– Interview with Rudina Xhunga of Dritare.al, 8 February 2016 –
The following transcript is based on the English-language subtitles to the YouTube version of this interview, published on the channel of the journalist Rudina Xhunga. It has been normalised for a published record. In the interview of this historically significant Albanian personality, the interviewee recounts her own life story. — The Voice of Albania
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): I would like to share ten memories of almost ten decades of your life, starting with a period people do not know much about, i.e. the Bitola period. Let us start with memories of your hometown.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I was born in Bitola on 8 February 1921. My parents were from Dibra. But why in Bitola? Because the Xhuglinis came from Malesia e Madhe. I do not know why, but they decided to come down and settle down in Dibra, where they lived for 200 years. Time, however, came for them to leave Dibra, because at the beginning of the Second Balkan War of 1912-13, Dibra was attacked by the Serbian forces, who caused an unprecedented massacre, burning houses down, killing men and destroying everything. So, Dibra people had to leave. My father and his five brothers, their parents and families, as well as my mother, also left as refugees. They arrived in Elbasan, and settled down in the Castle of Elbasan. Later, I found archive records showing they all registered by their date of birth. They lived there in the middle of many difficulties.
My mother would tell me that a sack of flour cost one Napoleon gold coin, and after three years, when the First Word War started in 1915, they had to go back home. When they arrived in Dibra, everything back there was destroyed and burned. Our house had also been burned. It was a big three-storey house, as ours was a big family. My mother found all the chests and her wedding national costume burned down. She was fourteen years old then. She had just got married. She told me she had not taken them with her, as she was afraid she would spoil them. And there they were, all burned.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): She wanted to save them for you, her daughter?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: So, they had to go to Manastir (Bitola). Bitola was not unknown to the Xhuglini family, because my grandmother inherited a piece of land there. My father, on the other hand, graduated from the well-known high school of Bitola. He had even been a mayor, or some official clerk in communes close to Bitola. They settled there. They got a house, where I also lived. I do remember the house and a few things from Bitola.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did you ever go back to Bitola later?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Yes, I did go back in 1998, after I was released from prison. I missed it. So, together with a friend from Struga, we went to Bitola, trying to find the house. I had the old address, in Slavic and Turkish, but we could not find it. Well, it had been seventy or eighty years, so things had changed a lot. I was surprised to see the house where the Congress of the Albanian alphabet had been held, newly built. Our parents had not mentioned it to us. Maybe because I was small at the time, seven years old, or because we were so repressed and persecuted that they would just keep silent. I did find the river, and the park… and I am getting off track here, as I wanted to tell you about the house… But I mean, yes, I went there, because I missed the place I was born. It was a two-storey house, raised several steps from the ground. It was a big house of ten rooms, because our family was big.
We also had a front yard and a back yard. The back door was a typical tiny old one, used mostly for bringing in winter food supplies. The front yard was a bit better arranged. I remember it all very well, the oven, the kitchen with six baking spots and the place where we used to store the snow-cleaning tools. There were some trees on the other side, of which I remember the quince trees. They were very good. I still remember their aroma after so many years, because we used to store them in our rooms in the winter. What I remember very well from the house is my two favourite places. First, it was a terrace, as big as a room, at the entrance of the house. It was surrounded by a wooden fence and was covered. I remember ice falling from the roof in the shape of swords. I remember also the snow. It used to snow for several months in Bitola, so it was very cold.
That is why there were not that many flowers in the garden. It was this terrace, though, which was very significant to me. Women would sit there in the summer, talking to their friends. And it was especially important to us, children, because that is where we played. I was the first baby girl born in that house. The children of my oldest uncle, who had passed away, had left with their mother, they did not live with us. My other uncle had a baby girl born after me, and she became my only friend. Then my brother was born, and the uncle also had a son soon. The four of us played together, just us. We did not know any other world. Our home was our world. We were like stuck there.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did you speak Albanian at home?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: At home, yes.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): And Macedonian outside?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: We would only go out occasionally. My mother would take us by hand and go and visit our cousins. Those are the only paths I know. We would also go to the other Xhuglinis in town, Uruçis, friends of ours, who have all come to Tirana now, and to our friend, the writer Haki Stërmilli. Those were our visits. Another entertainment we would have was the sisters-in-law, especially the youngest one, the Turkish. She was from the Turkish minority of Manastir. She was a lively person and loved flowers and green so much that she would even drink her coffee by a flower vase. She would take her sisters-in-law and us, the children, with her to the big park of Manastir. It was a very beautiful park. I went back there in 1998, but it was not the same.
We played in the park, our mothers would take powder coffee and sugar with them, and let us dip our finger in it to taste it, as this was some special thing. That is now a nice memory. As for the town, I only knew very little. Our father would take us shopping. He took us to shops to buy those sugar canes and snow with some red syrup on top. Sometimes, some events took place by the river, as on 6 January, when they would throw the cross in the water. That is what I remember. I also have two bad memories from there, which I probably should not mention. One of my uncle’s sons died at a very young age from tuberculosis. I remember him sitting by the window, watching us. The only disease I remember was the scarlet fever.
I started to swell, I could hardly breathe, but my parents would not tell anyone, because they would put the whole family in quarantine. Our family was big. It was almost twenty people. Eventually, they called for the doctor. He told my mother: “Look madam, you must be very happy not knowing what your daughter was going through. If she was left like that for 24 more hours, you would have lost her.” I would also like to recall a few more things about the house. I told you, I had two favourite places. The winter living room was big. There was an oven there, brick walls, warm all winter long. Even though we were a civilised family, we did not have any beds, chairs or tables. We had those wooden benches by the windows, decorated.
They remind me of similar wooden benches along the windows at the house of Bajo and Çerçiz Topulli in Gjirokastra. They were the same. It was Ottoman style. We also ate on those low eating tables, but instead of a wooden surface, they had a metallic one, some type of metal coming from Turkey, I forget the name. We would all eat together, men, women and children. We had no toys back then. We did not even have the toys that existed then, let alone newer ones. All we had was self-made rag dolls and balls, nuts, stones and these kinds of things.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Another important memory you have is when you left. Did you feel sorry leaving the place, or was there nothing Manastir could offer you? Can you please think of what brought you to Tirana, the capital of your life?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: My father left Manastir, and to tell you the truth, the only thing I felt sorry for was I was being separated from my cousin, because they fled to Turkey, i.e., the Xhuglini family was no longer together. So I came to Tirana happily to meet my father because he arrived here earlier, found a job, and then we joined him. The reason we did not go to Turkey, but stayed in Albania, was because I was seven years old. I had to go to an Albanian school and there was no Albanian schools in Bitola. We moved to Dibra. That is when I saw Dibra for the first time, and I went back there afterwards for holidays several times, during the Zogu regime. But also the day of liberation from the nazis and fascists, because I was around those areas. We spent some days in Peshkopi, where I later also went as an Deputy of the People’s Assembly, and I got to know it better. We organised a trip to return to Tirana.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Were you with your mother and brother?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I was with my mother, brother and two tenants, who were from Greva. That was my mother’s village, because my mother, on her father’s side, was from Greva. The two tenants had two mules. My mother travelled in one of them, together with two small loads, because all we got from home was some clothes. My brother and I came by the other mule, in two baskets, like those big baskets used for transporting grapes, harvest and others. So for me, it was, on the one hand, a feeling of fear, but on the other hand, it was also curiosity because everything to me was new. Along the way I saw forests, rocks, new roads, difficult roads where tenants could barely keep the mules from slipping. My brother, who was younger than me, kept crying. He wanted to sit on mother’s lap, but sometimes we even fell asleep on the way.
