[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 107 (Tuesday, July 17, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1253]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 17, 2012

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I submit a speech by former House 
Member Joseph J. DioGuardi which highlights the disastrous effects 
Communism had for the Albanian population in the Balkans and the 
ongoing efforts of the people there to find healing. The following is a 
copy of those remarks.

                     Victims of Communism Memorial

                   The Honorable Joseph J. DioGuardi

  I want to thank the leaders of the Victims of Communism Memorial 
Foundation, especially Dr. Lee Edwards and Ed Priola. And, on behalf of 
all Albanians and freedom-loving people everywhere, I hasten to 
commemorate here today the historic deeds of the late Congressman Tom 
Lantos, who cofounded this Memorial with President George W. Bush, and 
who was the original architect of the full diplomatic recognition of 
Albania by the United States in June 1990 and the independence of 
Kosova in February 2008.
  I also want to thank my good friend Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who 
supported this memorial from the beginning, but could not be with us 
today.
  My wife, Shirley Cloyes, a recognized Balkan scholar, is also here. 
She just wrote an article for this occasion, entitled ``The Denial of 
Memory: It Is Time for Albania To Confront Its Communist Past.'' Copies 
will be available for those who are interested at the reception.
  Let me also introduce Pellumb Lamaj and Rajmond Sejko, survivors who 
spent years doing hard labor in one of the most brutal prisons in 
Communist Albania, called Spac. (You can read about their stories in 
Shirley's article.)
  Annette Lantos, 22 years ago, almost to the day, your late husband, 
Tom Lantos, and I were the first U.S. officials in 50 years to enter 
the State of Albania, then still under the boot of communism. (You were 
with us on that historic day.) We went with a strong message, after 
crossing the border from Kosova, which was under the Serbian Communist 
regime's brutal occupation. We told Communist Dictator Ramiz Alia that 
the Berlin Wall had been torn down in October (1989), and that it was 
time to tear down the Communist iron curtain still separating Albania 
and the Albanian people from democracy, Europe, and the rest of the 
world. Annette, we started a movement. Within weeks, people were 
rushing into foreign embassies seeking asylum, and by September 1990, a 
huge boat loaded with thousands of freedom-seeking Albanians left the 
port of Durres for the shores of Italy, much like my father's Albanian 
ancestors did in the 15th century to escape the onslaught of the 
Ottoman Turks.
  But here we are today--to pay tribute to the victims of communism all 
over the world. I want to say a few words about the most brutal 
atheistic Communist regime that held the Albanian people hostage in 
their country, which was turned into a prison through state-sponsored 
terror, with crimes against humanity as its hallmark. The Albanian 
people had fought hard against the Italian fascist regime under 
Mussolini and the German Nazis under Hitler. Their honor code of besa 
(trust/faith) gave them the strength, moral and physical, to save every 
Jew in Albania and over 2,000 who fled there from Yugoslavia and 
Western Europe for protection during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the 
Albanian people were betrayed during World War II by a new leader, 
Enver Hoxha, who replaced Nazi occupation with the most brutal 
Stalinist Communist regime anyone could imagine, for 45 years.
  Hoxha's aim was to kill the freedom-loving spirit of the Albanian 
people and to destroy their communal soul in favor of building a 
totalitarian state under the rule of his Communist Party. His 
psychopathic regime instilled fear and terror in every household--fear 
of strangers, fear of authority, and even fear of betrayal by family, 
friends, and neighbors seeking favor with Communist officials. Hoxha's 
regime created an inhuman lack of trust in anyone and everything. 
Husbands could not trust their wives, parents their children, and 
siblings each other. By breaking the ancient Albanian honor and trust 
code of besa, communism created a culture where one had to be 
constantly on watch and on guard, not knowing where the next threat to 
life, limb, and family might strike.
  This horrible state of terror was ``formally'' abandoned in Albania 
in 1992, with the first democratic election. Nevertheless, two decades 
later, the scars of communism and the twin cultures of fear and 
corruption still linger in Albania. Political parties openly fight for 
power, and the spoils of corruption keep the country out of the 
European Union, while former Communist neighbors, such as Slovenia, 
Croatia, Romania, Greece, and Serbia, are either already in the EU or 
on the path to admission.
  On behalf of the victims of communism in Albania, Mr. Ambassador 
(addressing Albanian Ambassador Gilbert Galanxhi), I am taking this 
opportunity to appeal to your government to bring real democracy to 
Albania, to apologize formally to the victims of communism and their 
families, to set up a truth and reconciliation commission, and finally 
to open the Communist archives for all to see, which will allow 
families to begin the long process of healing and restore trust in the 
government and its leaders.
  As Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, Balkan Affairs Adviser to the Albanian 
American Civic League, wrote in her October 2011 article, ``The 
Protracted Fall of Communism in Albania'':
  ``I have come to the conclusion in recent months that the biggest 
mistake in post-Communist Albania was that the criminals of the Hoxha 
era were not brought to trial and that the country never instituted a 
truth and reconciliation commission. . . . ''
  Burying the Communist Albanian past has brought neither justice nor 
healing to those who suffered. If anything, it has continued their 
suffering. This reminds me of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who 
were forced to suffer in silence for years until Israel sought to fully 
reveal the traumatic legacy of Nazism and to shock the conscience of 
the world--beginning with the capture and trial in 1961 of Adolf 
Eichmann, one of the chief architects of Hitler's plan to exterminate 
European Jewry. In Albania, I believe that we need to start the process 
of healing the pain of the past (a past that is very much alive today) 
by obtaining from the Albanian government as full accounting as 
possible of the Hoxha era. The names of those persecuted, imprisoned, 
and executed by the Hoxha regime should be released to both the 
Albanian public and the international community.

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