VNA has been able to obtain one of the most painful and significant letters of the post-war period in Albania — a personal, human and political testimony of what the family of writer Petro Marko experienced in the darkest years of the communist regime. His wife, Safo Marko, wrote to Enver Hoxha on November 6, 1948, after Petro had been held for 18 months in solitary confinement, without trial, without information, in the so-called “Enemies of the People” dungeons.
Her letter to the dictator was not simply a wife’s plea. It was a portrait of a family that had sacrificed for anti-fascist ideals — Petro Marko, a writer, journalist, and former volunteer in the International Brigades, and Safo Marko, the companion who followed him through every period of exile, poverty, and displacement. Both had come to the liberation of the country with the conviction that the ideals for which they had sacrificed would finally reward the righteous. But, like many other families of that time, they clashed with the brutal mechanism of suspicion, purges, and power games.
In these lines, Safo addresses Hoxha with condescending language, as the time required, but under the subtext one can read fear, fatigue, the horror of 18 months of uncertainty and, above all, the blind faith that the Party's justice would acquit Petro Marko. This letter is a rare document where idealism, indoctrination and the personal drama of a family that would remain on the verge of oblivion and underestimation for decades collide.
What remains today is the voice of Sappho Markos — a voice that comes from the depths of fear and love — and the memory of a writer who would be saved only thanks to his talent and perseverance, but who would pay the price of disobedience and independence throughout his life.
VNA brings below the full text of the letter:
Honorable General Colonel
Enver Hoxha
I am addressing you today personally, I am the wife of Petro Markos, Safo Markos.
I make this request to you:
My husband and friend Petro Markos was arrested on May 15, 1947 and until today, November 6, 1948, he remains isolated in the dark dungeons of the Prison of Enemies of the People. I knew nothing about his fate until the day before yesterday, whether he was dead or alive, sick or well. The day before yesterday I was suddenly given permission, after 18 months, to meet with him. Ay Ka almost turned into a corpse, but the voice of that corpse was clear when from the bars of the meeting it spoke to me "Sapho, I am as pure as glass, as you know me and you know that every day I have waited for the trial where justice would come out, for the suffering to end, the trial that would give me my innocence without a doubt, but in vain.
Only today, after so long, my comrades spoke to me as a friend like never before in these 18 months. Today my comrades allowed me to meet you after 18 months from the date of my arrest!
Why?!
And I, comrade Commander, simply replied that things had changed, that the real culprits were punished by the Party and You and the People.
Today my heart speaks like logic: "Petro Marko will be found innocent, Petro Marko will be found proud and clean before everyone.
Through suffering, he found the true path when he was still very young in the regime of Zi Zog, during the time of fascism, he suffered prisons and exiles and with the liberation of Albania he came to the liberated homeland and started working.
Comrade Commander, he wrote for the Red Army with his heart and read to me with eyes that shone with every writing of the days of liberation and our work. He was always honest and pure and will die like an innocent child. When he is released tomorrow, he will forget the suffering of these 18 months and will work as he worked when he was up all night with the workers of the Bashkimi Printing House to sort the material and direct them. In '46, he suffered because his comrades were leaving him and he became desperate. He had to clarify things with comrade Nako and Koçi Xoxe – but they both spoke differently (as he told me).
But back then, all the leadership for us, there was one thing that couldn't seem wrong. Today, since its weak part was separated, we know who to blame for all our suffering.
What if he had been truly guilty but not sentenced to time? What if this man, whom I know to be innocent, I call a part-time worker, had lost his life?
Comrade Commander! I address you today with my heart, with my heart because today I know how to direct my anger for our suffering in vain, reminding you that in the dungeons of the Prison of Enemies of the People, Petro Marko, my husband, is isolated, whom I never suspected of being guilty and whom I heard the day before yesterday speak to me with clear eyes about his innocence, I beg you to pray for him now and to assure him that he will be useful throughout his life for our Government and the people he loves and for the Party, whose path he has conquered from the first since he was very young (with him by my side I will also work better and enjoy happiness without fear)!
These days I will wait for hours and with faith that he will return to me and I will help him gain health and the people will no longer look at us with frowning eyes.
Today I heard that “Zëri i Popullit” was being sold and my flesh tingled because I remembered Petro when he told me: “He wrote to open the offices of the Editorial Office of Zëri i Popullit and I am happy and believe that he will be there”.
I am released, Comrade Commander, and Petro will never make a mistake.
There will be no happier or more hardworking people than us!
Honors
Safo Marko
