Tribute to Enver Hoxha – on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death

Posted on 12/04/2025 by Michael

Enver Hoxha

Tribute to Enver Hoxha – on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death

by Gjon Bruçi, Gazeta DITA, April 11, 2025

April 11, 1985 – Albania held its breath, lowered its flag and put on mourning clothes. The Leader had died – the National Pride, the Renaissance figure of modern times, the greatest man in the history of the Albanians, Enver Hoxha.

But who was Enver Hoxha? A communist? A partisan? A commander? A commissar? A leader of the people? A strategist and reformer? A legend? Or a truth?

‘History is made by the masses, individuals play a particular role’ – so teaches the history of human society. But Enver Hoxha’s role in the 50-year era of the new and modern Albania was immense. He embodied, in a single person, the highest and most refined virtues of the Albanian, while at the same time being the most brilliant fulfiller of his people’s aspirations.

In two thousand years of the New Era, the Arbër people produced dozens and hundreds of giants of both intellect and the sword. Among them shone the Hero of the Nation Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg. He was granted many titles by the chanceries of the time, such as: ‘Prince of Arbër,’ ‘Iskander,’ ‘Knight of Christ,’ and others. But his people called him with simple words – ‘The Bravest’ and ‘The Leader.’

Five hundred years later, Arbër – now Albania – would once again have its Heroes of the pen and the rifle, of thought and action, of movement and revolution, who stood up for the homeland in its most critical moments. Among them, like a mountain eagle, rose the Glorious Leader Enver Hoxha. Time gave this National Hero dozens of titles too, but the people who loved him so deeply simply called him ‘The Commander’ and ‘The Man of the Land.’

Writing about Enver Hoxha on a memorial anniversary is as easy as it is difficult. It is easy, because his monumental deeds are still alive – not only in the minds and hearts of us, his contemporaries, but also because, despite the slander of the bourgeoisie and its mercenaries, they rise like mountains and shine like the sun across the Albanian horizons and beyond. At the same time, writing about Enver Hoxha is extremely difficult, because our writings, no matter how beautifully crafted, cannot capture – in either quantity or quality – the work and legacy of this Colossus of Communism, this Great Man of Albanianhood. That is why I will attempt to focus only on two or three of the most significant moments of our unforgettable Commander and Commissar – moments which, when viewed today through the lens of time and the events we are experiencing, take on multiplied value, a value that exceeds the dimensions of an ordinary leader’s life and work.

Enver Hoxha was the most authentic embodiment of the well-known Albanian expression ‘The Man of the Land.’ To earn this title requires many qualities and high virtues that set a person apart from ordinary people. Among other things, to be or become such a man, one must possess wisdom, bravery and the courage of true men. These qualities – along with many others – Enver Hoxha possessed to the highest degree.

It was the harsh winter of 1943. In the mountains of Çermenika, the General Staff of the National Liberation Army was in a critical situation. The routes leading to the free zones were blocked by snow and by German and Ballist forces. British General Davies, who was stationed as an ally near the General Staff, was terrified by the dire conditions. In a debate with Enver Hoxha, he urged him to halt the war and surrender:

‘Mr. Hoxha, you’re mistaken… you’ve lost the war… you’re surrounded… you have only two options: either be killed or surrender…’

Enver Hoxha, who had been trying to calm the British ally, exploded when he heard those defeatist words:

‘Who lost the war? Who should surrender? Never! You, Mr. General, are a defeatist and a capitulator. The Albanian partisans do not know defeat, let alone surrender. They know only resistance and victory!’

And it was Enver Hoxha’s unmatched courage – his absolute conviction in victory – that led the General Staff of the National Liberation Army out of that fierce German-Ballist siege, during that unforgettable cold of late December 1943.

In 1946, at the Paris Peace Conference, the outcomes of the Second World War were being finalized. The great victors – the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France – held the primary positions and were deciding the fate of nations. Little Albania, with fewer than one million inhabitants, arrived at this Conference with its head held high. Its contribution to the Anti-Fascist War, compared to its human and material capacity, was of the highest level. But neighbouring chauvinists refused to acknowledge this fact. The Greek representative at the Conference, Caldarisi, launched a storm of accusations against Albania, labelling it a collaborator of fascism in the attack against Greece. If these accusations were accepted as truth, then the territorial integrity of newly-liberated Albania would be called into question. As always, the great powers of the world had little concern for the fate of small countries and peoples. These could be traded among them, like gifts or relics exchanged at a simple celebration. Facing this potential threat to our country was Enver Hoxha. With unmatched courage, he declared at the Conference:

‘I solemnly declare that: Neither the Paris Conference, nor the Conference of the Four, nor any other Conference whatsoever, can take under consideration the borders of my country, within which there is not a single inch of foreign land… Let the whole world know that the Albanian people do not allow their borders and land to be discussed… The Albanian people have not sent their delegation to Paris to give an account, but to demand accountability from those who harmed them so greatly and whom they fought fiercely until the end!’

