"Memory Alive in arts and multimedia" in Berat

The knowledge of Albanian youth about the communist past was once more called into question by the IDMC, which extended its Memory Alive project in another city. After the successful discussions with the students of "Çajupi" and "Sami Frashëri" high schools in Tirana and "Luigj Gurakuqi" University of Shkodra, "Memory Alive" came to Berat, an Albanian that is city part of the World Heritage List of UNESCO since 2008.

Today's screening of the documentary "The Memory of a Country that Forgot to Forget" at the Conference Hall in the University of Berat was attended by more than 120 participants, among them young (university and high school students) and old people, and the representatives of the Berat municipality. The German experience was brought into focus by Mr. Walter Glos, the head of Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Albania. Mayor of Berat, Mr. Petrit Sinaj, also emphasized the importance of these activities in keeping the collective memory alive. He underlined that despite the city's attempts to deal with the past, more should be done in this regard.

The screening was followed by the discussion "I was there!" between the guests, Ms. Vera Bekteshi and Mr. Gëzim Peshkëpia, witnesses of the dictatorship, and the participants. They concluded that the young people's knowledge about communism was restricted, adding an incomprehensible nostalgia to dictatorship. Among the factors that may have contributed to the these concerning relation is the lack of school education about the totalitarian regime in Albania. The guests emphasized an imperative need for careful revision of the school curriculum.

Later, the participants visited places of memory and discussed about Berat between the Past and the Present. A specialist of cultural heritage at the local municipality recounted the story of the "Republika" boulevard, the churches, the mosques and the castle during the dictatorship, that are considered an important part of the city's cultural heritage.

About the Guests

• Gëzim Peshkëpia, born in Tirana in 1940, is a former political persecutee sentenced to 8 years for "agitation and propaganda in arts and culture". His father, Manush Peshkëpia, was shot without trial together with 21 other intellectuals in 1951 due to the bombing incident at the Soviet Embassy. In 1990, he escaped with his family in Soest, Germany. He is a supervising board member at the Institute for Studies of Communist Crimes and Consequences in Albania (ISKK).
• Vera Bekteshi was born and grew up in Tirana in the so-called Leadership Block, as the daughter of a senior officer and former communist leader in Shkoder during the war, Sadik Bekteshi. In 1969, Vera finished studies at the Department of Physics, University of Tirana, and was a lecturer until the major cleansing of senior officers under Enver Hoxha in 1974, the so-called Iron Fist Cleansing. Around this time she divorced, and was deported, lost her job and basic rights, then her father was arrested and subjected to endless suffering. For nearly 16 years, Vera lived in isolation with her family in the villages of Vodëz and Kutalli, Berat, in terms of social discrimination and extreme poverty.
  
• Eno Popi, TV host.