Authored by Gjekë Gjonaj. Translated by Petrit Latifi.

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia brought many murders, crimes and torture to the Trieshe mountain, as well as to all other Albanian territories. This military force, which in the name of the war for liberation, spread its Stalinist ideological roots and exercised violence and barbarism against the local population, against the nationalists and anti-communists of Trieshe (Albanians), who did not accept the dictates ordered by the Slavic (Serbo-Montenegrin) emissaries.

During and after World War II, dozens of Tries were killed by the centuries-old enemies of the Albanians. Very little has been written about these brave people of this patriotic region, victims of communism, who did not agree and opposed the diabolical anti-national plans of the Slavic communists. Their commitment and activity in the defense of their Arbër lands has remained an unwritten history to this day, even by Albanian historians, not only in Montenegro, but unfortunately also in Albania.

Until a few decades ago, the families of these victims have mostly remained silent. Not because they did not want their truth to be illuminated. But, they were afraid of the consequences of the brutal communist regime and their blind servants. This was the main reason why the families of the victims of communism in Triesh, and not only did not dare to even speak about them, because they had inherited from their fathers the centuries-old Albanian creepy expression “Shut up, don’t speak, even the wall hears!”

The Gjolaj family, from the village of Muzhečk in Triesh, for the first time broke the 76-year silence of the shooting of their son, Nikollë Gjon Curit, at the age of 24. Gjon Dodë Gjolaj, who lives in Tuz, referring to the oral testimonies of his grandfather, Prekë Uci, and his grandmother, Mri Baces, tells about the life, activities and painful history of the murder of his cousin, Nikollë Gjoni, by the communist regime.

Nikollë Gjolaj was born in 1921 in the village of Muzheçk, in an honest patriotic family. His parents Gjon Cura Deda and Katrinë Luskja Dushaj from Traboini i Hotit also had a son, Antonin. Nikolla was their second son. He was born three years after his older brother. The two brothers, one at the age of 4, and the other at the age of 1, were orphaned, without a father, who tragically lost his life in the Adriatic Sea, near Ulcinj.

Four years later, their mother also died tragically, while guarding the livestock (live sheep). To their bitter fate, Antoni and Nikolla lost their loved ones, their mother and father, at a young age. These two orphans were taken into care and raised by their cousin, Prëk Ucë Deda and his wife, Mari Bacen. At the age of sixteen, Nikolla went to Shkodër, where he stayed for about a year with Prëkë’s brother, Marash Uci.

Then he went to Velipojë, where he stayed for about three years. In 1942, he joined the National Front, fighting against communist partisan forces. Thanks to his bravery and military ability, family members say, Nikolla was appointed deputy commander of the National Front for Northern Albania. He remained loyal to this idea, although the war was fought in favor of the communist regime.

In the winter of 1944, after the National Front suffered defeat, Nikolla returned to his hometown, in Muzheçk. In the fall of 1945, Nikolla is invited to the Triesch Regional Office in the village of Stjepoh. There, he is given a letter in an envelope sealed with red wax, to be sent unopened to the Military Barracks in Tuz. Nikolla takes the letter. He returns home, to Muzhečk.

He tells Mri Bace about the task that the Triesch communists had given him. Mri had a premonition that this letter could pose a danger to young Nikolla. Suspecting the communists’ treachery, despite their declarations that this letter poses no danger to Nikolla, she advises him not to go to Tuz, but first to go to Cem in Triesch to Prekë Uci, open the letter, and then decide together what to do.

Nikola opposes him, telling him not to worry that his friends, the Triesh brothers, with whom he associated and spent time every day, would not betray him. Convinced that nothing bad would happen to him, he sets off for Tuz. Mri Bacja, worried about Nikola’s fate, goes to her husband’s cousin, Pjetër Gjoka. She informs him of Nikola’s situation and asks him to stop him from going to Tuz, but to go to Cem i Trieshit to Prekë Uci.

Pjetër Gjoka immediately follows her and catches Nikola in a place called Qafë i Nagrivës. He tried to convince him and convince him to give up going to Tuz, but without success. Nikola continued his journey of death in Tuz, from where two days later the bitter news of his execution in the courtyard of the Tuz Military Barracks, in the former building of the Textile Factory “Titeks”.

It is said that on that day, Nikolla, in the prime of his youth, was shot with two other highlanders by the murderous bullets of the communists and that their dead bodies were thrown somewhere near Lake Shkodra, on the edge of the village of Nënhelm. The Gjolaj family knows who the man who allegedly spied on Nikolla was, 76 years ago.

But, to this day, they do not know anything more about the murder of their son, not even the place where his remains were left. To make matters worse, the Gjolaj family has not dared to make any official request to find their son’s remains during the duration of the communist system.

The members of this family have always been watched by the authorities of the time. The State Security Administration (UDBA) has not left Nikola’s cousin, Dodë Preka, in Germany alone, who has not dared to visit his family in Tries for three years.

This is the exclusive testimony of the Gjolaj family about the unknown story of the murder of their son by the communists, who fought together with other Albanian nationalist fighters for the freedom of Albanians, for a free, democratic and fraternal Albania, against the dictatorial communist regimes in Albania and Montenegro.

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