Wir sind immer im Feuer. Berichte ehemaliger politischer Gefangener im kommunistischen Albanien.

Contribution to Publishing Costs D 3191 Berichte ehemaliger politischer Gefangener im komm. Albanien Karl KASER 08.05.2000 Life and biographies of thousands of political prisoners in Communist Albania was terrible, almost not describable. The prisoners did not live in normal prisons but usually in labor camps where they had provided and taken care by their relatives. The reasons for their usually very long penalties were in many cases dubious. In fall of 1997 the authors conducted intensive interviews with former younger and older, male and female political prisoners in Albania. These interviews are narratives of destroyed life. They represent the core of the manuscript; each of them is introduced by the authors. The interviews are very instructive: They document better than every historical account these decades of an absurd Communistic regime vividly and from the perspectives of the victims of the regime. At the same time the book shows also the individual interpretation of their fates, shows how people could survive psychologically and physically. Since the number of the political prisoners bad been relatively high the ex-prisoners played an important political role at the beginning of the political transition. As the director of the research project that has led to this manuscript I can confirm that the material has been treated very carefully. The introduction describes the research process and the applied methods. The first chapter "The whole country was a prison" provides a concise account of the history of Albanian communism and of the camps of the political prisoners. A geographical index, a personal index and a glossary complete the book.