And after this historic declaration, Enver Hoxha walked out of the Conference proceedings, returning to the Homeland, to his people – from whom, like Antaeus, he drew endless strength and courage.

In November 1960, Enver Hoxha’s courage rose to legendary proportions. It was a moment of direct confrontation with a threat looming over the international communist movement and, at the same time, over socialist Albania. The clash was face-to-face with the leader of the vast state that made up one-sixth of the globe – the father of kukuruz (maize), Nikita Khrushchev. But this ‘Cyclops’ of the great Eurasian land, when confronted with Enver Hoxha in that bitter winter of the aged Kremlin, resembled the smallest copy of a Russian Matryoshka doll. The opposite was true for Enver Hoxha. His towering and expressive appearance matched perfectly the argument and truth he stood for, all accompanied by rare courage. This was because he came from Albania, where manhood is not measured by weight or position, but by resistance and bravery, by deeds and actions for the benefit of the nation. At the end of that fierce confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev, Enver Hoxha, with a loud and confident voice, would declare: ‘I defend the interests of my country!’

That phrase – delivered with Albanian fire and manliness, in front of Moscow’s treacherous leadership – needs no commentary. As history proved, the entire philosophy of Enver Hoxha’s life and work is encapsulated in that phrase: ‘I defend the interests of my country!’

For half a century, this ‘Man of the Land’ – like no one else in the old or modern history of the Albanians – defended and elevated Albania’s and his nation’s interests to the highest levels.

* * *

It cannot be said with certainty whether an era produces colossi, or whether colossi create an era. But in our case, we can declare without hesitation: Enver Hoxha created an era for Albania and the Albanian nation. An era that placed Albania on the map of the world, raising the Albanians and their country to the highest level of dignity as a nation!

The apologists of the bourgeoisie accuse us, the communists, of the ‘cult of personality’! But who created and continues to fuel the so-called ‘cult of personality’ for the leaders of the proletariat? It was – and still is – the dwarfs of history, starting from the bald Khrushchev to the confused, bearded, scarf-wrapped types of today, who, unable to climb the Great Mountain, spit at it from below – even though their spit only falls back on their own faces!

All the high epithets in the world would not be enough for Enver Hoxha, even if all the dictionaries of the world’s languages were combined. For nature has rarely crafted such a complete person – in stature and presence, in intellect and heart, in courage and bravery, in self-sacrifice and devotion, and above all in a monumental work for the benefit of his nation – as it did in Enver Hoxha.

The ‘cult of personality’? How laughable – and equally deceitful! For a priest said to have cured one or two blind people (surely with remedies unknown in ancient times), the Church and its propaganda perform canonization, and then raise a cult around him where thousands of believers pray. But for Enver Hoxha – who performed real, not imagined, miracles; who shifted history and created an era; who cured not one or two individuals of blindness, but three million Albanians; whose theoretical and practical work lifts not just two or three crippled men, but thousands and millions of proletarians across the world – we supposedly have no right to honour him with a cult?

Yes! Enver Hoxha fully deserves the cult. He is – and will remain – the cult of honourable Albanians. He is – and will remain – the cult of the members of the Communist Party and their supporters, because his majestic figure represents the true national ideals.

Our Albania today, as I wrote at the beginning of this piece, is without a Master of the House. A full 40 years without a master. And how can a house be without ‘its Master’? ‘See and write,’ says the people – and what is to be written is clear for all to see. In the absence of the ‘Master of the Hearth,’ the pack of wolves, along with the great she-wolf of capitalism, has overrun Albania and is tearing it apart without mercy – just as hyenas do in the dark!

On the eve of the March 22, 1992 elections – elections that marked the rise to power of the old bourgeoisie and its new offspring – the chairman of the Communist Party, the revolutionary poet Hysni Milloshi, made a call: ‘Albanian people, do not blindfold yourselves with a black cloth before the ballot box, because afterwards not even the cuckoo will be able to lament your fate!’ But the Albanian people, unfortunately, under the pressure of the horns and drums of ‘bourgeois democracy,’ did not heed the call of the chief communist of the time. With two fingers raised and their minds lowered, they cast their votes into the black bourgeois box – a box that for the past three and a half decades has darkened, and continues to darken, their lives in every aspect.

The Albanians must now remove this black cloth from their eyes. Three and a half decades are enough to understand that bourgeois democracy can bring nothing but the darkness into which the people have completely sunk. Until when will this continue? Has hope been lost for emerging into the light once again?

No! The Albanians will once again find the Master of the House – without whom the country, just like a family, cannot stand firm or move forward. It cannot be otherwise. History repeats itself. And in today’s world, this ‘repetition’ has a much shorter time span than in the past. Albania will soon give birth to the ‘Man’ who will lead it out of the tunnel of darkness – towards the true light!