When my brother did sit on the mother’s lap, I felt both fear and joy, because they made me sit on the mule, like riding it, and it was naturally the tenant who controlled it by force. So, we arrived the first day in the evening in a kind of a guesthouse, which was called the Stebleva Guesthouse. It was a fearful guesthouse, which I have not forgotten. My mother stayed awake. Later she told me that I kept my eyes open, because I was afraid of the black shadows created by the candle, and she watched us from scorpions or rats that were as big as a cat, and could even take your shoe away. Recently I learned that on that Rruga e Arbrit (Arbri’s Road) goes through that Stebleva road today. So, I think that is the road we took, Rruga e Arbrit.
I think of it now as a highway, with big luxury hotels built on that terrible guesthouse of Stebleva. The second day we arrived in Tirana in the evening. We crossed the Tujan bridge, which is at the foot of Dajti Mountain. There we walked a little bit, getting off the mules, following them to Tirana. They knew where we were going. Mother held us both by the hand. We arrived at a hotel, which is now well-known, at a crossroads at Selvia. There was a slightly more advanced guesthouse on Dibra Street than the one in Stebleva, where our father was waiting for us. We jumped into our father’s arms. You could see how people would meet back then. Mother and father only greeted each-other, but did not hug. My father asked mother how the road went.
Our father picked us up and took us to a nearby house, which he had rented, a room and a kitchen, a house that local people would call a fire house, that is, a house without a chimney, without a ceiling, and the smoke spread freely through the roof tiles. I was not very impressed by the change I went through, from a big house I came to a small one like that. Why did this happen? Because the next day my father and I went out in Tirana.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How was the Tirana of 1928, the Tirana you found?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: The next day we went out with my father and it seemed to me like a miracle that the streets were full of people, people who spoke Albanian. They were smiling, both in the shops we went to or walking in the street. So, it was an extraordinary feeling. It also happened that that day was the anniversary ceremony of the proclamation of the King Zogu. So, we went to “Skanderbeg” Square, which was the same square today, full of men and children. There were very few women and none of them wore veils, so we were not accompanied by our mother, but only our father. There, we saw for the first time fireworks we had not seen before. The first day of school was also a miracle.
Of course this was an extraordinary event for everyone, but for me it was special, because I came from a different country. For the first time we were with friends, teachers, in contact with books and the special thing was that I learned the Albanian language, as I used to speak my own dialect. I mean, I immediately became close to the society. Maybe, it was all of this situation, completely new to me, which gave me all that great zeal for school, for reading, so I became a different person. I was ready for any job. I was involved in drawing tools with great pleasure, also in the competitions that the school did. I remember that at the end of the fifth grade of elementary school, there was a ceremony of our school and the boys’ school. Schools were separate then, with the Red School, and I won the poetry recitation contest there.
I performed a theatrical play, a monologue, entitled “Aunt’s clothes,” which was about national clothes, written by Milto Sotir Gurra, who was one of the last activists of renaissance. There were also songs at this ceremony, in addition to poetry. Among these was a French song by a blind florist, which went like “Take flowers, you generous people, from the blind.” I remembered this melody and told it to Jorgjie Truja, the People’s Artist. We had been friends since school. She memorised it, put it on the pentagram, which was a good souvenir for me. All of these marked the first turning point in my life.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Your mother was covered. Did she want to cover you too?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Exactly. By the time I finished elementary school, I was 12 years old, and I had to deal with those rules and with my mother, with whom I was extremely attached. My mother, precisely because she was all covered, said that it was time for me to put on a veil when I left the house because my friends kept asking her: “Did you cover the girl yet?” However, this was unacceptable to me because I had already felt a sense of freedom and had learned many things, so I objected. I got help by my fifth grade teacher, Nazmije Xhepa, a girl from Tirana, who had also gone through such difficulty and had won. So, finally, with my father being a little liberal, because he was dealing with Albanian language clubs, I won.
It was my first victory towards freedom, that is, breaking away from the customs of the time and place. I want to say that I was the first girl from Dibra, together with Shyrete Turkeshi, the wife of Eqrem Çabej, who continued our studies in high school. I went back to Bitola and realised what life I had had there. I had been trapped. I mean, not just me, but all Albanians. I may also say that even today there are villages in Macedonia where they still suffer like this, although they have changed a lot because they have schools now. But I have heard that in Bitola there was a war for the Albanian school for Albanian children.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You have said your father was a freemason, right?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: The freemasons know why they are called such, but this title was also used in cases for Albanian clubs, that is, those who dealt with the spread of the Albanian language, in support of the Congress that was made for the Albanian language. My uncle also attended the Congress. I do not believe he was a proper participant because he was a very young translator at that time and I learned about it from Skënder Luarasi. He told me Arif Xhuglini had attended the Congress. When we left Bitola, my mother, in addition to those few clothes, took with her the two books we kept hidden at home, Summer Flowers and Qerbelaja by Naim Frashëri, printed in the letters used back then.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Your mother used to read...
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: My mother used to read and this is where I want to again tell you how liberal my father was. It was not common for a man to teach his young wife to read. My mother could read, not write. She only learned to sign, but she forgot it later and there is a story about it. It was a period when we were fighting illiteracy and I asked my mother to sign somewhere, so she could get her war pension, while I was rushing to work. She laughed and said: “I forgot” and I answered: “Wow, my own mother is illiterate, and I do nothing but fight illiteracy.” So my mother kept reading until she died. She enjoyed books on family and social themes, not war, because she had suffered immensely during the war.
She read a lot and blessed my father for two things: he let her keep her pension and taught her to read. They had lived in so much harmony that she would tell me: “My daughter, I wish you find a husband like your father,” so they had got along so well that she would not ask for more.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Your mother did not object to you wanting to go to school, right? And how did you do it financially?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I studied at the Institute for eight years. It was in other books that I realised what I had personally learned from the Girls Institute. I learned about the history of the country, our nation. I discovered a more developed world, since my first grade at the Institute, which was not there later, when the Institute was transferred to today’s “Naim Frashëri” school on Kavaja Street. The older girls from Dako’s school had also come there because the school was closed at that time. I think that they also taught me a lot, because I had lunch with them, won a scholarship, got to know them more closely and I was impressed by their culture in the way they dressed, their conversations and the way they treated me, inviting me to join them at their table.
Also, in the same year, three women professors who had studied abroad and knew foreign languages came to school. It was the wife of Vasil Andoni, known as a high school teacher, but also as a member of the Balli Kombëtar. There was also Eda Misturi from Shkodra, who was very charming. At that time we would prefer one professor or the other. For me, Eda was the most charming and beloved professor, with whom I also have pictures. They dressed very sporty, with very short hair, I mean very modern. There was also another one, who taught us nature. The tasks they gave us were a bit strange, but she did not come to the Institute any longer.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Were you an observer type of girl at the Institute, or a very active one?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I was a calm and silent girl. I mean I would socialise, but I was not really active. I had a couple of close friends, like the daughter of the school principal, Sotir Papakristo, with whom I have a beautiful story. She did not get involved in our revolutionary movement. She had nothing to do with it, but she was also religious, from Korça, while I was a partisan. She ran away, married an Italian engineer and fled to Perugia, but we kept in touch.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You had friends at that time and maintained relations with the war girls, but also with girls who did not get engaged in the war. On the contrary, they were on the other side. You were a girl who accepted everyone.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Not everyone. Although I ran the communist school groups, the girls’ school cell, we also had our own nature that we did not display outside. This was a very closed thing of ours, especially at the beginning. I was close friends with Nermin Vlora, whom I met even after the system changed, through correspondence, etc. She used to say to me: “Nexhmije, I have travelled to many continents!” This was because her husband was an Italian diplomat. I was a partisan, while she married an aviator. She came to my house with her husband when they visited Tirana. She told me they also went to Latin America and Africa. We had a very good school, with skilled professors at the Institute. Then there was Meri. I keep the most beautiful letter from Meri. We did not communicate much with letters. She came to Tirana but we did not meet. Her father, Sotir Papakristo, was a professor of ancient languages.
