cost up to 10 years in prison.

The sufferings of the Albanian Christian martyrs during the Enver Hoxha regime culminated in Scutari where the presence of the Christian community was more numerous. In this Franciscan monastery, the Sigurimi locked up and killed many of the 38 martyrs made blessed in the 2016 by Pope Francis. For the prisoners often tied with wire, their limbs were broken or electrical torture was applied.

The sound of the drum follows the steps of the Roman soldiers marching in Gethsemane; it is the first movement of the suffering of the innocent, the symphonic work that tells the suffering of the Madonna at the foot of the cross. Composing it in the 2011 was Kiko Arguello, the founder of the neo-catechumenal path dedicates the Albanians to the martyrs the execution at the PalaFlorio of Bari.

The Albanians who came for the occasion in Puglia are about 100, among them there was also this elderly woman eyewitness of the violence of the communist regime.

"They went around the houses looking for crosses and paintings of the saints, they found my cross and I went down to the street to take it back. My uncle was a priest, 21 closed him days in a coffin without drinking or eating, there was only a hole to make him breathe, but he survived."- says Ejlli Prendi.

'God Listen to Us', Christian prisoners but also Muslims wrote on the walls of Scutari prison. They also wanted to survive, but by the dozens they crossed the so-called air cell from where they came out for torture or for shooting.

On the other hand, another woman from Eastern Europe survived interned in a Nazi concentration camp in Bohemia, the mother of master Tomas Hanus; it was he, the director of the National Opera of Wales, who directed the symphony of the innocent in Bari:

"My mom had 11 years when she was locked up, she survived but she also saw the suffering of the innocent. Interned with her there were very small children, this symphony must be performed for her and for all humanity. To say one thing: be careful. " - concludes Hanus.