(Translated by November Eighth Publishing House (Canada) from the Albanian original)

On the paths of war by Hektor Dule

Posted on 01/07/2022 by Michael

On the paths of war

On the paths of war by Hektor Dule

Rather than give my own interpretation of this statue I thought to reproduce the article below which includes a number of interpretations of the statue of the Partisan and the women offering him a refreshing drink. It originally appeared as Eros on the Roads of War: Some Brief Notes on Hektor Dule’s Në Udhët e Luftës For and Against the Decadences of the Fles by Raino Isto

First exhibited in during the National Exhibition dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of National Liberation, Hektor Dule’s Në Udhët e Luftës [On the Paths of War] (also called Në Rrugën e Luftës) now stands in Tirana’s Great Park,[1] near to the fountains (and also to the new assortment of exercise equipment installed in the last few years). The bronze statue, depicting an Albanian woman holding up a jug of water and allowing a partisan soldier to drink deeply from it, seems appropriately placed in its pseudo-natural surroundings. It is, after all, about the nourishment of the body in the course of its struggles…what better location for it that the Great Park, where the body—in exercise, in sex, in relaxation and communion with an artificial nature—is fundamental to the creation and experience of space?

In 1975, writing of the work’s appearance in the exhibition (in its earlier version done in plaster), Fatmir Haxhiu wrote that ‘precisely in this moment both ordinary and life-affirming, in this fundamentally simple act—one that may people have encountered during the war years (a mother giving a jug of water to a partisan)—the artist struggles to show the love and intimacy that our people felt for the partisans, and the support that ordinary people gave to the partisans during the National Liberation War. And the artist achieves his goal. The two figures are connected to each other in a conceptual unity and by the complete harmonization of their forms.’[2] Later, Haxhiu writes, ‘It is an intimate work’ [my emphasis].[3] The remainder of his article praises Dule (who at this point was one of the important figures in a new generation of Albanian sculptors, best known for the Mushqeta monument and his work with the famous ‘monumental trio’ of K. Rama, Sh. Hadëri, and M. Dhrami), offers the typically supportive assessment of his treatment of themes from the National Liberation War, and makes some minor aesthetic criticisms aimed at his future improvement as a sculptor.

Without dismissing the relevance of the ever-present theme of the partisan struggle, and certainly without wishing to poke fun at either Haxhiu’s analysis or Dule’s work, I would like to suggest a slightly different interpretation of Në Udhët e Luftës. Perhaps it is more accurate to say: I wish to expand upon our understanding of the themes of the partisan struggle precisely by pausing as we read the words love and intimacy, and considering what sculptural traditions Dule’s work is truly in dialogue with. In short, I would like to introduce (or perhaps, since so much popular discourse seems so committed to separating the two, to reintroduce) the question of the body, sensuality, and sex into the discussion of Albanian socialist realist sculpture.

For it seems undeniable to me that Dule’s sculptural group carries an immense sexual charge (and not just because of some vague associations with what goes on elsewhere in the Great Park). If Haxhiu’s analysis of the work seems to avoid this aspect, I think the fact that he uses the words ‘love and intimacy’ to characterize the work indicates his awareness of the issues potentially broached by the work and an active attempt to undercut them. In much the same way, I think that Dule is trying to use the tropes of a certain sculptural tradition in the context of socialist realism in order partially to undermine them and partially to harness them.

To see the eroticism of Dule’s sculpture, we need only compare it to a work that I dare say it was actually intended to be in dialogue with: Clodion’s Nymph and Satyr Carousing (also known as The Intoxication of Wine), 18th century (ca. 1780–90), terracotta, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clodion’s work, which straddles (as the sculptor himself did) the turn towards the Neoclassical in sculpture with the more playful sensuality of the Rococo, is a kind of decadent mirror of Dule’s work. In Clodion: a satyr, the preeminent mythical being of male lust, leans back, allowing himself to rest upon a stone as he lifts one animal leg off the ground and pulls a naked nymph to him, his fingers digging into the flesh of her back. She leans into him, straddling his left leg, wrapping her right arm around his neck, and holds a goblet of wine above his mouth, pouring. In Dule: an Albanian woman, barefoot and dressed in garb that suggests she must be a villager) stands before a male partisan. Her feet are slightly apart, and one of his booted feet steps forward, placed firmly between hers. Her left arm and shoulder are drawn back, her clothing flowing out a bit behind her, and her right hand reaches out to steady a full, rounded jug as the partisan holds it in his right hand, by its handle, above his head. His head is thrown back, the jug held a few inches from his open mouth to allow the water to flow down his throat. His left shoulder is likewise thrown back, exposing his chest, and he braces his weight on his left leg. His left hand steadies his rifle at waist height, as its barrel juts out phallically, but directed away from the woman. The only contact between the two bodies takes place between her sleeve and his chest as she steadies the jug, but she stares directly at his face as he drinks in a fixed gaze that connects the two emotionally, physically, and compositionally. Like Clodion’s pair, Në Udhët e Luftës rewards viewing in the round, shifting perspectives that give us different views of the two bodies and their intimate connections.