He would come to me during the period of people’s power and complain to me about things, and I always respected and honoured him. When he died, I made a good wreath of beautiful flowers on Meri’s behalf, without asking Meri and without telling her, even though she had her sister here. I went to his funeral. She was later told that Nexhmije had done so and she sent me a warm letter which is very heartbreaking. The other friend was Naxhije Dume, a was friend, very well-educated. I had Musa Juka’s daughter in primary school. She would get sick and I would go to her house. The primary school teacher would take her and me to take pictures, me for the good grades and her for being the minister’s daughter. Filomena Mosi was also my friend. She was the daughter of Hilë Mosi, who had taken part in the northern uprisings, was a patriot and became the Minister of Education. I knew her mother and her sister. We would go often to each other’s homes because we were very close, and they lived a simple life.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): I was impressed by a letter I read in the republishing of the book If I Were a Boy, a letter by the nickname Flaka, which you sent to Haki Stërmilli, in 1936. What was that letter? I was impressed by the way you approached him, telling him what to do for women and girls. What happened?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: It was the result of a path or tendency that I had acquired regarding literature, regarding the problem of the liberation of Albanian women and girls. Through reading, I had met with three women, Olga Plumbi, Selfixhe Ciu and Mila Gjogoreci. They were older than me, but Selfixhe’s sister, who was my classmate, and who knew that I was very interested in this, introduced me to them. I got very much connected with all three of them, even though I was younger, and we remained friends for a long time. We talked about literature, about the emancipation of women because the three girls wrote in the magazine Bota (The World), which I read a lot. I can also say that I was a fan of Migjeni, his stories and poems, which I have read, recited and loved all my life. So I was very much into those kinds of things.
Meanwhile Selfixhe Ciu had introduced me to Qemal Stafa, because she was part of that circle, which I joined, so I became more involved with Qemal and started the life of a revolutionary, a communist. Haki Stërmilli was not a communist. However, he wrote this book, which at the time was among the first novels, and it has been published several times, about 18 times I read somewhere. It was not an easy thing to write at that time, to point the finger at the wound of our society. I felt naive when I read it, giving great reviews to those poets and writers who wrote about the sky, the stars and love. But I also feel good that although fifteen at the time, I wrote to him that one day girls would not need to say “if I were a boy,” but would take their own freedom in their hands. This is something they even mentioned to me, but that I already felt it at that age. As I said, I was recommended to him.
The letter may have also played a role. I was called to a meeting with Qemal Stafa and there I met him for the first time in the summer of 1937. He assigned me with special tasks at the Institute. I am not saying that I was the only one, but I was one of the first to be charged such tasks, and not purely literary or progressive kind of work at the Institute, but well-organised revolutionary communist work. We set up some cells, there were two or three people in each cell, the ones I considered appropriate and trusted. We spoke about communist ideas. We girls talked about progress because our Institute was a temple for progressive ideas, as we demonstrated once we came to power.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Were you the main character at the movie Girls with Red Ribbons?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: People have kept saying that, but I’m not the ribbon character. They have taken certain episodes from our revolutionary life. I might have been part of some of them, yes, but not all. That was how it worked then, on recommendations, so you would not be compromised right away. But there were others like Safo Marko or Safo Çela, as they were called then, or Petro Marko’s wife. She was really active. Things like the breaking of Mussolini’s portraits are attributed to her other friends like Margarita Tutulani, who was the most withdrawn one, while Ramize Gjebrea was quite active, so it was her and other very energetic friends who would tear down flags and things like that. They were not compromised and not really involved in the movement. They were not communists, they were not part of any cells, they were supporters.
Our job was during breaks in the last years of the Institute, when we quit reading Marx, Engels, science and religion to deal with the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War. This was also the great turning point that occurred with the National Liberation War.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You managed to avoid wearing the veil with the help of your father, but how did you deal with your mother? How did you manage to tell them that you were a communist, that you were involved? How did you tell them at home?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: That was a problem. There was such conspiracy then that even communists themselves did not know each other. We had no idea who the other communists were. My brother, who was two years younger than me, was a communist. It is ridiculous to say, but it is also beautiful, that both he and I had a certain pamphlet on communism. I had put mine at the foot of the iron bed, hiding it there. Working at home, I moved beds, so I could clean beneath them, and I found a pamphlet like that, hidden there. I asked myself “How did I do that? Hiding it underneath the bed.” I went to my own bed to check, and I found mine there. There I learned that my brother was a communist at the gymnasium. He was together with Piro Kondi, Alqi Kondi and among the first young people who came from the new organisation and joined the Party.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How did your mother find out about you two?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: My mother already knew some of my friends like Fiqiret Sanxhaktari/Shehu and Drita Kosturi. They were the friends who would drop by during breaks or to do homework. I mean, my mother knew them. When Qemal Stafa was imprisoned, I got in touch with Mihal Duri, a hardworking and brave person. We know his story. He sent me a letter through his sister, asking me to organise several meetings, and telling me where meetings would take place. He would write letters and send them to me through Oli, the short name for Olimbi. My mother did not know her, but she was not from our school. So she began to doubt. I would put the letters in a drawer of my homework desk.
We had just gotten a desk at home, as we had no tables or beds until then, in 1936, just as we had no electricity. We would only light a kerosene lamp. She had opened the drawer and found them. She could also read, but the letters were handwritten, so she could only pick up certain letters, and she suspected they were love letters. She used to wake me up in the morning, calling me two or three times. I could barely wake up myself because I read until 2 in the morning. She told me she would only call me twice, and not wake me up after that. I knew this, so after the second time she called me, I would get up and leave for school without breakfast. That day she let me sleep.
When she came back I asked her why she let me sleep and she took me, sat me down by the fireplace and started asking me. I had to tell my mother that we were communists. My mother was surprised. It turned out differently from what she had thought. We had never been involved in politics, except for my mother’s uncles, Bajo and Çerçiz Topulli, who had and who had got killed. However, my mother became my best friend. When the war came, she became the courier of the Central Committee, she would go to Elbasan. She was interested in going there because my brother went illegal before me. He had become a party member and the party would send people wherever they wanted, so she joined the youth of Elbasan. This way, our mother could kill two birds with one stone.
Our house, although both children had fled illegally, was the base of three couriers, the one of Vlora, Korça and Elbasan. She became a member of the local council. My father and mother were interned by decision. They were looking for me too, but they could not arrest me.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How did you meet Enver Hoxha? How did your “Yes” to Enver Hoxha come about? How did this love happen in wartime?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Two weeks after the founding of the Communist Party, a meeting was convened to establish the Communist Youth Organisation and the Anti-Fascist Youth. I was also invited and on 23 November 1941, I went to the meeting that was scheduled at the house of Bije Vokshi in Tirana. I was the only girl in the twenty delegates to this meeting who were representatives of the three groups that participated in the communist union and I represented the Shkodra group. So, as I said, I was the only and the youngest among the delegates. In the evening, when we were all present, Enver Hoxha came together with Qemal Stafa. Enver came as a delegate of the Provisional Central Committee of the Party, while Qemal also came as a delegate of the Central Committee, but he was in charge of the youth. Qemal first introduced Enver not by his name, but his nickname, Taras.
