Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Tirana Park Memorial Cemetery, Tirana Park, Tirana, Albania
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TPM-0962 by
...olli..., on Flickr
Canon A520 f4 1/250 5.8mm
Albania was occupied by the Italians and then the Germans during WW2. The leader of the communist partisans was Enver Hoxha. He was supplied with weapons and money by the allies and eventually allied forces joined them to drive out the German army. Hoxha came to power after the end of the war and refused to acknowledge that he had received any assistance, claiming that he and his partisans had defeated the Germans unaided. In order to maintain this fiction Hoxha had the bodies of British and Commonwealth military personal exhumed and reburied in an unmarked grave.
Hoxha went to inflict his own bizarre and barbaric version of communism on Albania until his death in 1985. As was normal for communist rulers, Hoxha was buried in a splendid grave, capped with a granite slab marked with his name, with an eternal flame and an honour guard. When communism collapsed a few years later, the Albanians exhumed his body and reburied him in an unmarked grave.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission approached the new Albanian authorities requesting permission to establish a memorial to the men who had died during the war. Permission was granted and the memorial in the picture was created in Tirana Park not far from where the men had been reburied by Hoxha. While they were looking for a suitable centrepiece for the memorial they came across a red polished granite slab you can see in the image. You will probably have guessed by now, but this was the very polished granite slab that had sealed the grave of Enver Hoxha. Now it stands in memory of those whose memories were deliberately erased by Hoxha while Hoxha lies in an unmarked grave. In the picture below if you look closely just above the middle of the three plaques you can just see the edge of a couple of holes drilled into the granite. This is where Hoxha's name was once attached.
Every year on Remembrance Sunday the British Embassy organises a ceremony at the Memorial. The week before the German Embassy organises a ceremony at the German Memorial (pictured in my previous post) which stands close by. Both were very moving occasions and after each we all walked down the hill and had a drink together.
I've heard some great stories on my travels but the story of this block of granite is still the best.
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TPM-0973 by
...olli..., on Flickr
Canon A520 f4 1/400 13.8mm