The commemorative event, organized by the Authority for Information on Former State Security Files and the National Book and Reading Centre, brought together officials, Parliament Speaker Elisa Spiropali, the Head of the Authority for Information on Former State Security Files, Genta Sula,the Director of the National Book and Reading Centre, Alda Bardhyli, survivors, officials, and citizens to honor those who suffered under oppressive regimes on the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of all Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, declared by the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

Now a tourist attraction, Porto Palermo, a small triangular fortress by the sea, once served as a concentration and internment camp for the hundreds of dissidents during Albania’s communist era. The site has also served as a detention center during the fascist occupation in the 1940s and this is the reason why it was chosen for its symbolic representation of suffering across three distinct periods in Albanian history.

The Director of the National Book and Reading Centre, Alda Bardhyli, focused on significance of promoting the literature of remembrance and the authors who were jailed and interned in the communist prisons and concentration camps.

Parliament Speaker Spiropali described August 23 as the day of remembrance and tributes to millions of human lives cut short.

“Those personal dramas and tragedies of all human society caused by two extreme sides of regimes and ideologies. Two sides of the same abyss. Two sides of the same criminal coin, which were Nazi-fascism and communism,” Spiropali said in her remarks.

“Porto Palermo speaks to us across three different times,” said Gentiana Sula, head of the Authority. “It was a site of oppression during the war, the early years of the communist regime and even during the Cold War This place holds stories of human pain and resilience.”

The ceremony included an exhibition featuring sketches by survivor Lek Pervizi and testimonies from other survivors, namely Lek Mirakaj, Dine Dine, Bibjan Mirakaj and Rudina (Dema) Mane, who were children at the time of their internment.

According to the Authority for Information on Former State Security Files, over 6,000 people were executed during the communist era, many without trial, and thousands more were imprisoned or exiled. The full scale of the repression remains unaddressed, with the burial sites of many victims still unknown.

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