After that, Enver came around the table where we had gathered and shook hands with each of us. There were some people that Enver already knew. He had taught them at the Korça High School. When he came to me, Qemal told him that I was the “Delicate” friend he had spoken to him about. The nickname “Delicate” had a story behind. It was Qemal himself who called me that first because, in the communist group, I was withdrawn, not an expansive girl like Drita Kosturi, who would put on her red ribbon even when she went out. I, on the other hand, was extremely timid. Enver knew me already from the presentations of the candidates who would join the party. Before that, we established the women’s organisation. Someone came to tell us what had been decided at the founding meeting. I was also aware of the issues that would be discussed there, because it was the first meeting after a week, and the conviction that was set for the work of the groups, which are also in the archive. Enver also came to greet the meeting. I have written about my impression of that first encounter on my book.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): What did you think when you saw him?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Honestly, the first thing was the way he looked and his stature, which I liked. He had a sleek look. Then I was very happy. I felt a special pleasure to see we had a mature leader because it was evident in all the work that took place there in that meeting, that he was an advanced and cultured leader.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): But nothing personal?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: To tell you the truth, I didn’t think of anything more than that. Not only then, but also for a long time because I had decided that I would not engage in a love affair, much less get married, during the war. First, because I had not yet decided to choose. I was still in a kind of platonic love and had my romantic dreams, and I did not want to decide quickly. Well, especially in the middle of the war. I thought that war is war. If the one I chose would be killed, then I would not get married all my life. I mean that I had decided this.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): That was your idea for love?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: This was my concept of love and married life. Then it did not even occur to me to ask if he was married or not, because we had an age difference: I later found out it was a difference of thirteen years. I was just glad we had such a leader. That was my impression at the first meeting. That is how I saw it at the demonstration that took place in October, but I only saw him from a distance then. That is when I asked. Well, we did not know each other then, because I was in the school group.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): What made Enver Hoxha different from Qemal Stafa and other people who led at that time?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I guess what made him different from Qemal was his age. Qemal was 19-20 years old, while Enver was 30 years old. In terms of intelligence and culture, of course Enver had more years of it, as he had been in France, while Qemal was still a high school student and started to go to Florence in those years. He did read a lot though. Their natures, not to go into too much detail, were a little different. Qemal was more outgoing, expansive and funny, full of jokes, while Enver was different, more focused, but he would accept both jokes and company. So, he and Qemal became very good friends. Koçi Xoxe, who became his right hand, was just a worker, a tinsmith. He did not know much about culture, and even thought that such things belonged to the bourgeoisie. I mean, he was quite plain. He did get along well with friends, though, treated them well, until the end.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): So, Enver Hoxha was the man you immediately knew would be the love of your life.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I had not yet decided until the time came that I too began to think.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): When did you start thinking about it?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: A crucial thing happened. It was not only war that united us, as Enver himself said, quite excessively. This is true. It could not happen otherwise. Him being from Gjirokastra or Korça and me from Tirana, I was a girl of a different nature. But what connected us was illegality. On 12 April 1942, a fascist date, there were demonstrations before the founding of the party. That was for us one of the largest, most organised demonstrations with people being injured and in blood, including my brother, who was arrested, bleeding. So, trying to find out about what would happen to my brother, I probably became a little more visible. This happened on 8 April, while on 12 April, a militia officer came to arrest me at home.
When we saw the militia, my uncle’s son, who was like a brother to me, because my mother had raised him after he was orphaned, went out to tell them that Nexhmije was not here and started to tell him: “How are you going to arrest your sister?” etc. I was in the room, but there was a great alarm and panic. We had a nun at home then. She had fled as an anti-fascist. I mean, she was Catholic, and we were Muslim communists. Maybe she was fed up with that kind of life being a young girl. At that moment, I was dealing with her. I gave a firm order to my mother to help her dress. They dressed her like my mother and I told her: “Do not say anything, you are deaf!” I would leave, but Skënder convinced her to stay.
In fact, we later learned he was our man, who had joined the militia, because you could do this then. He was informed that I would be arrested and he arrived in time to tell us. Meanwhile, I ran away and this was when I left my family and started my illegal life. I went to a cousin until it got dark. At that time I could enter Bije Vokshi’s house, where a youth meeting would take place. Enver, as the Secretary of Tirana, was the organiser of the meeting and during this time, while the meeting was about to close, he slowly escorted everyone and I was left alone. Of course, it had happened other times that together with the lady of the house, we were left behind to wash and make sure everything was clean, so if anyone would come and check, they would not know that there had been a meeting.
So I got down and with my knees on the ground I started to forcefully wash the wooden floors with a brush, while Bija would throw water on the floor. Enver was standing at the door, watching, and there began a debate, a joking debate where he threw out the joke: “I am surprised you can wash,” to which I answered: “Well, I am a girl from Dibra.” He continued: “Well, you have a lot of water there, Gjirokastra has no water at all and it is cleaner.” So we continued joking like that. Then, when the house cleaning was over, he noticed I was confused and asked me where I was going, as I could not go home anymore — that was the night I went illegal. I told him I did not know. He asked me: “Don’t you have an uncle or aunt?” “No,” I said. I had cousins, but I could not go to them. I was not sure they would take me in. They would be surprised as to why I was not going home.
Then he said to me: “Come with me. Get on my bike, and we can go to one of our safe homes.” Back then, I used to dress up, wearing a hat and turban, black glasses. He was dressed as a worker, with several wires hanging over his shoulder. He asked me to get on the bike, making me laugh. First, how could I sit in front of him on the bike? I had never done that. I told him: “But I am a signorina, what have I got to do with you?!” and he answered “Come on, we have no time, it’s getting dark.” The curfew was coming. So, like it or not, I got on the bike, sideways, and we went to a house that is historic for us, for our life. It was a house near “Qemal Stafa” school, which was called the Tirana Power Plant. That house is now demolished. I went to see it after the liberation and embassies were built there. It is known as the embassy street.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Whose house was it?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: It was a strange house, with no courtyard. You could enter the house directly from the street, through a small front corridor. This was the house of a friend of Enver, Syrja Selfo. He had taken it for his fiancée, because he had broken up with his brothers. They would not accept his fiancée, so he had taken this house to live with her. This house was not known to anyone, and he had turned it into a safe house for Enver, a reserve base, where no meetings were held and it was only known to Gogo Nushi, Enver’s nephew, Luan Omari and me. So, I spent the night there. I slept with Bibika, while Enver slept in the other room. There were no beds, but only those wooden sofas. This was the first meeting, but then Enver asked for me to go and report to him regularly. So, he wanted to see me. I can also say I wanted to see him too. For example, when Qemal Stafa was killed, I was very sad.
He was the General Secretary of the Youth one of the leaders I loved and respected, my first educator. I did not know where to go, so I went to Enver. He was also very sad. We stayed up until late talking about Qemal, recalling how each of us knew him. Enver tried to lift me up a little bit. I was very young and these were the first losses I was experiencing. In the evening, the hosts also came. They were out, so they told us what was going on. This was the first meeting, but there were others later. In those meetings, Enver noticed I was pretending I did not understand, but I actually understood, because I could see he was happy when he saw me. Gogo Nushi’s mother teased him when she saw him cheered all up: “Enver, what is Nexhmije to you?” He would reply, laughing: “Just a friend Valide, a friend.”
Also Advija, who was also from Dibra, the mother of Zeqi Agolli, who had been a very important safe house for us, loved me very much and told him: “What are you doing, spoiling her too much?” and maybe she wanted it to happen. So one day, when Enver realised that I did not understand anything or pretended I did not, decided to speak up. One summer day he told me “I am going to sleep, wake me up at 5 o’clock.” I went to wake him up, but he had not actually slept. He had probably sat down to make his decision. There, he proposed to marry me. It was such a prosaic proposal that I had never thought of.
