This time, in the "Forgotten Stories" section, VNA brings the story of the letter written in 1948 by Nurije Kostreci, the mother of the well-known dissident Uran Kostreci, to Enver Hoxha, with a single request: the release of her husband, Fuat Kostreci, sentenced to 101 years in prison.
“Three years ago you condemned my husband Fuat Kostreci…”, she writes, recounting how she was left alone with her children and the burden of survival. In her letter she tries to show that her husband had been an ordinary man, “who always lived by the sweat of his brow,” and asks that the entire family not be condemned for his fate.
The lines are simple, direct, and unadorned: a mother asking for "the children's dry bread," a woman who says she is "abandoned by the whole world," and a plea that at least her right to live near her family not be taken away.
But this letter would not stop the Kostreci family's ordeal. Years passed and her son, Uran Kostreci, would face the same system that had condemned his father. He would spend a large part of his life in communist prisons, remaining one of the people who never submitted to the regime.
Thus, Nurije Kostreci's letter did not remain just a plea for mercy. It became the beginning of a story that would mark an entire family, a story that passed from one generation to the next, amidst prisons, silences, and resistance.
In the "Forgotten Stories" section, VNA brings this story as a reminder that behind the cold documents of history lie real lives — people who only wanted to live and who refused to give up.
Full text of the letter:
DEATH TO FASCISM – FREEDOM TO THE PEOPLE
To the Chairman of the Government of the People's Republic,
Comrade Enver Hoxha,
Tirana
The undersigned Nurije Fuat Kostreci (Drani), born and residing in Korça, presents the following petition:
For three years now, my husband, Fuat Kostreci, has been sentenced to 101 years in prison for political crimes by the People's Court.
Comrade Commander,
Not for justification, nor to try to exonerate my husband, but for the sake of truth, it is certain that my husband was not a feudal lord, merchant, or speculator; he always lived by the sweat of his brow, working as a petty finance clerk, which was the only economic support of our family.
For the last act, he was a victim of the lies of the humiliating clique, which had nothing to do with them, and as far as he was accused, he was not aware, because he had never been against the interests of the working masses, since he himself as such had been kidnapped by past regimes; as for the leader, he repented when he saw the reality, as proven by his stay in prison.
Abandoned by the whole world, after being separated for three years in a row for any job, just enough to provide for the children's dry bread, I eventually found hatred and was despised with contempt, not as guilty, because in the end I am not responsible for what my husband has done.
Comrade Commander,
Physically and morally destroyed, torn and torn, I raise my voice to you and appeal to your communist conscience to grant me the right to live as a woman with two small children and a 60-year-old woman, for nothing but bread, since I am very needy at night and in the morning without any means.
The current regime, led by the Glorious Communist Party, provides the bread of all citizens and especially of the two young children who are recently growing up for you. Based on this right that the Fundamental Statute of the Republic gives me, I pray with tears in my eyes that I too be granted the right to live together with my children, in return for the work that will be given to me, whatever work it may be, even a servant's job, since from today on I have no other way of living.
I remain hopeful, Comrade Commander, that what I have presented above will be taken into consideration.
Tirana, 6.11.1948
Nurije Kostreci
Address:
Nurije Kostreci, resident of Korça,
Sima Trica Neighborhood
, Stefan Koteli Street, no. 2