Before telling me explicitly “I love you,” while I was making the coffee he had asked me, he said: “I want to marry you.” I froze, looking at the coffee. I did not move. He said to me: “So, what is it you are making? Soup?” I gave him the cup of coffee and he kept joking. But I was shy, blushing. “Sit, sit here! I’m not going to eat you!” he said. I mean, he tried to relax me a little bit. With my head down, I said, “I’m not going to marry during the war.” “But who said we’re going to marry during the war,” he said. “At first we will tell our friends, but think about it, because you are young and we have an age difference.” Then he continued: “But I cannot wait that long. My mother is waiting. I am her only son.” I did not answer right there. A few months passed and I replied: “My dam of ideas was broken.”
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): So, 22 June 1942 is, in a way, your informal marriage.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: No, I would not call it a marriage. I do not even like to call it an engagement, but that is what our families called it, because it was like formalising our relationship. I initially asked that we keep this a secret. Enver refused, saying that he would tell some of his friends, as well as our families. So I was introduced to his mother and sisters. I went one day to meet them. My mother went to one of our safe houses and met Enver, and she was very happy with the groom in the end. Later he remembered what had happened at the beginning of my illegality, when Qemal was killed. She asked me “What are you going to do? Boys are being killed. I wish you had at least a friend to protect you.” Apparently I was smiling. She saw it and asked me if I did have anyone. I answered with a laugh: “I have one, and guess what. He is a hoxha (imam).”
“Do not make fun of me,” she told me and when she later met Enver I said: “Do you see that he is really a hoxha (imam)?” I also told three or four of my close friends, but they were the only ones that knew. The big problem was that we really connected, but love was hard in time of war, because we could not go and meet constantly. We were both busy with our activities. We could not go around other people’s homes and behave like husband and wife. We had to be careful so not to compromise our partner. Those things did happen back then. By exposing yourself, you could even expose your safe house and get your friends killed.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Was your relationship more of a letter exchange than meetings in-person then?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Our meetings were like this. We met at all our joint meetings, both here and outside.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You did not live together in the same house?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: We did not live together. We often went to Enver’s older sister, where we stayed together but did not sleep because we were not married. I slept in a different room, but we sat all the time talking. In other houses we could not stay like that, because people would notice. True love was allowed in times of war, it was quite natural and this is why there was a marriage boom after liberation. All those in love got married and had children. This is what happened both historically and statistically. During the war people would fall in love, I mean partisans and those living illegally, not the ones who were legal and organisers. They could not get married. Marriage was compromising, and there were events of which we have even been accused on some occasions. We would meet when we went to Peza, Labinot, Përmet, Berat, Helmës, wherever it was. That was all our meetings were about. We did not have time to stay two or three days together.
There were even occasions when we went to a city together and did not meet at all. Therefore, this was the time of letters, correspondence. This was how we got to know each other. We connected and communicated. During the war I had thirteen letters from Enver. I wrote almost as many, or maybe more, but my letters were not found because at some point, during the winter operation, they buried my letters along with the other documents, and they were not found. Only two survived. They were sent over to the archives and I received them later. I kept Enver’s letters in very difficult conditions, under Fahrije’s wooden floor. There were no beds then, so Luan and his brother slept on them. That’s how I saved those letters.
I would brag to him about having sent me letters, but he did the same, bragging I did not.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): The war letter that impressed me the most was your letter to him about the liberation of Tirana, the way you wrote to Enver Hoxha about your fear that Tirana was not prepared and Enver Hoxha’s explanation of how Tirana would be attacked and liberated, a letter between two people in love talking about an operation.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Well, I was young. I was a twenty-year-old girl and expected more letters, more frequent, longer and more intimate love letters, while he wrote to me about work, being even critical sometimes. He said: “What are those buns you produce,” because we worked in Tirana, and we published a daily bulletin that we published in Tirana. I asked him to send me love letters, but he said to me: “Well, I am not in college, you have to understand me.” But he did understand me and he did become a college student later. I, on the other hand, started writing seriously. The letter he wrote about Tirana, how Tirana would be liberated, was when liberation of Tirana seemed no longer possible, as the allies were about to arrive. He had come to Peza then.
I wrote to him again, explaining to him that Tirana was struggling, that our guerrilla units were not able to help and that they could not count on the partisan military forces too much. In that letter, at that age, I was addressing the Commander-in-Chief of the Staff, so it was not a personal letter. However, further in the letter, he comforted me by saying: “Why did you take it so badly? Who criticises you, loves you,” etc., and then he wrote: “Now, let us now start with the toughest part.” That was him. That, however, did not happen, not because I had said so, but things changed and the allies did not arrive. The letters started to become more serious. He very much liked a report that he asked me to draft about the state of the organisation. He said: “So, you can really make reports,” praising me.
At the same time, following the assassination of Misto Mame, who was the Organisational Secretary, I was appointed the Organisational Secretary, along with Nako Spiro. Enver did not only praise me. He also made sure I was making progress, since I would be his wife. “I hope you don’t get too self-confident now,” he would say. He played a role during the war for me. We were away from each other and I was young. He was afraid I could become too confident, knowing I would become his wife. After the war, the situation changed. I also grew up and became more mature.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did you become too confident?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: On the contrary, it made me very withdrawn.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Being the wife of the most important man in the country?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Well, I did not want to stand out. On the one hand, this is how I also saw myself. That was by nature and my friends respected that.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You became his wife. Officially, your marriage took place at the “Dajti” Hotel in January 1945. You started living together, became Enver Hoxha’s wife and lived together ever since. Can we collect all your memories in one answer?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Actually, there was no wedding as such. Even the foreign press reported that the reception took place at the “Dajti” Hotel on the occasion of the country’s liberation and the arrival of the government in Tirana, and that it was the first time that Enver took me in his arms, announcing me as his wife. They wrote that this reception was Enver’s wedding, but it was not meant for his wedding. Enver refused to have a wedding. His mother did want one, and his sisters had also planned to have a wedding, but Enver told them: “No, we cannot have a wedding because we still suffer the pain of our comrades lost in the war, our hearts cannot celebrate a wedding.” So he did not do anything at all, but his mother and sisters did not give up. They insisted on following the tradition, so they decided to take me as a bride. They asked Enver for his car, but he refused.
So, they took a carriage, a ripped one, carried by a horse, so weak and thin, with its head down. They came to take me from my house. I, the bride, was wearing a partisan jacket. The two families did those traditional ceremonies and they took me to Enver’s house, which we had organised so we could live in it. In fact, Enver was not at home waiting for me. For us, this was an artificial thing. We were already married, there was no need for such things. However, we did it, gifts for the bride and groom were exchanged between the two families, and that was it. There was no wedding, but on 1 January 1945, it was the New Year and the ceremony was organised.
I forgot to say that on 31 December, we made several visits to the so called “Officers’ House,” where the Youth Union was hosting a dance party. We stayed there for a while, went to the National Theatre, where all the artists and other cultural personalities, such as writers, etc., had gathered. Then we came to our family, stayed for a while and then retreated to our favourite place, our beloved bedroom, where we rested and slept thirty years of our lives.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): In thirty years of your life, what kind of husband was Enver Hoxha?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: It’s hard to describe it in a few words. An extraordinary spouse, we found in each other many things in common. Our whole life was love, devotion, harmony and with the arrival of the children, nothing changed. There was a problem then, especially at that time. With the arrival of children, even though it was a great joy, such a joy that Albanians would even shoot their guns, parents would not caress their children in the presence of the elders. There are times when a woman is not very wise and love ends. If the husband takes care of his business and the wife devotes her whole life, all of herself to her children, the relationship may be affected. That’s how I understood it then.
The arrival of a child is a miracle, it makes love more flourishing, more beautiful, more enduring, when it stands above that child, who belongs to both. I do not know how to explain what feelings that brings to you. I understood this very well, and I handled it well. Enver was not only a wonderful husband, but a wonderful father too. However, he did expect me to do the heavy artillery, while doing the light one himself. He would say to our children, “Look up to your mother. She is a teacher!” I was the one handling the heavy artillery. But those first moments, when I cared for our babies, were wonderful. I breastfed the three of them for eleven months. He never got upset. We went through everything together, although I tried not to bother him during those times. I enjoyed the evenings we spent together.
Enver, all his life, in every moment, even in the most difficult ones, did not neglect his family life or his care and love for the children. Every Sunday we would sit down to eat together. In the evening, the kids had to be home by a certain time. We spent very happy moments with the children until 22:30. The children would give him a leg massage and he praised them or told them jokes. We, women, were also nearby and we were curious why they were laughing. They laughed out loud, but we knew that as soon as we would go to our rooms, we would find out the reason. He joked with the children.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): From the letters you exchanged with Enver at this time, it looks like he was a stranger, given the way he expressed love to his wife and children. Why so many letters?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Well, I mentioned we had our war letters, but I do have about 100 or so letters of correspondence after liberation. One more beautiful than the other. These letters were written only on those occasions when we were away from each other, when he went on a visit or long vacation, especially when I was breastfeeding, I could not follow him, not even on vacations, so he would check up on me. Or in other cases when I went abroad on duty or when he went abroad, as well as during those two or three times, when I was ill and went for tests in Vienna, Paris, Moscow, where I also had surgery. The most beautiful letters were precisely those during that period. He wrote to me every single night. Some he did send, others he did not, but I found them later. Those are the letters where he became exactly like a high school student, very beautiful.
These letters and those from the war for me are the most precious treasure, along with his diary. These are the only treasures he has left me and nothing else. He was a traditional family man. He took the whole family home, his sisters, his mother. But the evenings were extraordinary.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): While he was a passionate man in his letters towards his wife, you seem to be more withdrawn. How were you like as a wife?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: That is how I was. However, he was more expansive, I was more restrained. I did not tell him in words what I felt inside, but I showed him with gestures and he did feel how deep the love I had for him was. He saw that I sacrificed not only myself, but also my life with the children, so I was completely devoted to him. He did say that, too: “I write such letters to you, you don’t.” Writing letters was sort of artificial to me. Besides, he was a leader, not just my husband. So, I did serve him as a wife, but also as the wife of a leader.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How did you treat yourself in public, as the first lady of the country?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: It was not necessary for me to accompany Enver, as he had his job, he went all over Albania, and I had my job, I had children to take care of, I had started my part-time studies in history and literature. We did that in old age, we wanted to be well-educated, and this is what many of our friends did too. Then I also suffered from gallstones, as people call it.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Yes, that is what the letters that the CIA has released now say, showing how Enver Hoxha’s wife was sick and what happened. Is that true?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: There is something true in them too. First, it shows that interception was already used then. Our house was intercepted, not through appliances, but from someone from the staff, especially from the Ministry of Interior and Security who accompanied us, who would be in and out of the house, that person must have had this information, someone who was probably playing a double role, as they say. For example, the case raised by the agent, that Enver would not know what to do if Nexhmije died, is something that the agent found out and would have been one of the escorts that went with me to Vienna or Paris, because even after the surgery I did in Moscow, my gallbladder or liver did not work properly, which made me suffer for fifteen years.
So in the diary you may have read that I suffered a lot, but I was not sick enough to stay in bed. The bonds were so strong that in cases of illness they became even more stronger. Enver used to say: “Make sure you don’t fall ill, otherwise I will die without you.” So I made sure Enver did not see me when I was sick or when I had severe crises. I would get out of bed at night, suffering for a couple of hours. Those who have this disease know. He did not know. He saw me once when he came home from work. He found me lying down after I had fainted from the pain. He got very frightened and worried and ordered me to see a doctor.
He was also against medical visits abroad, but I went two or three times just for tests, not to travel the world. And we took our children often abroad too, but not for fun. Our doctors would not take much responsibility. We had difficult cases and they were the ones proposing to go abroad. Our second daughter, Pranvera, was born abroad. The doctors here would not do it, because she was diabetic and had to be checked to see how mature the baby was.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did you keep Enver away from family worries, problems, children’s illnesses?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I was the one fully in charge of our home administration. He did not even recognise the money. Actually, when the Albanian lek changed, he saw how much the finances were falling. He did not know much about the children. Pranvera had two children born by surgery. The second time she went to Paris. He found out and got sick when they spoke against the doctors here. He was both afraid and hesitant. It was the time of the Congress. Pranvera gave birth to her first son by surgery. He said he would go to the maternity hospital to see her. I told him not to, because she would come back home.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): What else did you keep him away from?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: From many things. Even from our children’s pranks. I was their confidant. I never told Enver unless they agreed and asked me to tell him.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): There is a detail that is discussed a lot now in modern times — corruption, money, the way people in power benefit. Did you discuss such things at home? I mean money, property, what were these material things to you?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: As for the properties, there was only this one case, when Enver said to his father: “Show your chest to your daughter-in-law.” He had a small chest, where he kept some documents, small, broken things. “Why do you collect them, uncle?” “I need them for these orphans,” he said. Whatever he found, he put it there, it was like an obsession to him. In Gjirokastra, in a village of Dropull, the family owned a piece land from which they received nothing. Enver took the ownership documents and without telling his uncle, tore them up and threw them in the chimney. The uncle was worried: “Why did you burn them, Enver?” Enver answered: “You do not need them. Those times are over now.” He burned the ownership documents for that piece of land.
The children laugh today and say: “Our father burned down even the papers for that single piece of land we had, leaving us with nothing.” As for the money, in the beginning we did not have salaries. When the salaries were introduced, Enver received 36,000 leks at the time, I got 22,000, Deputies of the People’s Assembly in Tirana received 2,000 leks each. Later, they did not take any salaries, only per diems. Later, after reading somewhere that Lenin had said that the leader should receive no more than half of the average worker’s salary, he decided to decrease salaries. His salary was 16,000 leks, mine 11,000 leks, the same as a professor under me at the Institute. This made it difficult even for our family. There were moments when we could not make it.
People do not believe it, but I wrote it in my diary, it is written in black and white. By the time March-April came, new and fresh things were more expensive. The enterprises sent their first products to our store and we bought them there. They would send us their first produce of fruit, cherries, grapes or other things, in boxes. Enver had ordered that we should in no way accept such gifts. “Take them to the store,” he vetoed. There were friends who could not afford them at all, they would just leave the store. There were months when we had big expenses, when I did not pay the rent for a month or two and I felt guilty. I went to the person in charge. It was one of the members of the Bureau, Manushi or Haki Toska. I went to them, telling them I could not afford it. Certainly we paid them later. Although Enver did not know this, he told me: “Do not get into debt.”
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Why did Enver hate debt, hated it at home, hated it outside home?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: He had Gjirokastra blood. He did not like debts, he knew that debts make you a slave. He said the same about Tito. The Kosovars were so much in debt with him. They even have a saying; “the child cries in the mother’s womb,” so when will these debts be paid.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): A leader reflects his own character and his hometown in the way he behaves.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: This was famous. It was even a joke in the family, how thrifty they were, but he even praised Gjirokastra for having good management skills. Actually, he did, indeed.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Your books and evenings, when everyone was leaving, are your two most important moments with each other, your books in bed and the conversations before you went to your room. What do you miss in particular from those times?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I used to joke that my two rivals were tobacco and the library, because sometimes he did not listen to me. I once read something that Enver had said about arguing with me. We did not have quarrels, things about the family, children or measures that had to be taken, but I really bothered him about smoking. He would tell me: “Come on, leave me alone, will you,” so typical of Gjirokastra. He eventually quit smoking when he got sick. We quarrelled about the library because after I finished reading a book, I did not know where to put it, because I would either forget where I had taken it, or he would have already reshuffled all of the books, rearranging them by themes or otherwise, something he did to relax. So, he would criticise me, protesting: “What am I? Am I your librarian to find your books?”
When he was diagnosed with diabetes, it was on the eve of the Party Congress. The doctor told him to stop working and go on vacation. “Are you serious? How can I go on vacation, I cannot put my mind in the safe, I am preoccupied,” he said. Or when you would ask him to take a short break, he would say, “I would rather do it here then. This is where I have my kids and the library.” I used to refer to them as my rivals, he loved them immensely. When books arrived from abroad, from France for example, those at the Foreign Ministry had this good habit of bringing him some of the best books. Later we lost them completely, as they stole our library.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How many books did Enver Hoxha’s library have?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: There were about 45,000 books. The Russians also sent us books. I read them too.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did you read French, Russian?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I learned Italian for eight years at school and then on my own, like all Albanians, without any obstacles. I learned French on my own, too, because we only did one year at school. Then the occupation came, they removed it completely, but I learned it myself. Of course I then practised it talking with Enver. I did not take any classes, we practised in front of our children who became very curious about what we were saying. I learned Russian myself, learned to speak, to read magazines, but no writing, I never managed to learn those letters.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Did Enver bring his problems home?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: One of the things I really appreciated about him was that he did not bring his office preoccupations home, be it major or political problems, no matter what happened. Sometimes during our meals, he would start telling us what was going on in the office, who had come to see him. Since he was sick, I told him to stop, eat and talk about later instead. Rarely did he take his files home, two or three cases I remember, when the Moscow meeting took place, and where we took a stand. It is the only case I remember, when he worked day and night, for a long time because he found it a very difficult decision to be taken. Ismail Kadare has also seen these work files. The other case was when a decision was to be taken for Skavica hydropower plant.
He was the only one who organised the whole hydropower system and Enver also looked at the political aspect. Peshkopia, which had the healthiest and best soils, was drowned under water. What would happen to this traditionally rich, good and hardworking population? And secondly, the border with Yugoslavia, even if we would agree to take some land on their side, the border would be greatly weakened. In fact, that hydropower plant was not built for financial reasons, after all. When this event was later discussed, I asked Farudin Hoxha “Do you remember how much this was discussed?” Now I hear that Skavica is being discussed again, a lot.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): When religion was discussed, the fact that Albania would be an atheist country, churches and mosques were destroyed. Was it a personal decision of Enver Hoxha? Did he talk to you at dinner about important decisions for Albania?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: We discussed this when it had already happened, neither he nor I knew this would happen. We have said this and this is the truth. It was a bottom-up initiative. Of course, the Party Secretary for Durrës, did know. Maybe he knew about the “Naim Frashëri” school too. And had agreed, because such things were done in China, too, even though they were not allowed. But another aspect of Enver was that he did take his time when it came to initiatives taken from the grassroots, as in the case of cooperatives, when they proposed to turn cooperatives into enterprises. It took him a long time to slowly convince them not to do that. When they started with religion, Enver talked to Ramiz, as the Secretary of the Ideological Sector, how to solve it, how to oppose youth on this matter. Eventually, it was worth it. However, some premises were not demolished, but turned into cultural premises.
The order given by Enver to gather all the icons led to the creation of a Museum of Icons in Korça. When we went to Korça once, there was a church that had not been demolished, but had become a museum. However, in order for it not to look like a church from the outside, they had surrounded it with walls. Enver criticised them. On the other hand, I am not a believer at all, I am an atheist, a Darwinist, starting with Darwinian science since my early youth, but I have been and still am tolerant in this regard. My mother’s sister would visit us sometimes. She stayed with my mother, who stayed with me. She would pray five times a day. She followed Dibra customs unlike my mother, who had left all that behind.
She would say to her: “If you pray, you better stay at home,” or “If you fast, you better not come at all.” I knew people believed in God. Enver had nothing to do with prejudice. The Summer Day, though, he would celebrate with the children. I would find the red and white silk threads, and he would put them on his children’s wrists. He did the same with some other rituals of the Summer Day.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): In fact, Enver Hoxha was not religious, was he?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: No, he was not religious, but he did respect the customs.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): What was he like as a character? Was he a man who took decisions and did not go back or reconsider his decisions?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: First of all, he did not make the decisions on his own. People have to understand that at the time of our Party, decisions were made collegially. Of course he would propose, then the Council of Ministers would meet and discuss the proposal, fine-tune the details. There were many things to plan. It was not only Enver who would decide. The major and strategic decisions were made collegially. Enver reflected long before decisions were made, not only did he consult his friends, but he did discuss them with me too, why should I deny it? I was a long war friend, with political experience, so we discussed both domestic and foreign affairs. What was taboo for me, which he was aware of, so he would not mention, included issues of the Defence Council, not the army in general, but operations, plans, the Defence and Security Council. All foreign policy, international affairs regarding Albania were discussed and read twice a day, on the news of the telegraph agency.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You did not talk about state security, convictions, internments, never mentioned any of that?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: No, they are just legends that have been made up. Enver was the Party Secretary in the Presidium, I am not saying he was not aware of certain things being done, but for me they are myths, legends. The grassroots in our country were more conservative, because the managers came from the village, from the war, and the cultural level was such. They were more stigmatised by sectarianism and conservatism. Not Enver, though. I always quote “C’est la raison d’etat, que même la raison ne comprend pas,” “The reasons of the state, reason itself cannot explain.” That is how I always imagined Enver. He made the most difficult decisions, such as executions, as a statesman, forced to do his duty, but in spirit, in formation, in feelings he was very sensitive, and he might as well have suffered, but that was what he had decided and had to stick to it.
He also talked to me about those decisions, but there were cases when he made the decision on the spot. This was appreciated by the comrades, because they were not able to do that, they did not have self-confidence. Then he knew his job, and never made a mistake with his decisions, in none of them, including the most major ones, his decision with Khrushchev, be it with ships or the submarines.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Let us focus on one of those decisions. We cannot tell the whole history of Albania, for example the breakup with China, there was a debate at home, it was one of the important moments for the Albanian economy, it was almost impossible to happen, right?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: The China issue has been quite open and subject to daily conversations. I wouldn’t read Enver’s diaries. We both kept diaries, but at one point he said to me: “Sit here, read something from the diaries.” Our relations with China were at their best. He read to me how he viewed Chinese politics, and other issues he had with the UN, the Soviet Union, Mao’s views on Stalin, their philosophy, the government, praised Zhou Enlai. He is the only one, he said, who understood something about international affairs, criticised indecisiveness on international relations, which was not the correct attitude for a great power. He was reading and I opened my mouth and said: “Wow Enver, what if someone reads these.” Then all the notes were published, three or four books of “Notes on China” were published from his political diary. It was in his nature. This small country should make this criticism, he said.
That same small country struggled to be admitted in the UN and it was only its persistence that kept it alive. Now they came and interviewed me as the only witness to the relationship with China, which we struggled to join.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You are the person who knew Enver Hoxha the best. What was this sensitivity, this pride? Even though he belonged to a small country, he acted as if he was the leader of a big country, at a time when it was foolish to break with China, with the Soviet Union?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: First of all, that was in the interest of the country and the nation. It was them who broke the relationship, not us, but we insisted on a change of policy and the proposal they made to us, entering into an alliance with Yugoslavia and Romania against the Soviet Union. We had broken with the Soviet Union and it was not convenient for us to connect with these countries. China changed its policy after Nixon. That was when we also sent a letter to Nixon, which led to them breaking with us. They realised we could not follow them in politics, or be allies to America. They gave up on Albania, which they wanted as their base in Europe for their economic expansion, and for other reasons. So, they got closer to America. And they came up with an excuse. They said they were spending on Vietnam and could not give us anything anymore. They brought us planes, tanks.
Most of them came from the Soviet Union, and they said they could not give us heavy weapons, because they had already given them to Vietnam. Then it is more practical for you to take them from Yugoslavia, from this alliance against Soviet social-imperialism. But what would we do after all those stories with Tito and what would Kosovo do, where would they go? So, we could not accept such an alliance. Nor did we find it appropriate to respond, despite Mao’s mistakes. In a meeting with the Japanese delegation, Mao said they could review the border with the Soviet Union, that they had a problem with some islands. We are really against the Soviet Union, but Japan is another camp and it was not wise, despite the fact that nothing was done.
Enver removed his own name from a hydropower plant and put Mao’s name on it when we were breaking up and I asked him, “What does it mean to put Mao’s name on it?” “Let it be, they like it,” he said with a smile. He said Mao had supported us, but that there was also someone who dealt with the economy, and who did not like Albania. Mao, however, would let him decide. Then this policy changed.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): When the big break came, what did Enver Hoxha say?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: We were in Pogradec then, Ramiz came and brought that letter. He received it calmly and said: “Our mountains are the highest.” This is what he would say when a disaster happened.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): What was your role in Enver Hoxha’s ten years of illness, considering his forty-five-year-old diabetes. In fact, many say it was you who ran the country when Enver Hoxha was ill.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Regarding my role next to Enver, it is the whole period before his illness, when I may say a few words. I was doing my job and he was doing his. I was never a member of a high party or state decision-making body during this period, but I was always in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Party, at the beginning after the First Congress of the Party, as Director of Propaganda, Education and Culture. By culture I mean arts and sciences, then I became the Director of the Institute. I have done the same job that every member of the Plenum has done and as an deputy throughout all the legislatures. The Plenum also made decisions. I am responsible for the decisions I have taken, but there were hundreds, thousands of decisions made there. I have rejected all the speculations about me having taken decisions for the state while he was sick.
This is absurd and has been raised not only by ordinary people anyway, but even by people with culture in general, including even Sali Berisha. In a delegation that took place in Germany, when they asked him about Enver, he said: “He did not lead the government, because for fifteen years it was his wife, Nexhmije Hoxha, who did that.” I have read this in our press here and this was done in order to discredit Enver, to say that he was finished. It is absurd. It was him who did run the country to the end. There are documents, there are films, there are people, there are doctors to prove that. There were days when he was really sick, in crisis. He lived a hospital life, sometimes even in the intensive care unit, but that is something else.
We did all that at home, without sending him to the hospital because we did not have special clinics for this, as Tito did, who went to Ljubljana where he even died. I wrote a book about it, Betrayed Friendship, and described how he ran the country. In addition to my role as a woman, a wife, I also became a nurse, I became the observer for those he did not like in the room. I devoted myself so much to him that I have no regrets. I stayed by his side for hours, until morning, without speaking at all, I only slept two or three hours for days on end, measuring his breath, measuring his pulse because I predicted the crisis.
There were times when he fell asleep, there were times when the crisis was approaching and I would call the team of doctors and they would take him over. Therefore, I became a mediator, a telephone operator, a secretary, and that was just natural, I was the closest person. Friends trusted me, respected me, I trusted them and they always addressed me. I have the letters of Mehmet, Hysni, the letters of Ramiz.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): Has this been the purpose of your life, to serve him with devotion, to be his wife?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: With so much dedication that I have no regrets, and even though at a young age, I managed to cope with it.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): How did you cope with it? I am not just talking about life, but about big changes. Did you not think of the change that would put you to prison, and leave you in this house for almost fifteen years? How did you cope with this change, from Bitola to Lapraka?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I take life as it comes. I have taken it as it came to me, with its good, difficult and very difficult aspects. However, I did not let it drag me. I have built it according to some concepts of mine and war, training and all that I had to go through in prison helped me with it. All of this made me more calm, more patient. Man is not born with a formed character, he can get something from the family genes, some may be calmer, others more hot-tempered, but I think that what is really important and crucial are the circumstances in which man lives or spends his life. For me it was the war that determined my character, making me more self-restrained, calmer and able to endure. The war made me overcome the fear of being separated from my family.
It is not easy at that age to see the friends you were in a meeting with, or had dinner with, like Misto, Qemal or Vojo, and learn suddenly that they are killed. What are you going to do? Keep crying all the time? Back then, we were very clear. Today it’s him, tomorrow it’s us, and so on. We had sacrificed ourselves and we were ashamed to shed tears and there was no way, as they happened so often, you could shake your jaw and hands, but that’s it. Then Enver and I had learned lessons about his challenge, that even in illness he was a terrible challenger, he suffered and did not complain, he continued to fight to the end.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): One week after the death of Enver Hoxha, you wrote a letter, starting with, “Enver, my beautiful life.” Your beautiful life was gone with him, hard days came and I want to focus on prison. Who were you in prison, who was Nexhmije Hoxha in prison?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Not to mention why I was sent to prison, whether that was right or wrong. Prison is prison. Not to mention the rest, as I said, because I was sent to three prisons. But when you see there what young people have written, prisoners in our time, or when you are in contact with prisoners, then you get a different impression. I did get that impression, and I want to state publicly that in prison some sort of solidarity is created between people, beyond the motives for which they were arrested and are in prison, they have cooperation, an understanding and mutually help each other. Everyone called me mother there, and these are the kind of things that impressed you. I’m telling one episode, among many other things there. At the end of the corridor where I had my cell, there was a prisoner on death row.
It was a special cell that had his name, and every time we went to the bathroom we were afraid of his big open eyes, big, blackened by suffering apparently, He was like a mountain man, and scary. He also made you feel mercy, because he awaited death and every time I did not eat what they made me, better bread and cheese and yogurt eating any other food, I brought it to him. And he would say to me out loud: “Long live, long live your sons, thank you!”
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): You have not preferred to talk about prison?
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: I have a lot to say, the decision was taken treacherously, because I did twelve investigative hearings, where I went regularly, without a lawyer because seven lawyers did not want to take me then, out of fear. Finally a lawyer was appointed by the Ministry, appointed by them, with whom I got along very well, he was a very good man. My trial ended the way it ended, with the name “coffee trial.” I wrote a lot in prison, but I also experienced a lot, even violence, it was not scary, but I went through great pain. The greatest pain was when in prison I learned that Enver was exhumed, that he was injured. This was done without the presence of me or the children. Ilir was imprisoned, I heard on the radio. Those were humiliating moments for me. I have written a lot. You could publish more than one book with special corpora. Then I also had the prison and it was three different prisons.
The first one meant sleeping on the ground, having no bath, no heating all winter, not even ventilation for me in the spring. But others have been imprisoned and I do not want to touch those who have been imprisoned in our time, by us, so I decided not to publish them. What their children do next, well, that’s their job.
RUDINA XHUNGA (INTERVIEWER): People expect a lot from an interview, yes hostages, yes regrets, forgiveness, gratitude. In fact, in this interview we have chosen to talk about an intimate story of your life from Bitola to Tirana.
NEXHMIJE HOXHA: Rudina, thank you very much for this last interview! At the same time, I take this opportunity to thank all my Albanian friends, associates, friends and brothers wherever they are as well as all the good people in Albania and in friendly countries. Goodbye!
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