I do not think that Dule’s sculpture intends to posit for its viewer a narrative of sexual engagement between the village woman and the partisan he shows, although that is certainly possible.[4] Rather, I think that Dule takes the tradition of which Clodion is emblematic (a Neoclassical sensibility, but with one foot still in the aristocratic tastes of the Rococo,[5] celebrating not only the sobriety of antiquity but also its Bacchic excesses) and attempts to overcome it in the context of socialist realism. Socialist realism was, after all, as much a ‘logic of cultural supplementarity, a logic that established itself by qualifying previous aesthetic traditions that were already…known’ (as Devin Fore asserts), as it was a style in itself.[6] At the same time, however, he brings sensuality into socialist realism, offering a view of the National Liberation War—in its most ‘ordinary’ and ‘life-affirming’ moments—as a struggle that includes the sensual gratification of the body and its desires, of the partisan reinvigorated physically by his encounter with the village mother. There is no need to digress into Freud, and love, and the death drive (though indeed one could) to consider the equation of war, sexuality, and physical release that Në Udhët e Luftës presents. As much as Haxhiu seems careful to ensure that ‘love and intimacy’ have strictly Platonic meanings in the context of Dule’s sculptural pair, the suggestion of sexual fullness present in the jug, the rifle held stiffly at waist-level, the partisan’s head thrown back, and the assertive offering of the village woman trace the contours of a very different set of connotations.

One could certainly go further, and perhaps one should. All I mean to suggest here is the necessity of reasserting the body and its pleasures—sexual and sensual—at the heart of socialist realist sculpture (and art in general) in Albania (and elsewhere, of course). Works like Në Udhët e Luftës reveal the tension of inheriting the sculptural tradition of bodily desire made materially manifest, and the rich possibilities of bringing that ‘decadent’ tradition into the context of the National Liberation War narrative—of denying the pleasures of the flesh, but also of reaffirming them in the context of sacrifice and struggle. It should also remind us that the war years were not simply a clash of battalions and strategies, of ideas and ideologies, but also of bodies and their desires.

[1] I would welcome anyone with information about the precise year in which the bronze version of the statue was placed in the park—I confess I have no information regarding this placement.
[2] Fatmir Haxhiu, ‘Në Udhët e Luftës: Shënime rreth grupit skulptural të H. Dules,’ Drita, 28 September 1975.
[3] Ibid.
[4] And the narrative itself seems plausible, though I have read of no accounts that discuss the occurrence and/or frequency of sexual dalliances between partisans and the ‘ordinary people’ that gave them support and shelter during the war.
[5] Indeed, what style or period could more fully epitomize the ‘decadence’ of bourgeois culture—that perennial enemy of socialist society—than the Rococo?
[6] Devin Fore, Realism After Modernism: The Rehumanization of Art and Literature (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012), 244

Location

In the centre of Tirana Park.

GPS

41.31374401
19.81815702

DMS

41° 18′ 49.4784” N
19° 49′ 5.3653” E

Altitude

137.7 m

Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery and the 75th Anniversary of Liberation

Posted on 11/11/2021 by Michael

Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery – 18th September – Liberation Day 75 years

Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery and the 75th Anniversary of Liberation

Details about the lapidar, and some of the history, of the Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery (ALS 376) were posted some time ago. However, on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Gjirokaster from the Nazi occupation I was fortunate enough to be, again, in the city.

The Nazi’s were forced from the city by the Partisans, under the leadership of the Albanian Communist Party (that was later renamed as the Party of Labour of Albania) on 18th September 1944. That date is still considered important, even through all the changes and the anarchy that hit Gjirokaster significantly during the 1990s, as the main street in the new town is still called Bulevard 18 Shtator (18th September Avenue).

On that date in 2019 a small celebration was organised both at the cemetery itself and in the theatre in the new part of town – but much less than it would have been during the period of Socialist construction. However, the event did follow certain aspects which were common of such occasions between 1944 and 1990.

There was a march from the centre of the new town to the cemetery (which is on the edge of town on the national road that heads towards Tepelene (and hence Tirana) in the north and the Greek border at Kakavija towards the south) where a short ceremony took place and this was followed a short time later by a cultural performance/speeches in the town’s theatre.

As I have said this was very low key, the rest of Gjirokaster carrying on life as normal, something which would not have happened in the past. Such an anniversary would have been a public holiday and the celebration would have been much more formal and with events taking place all over the town.

However, there are a few points I would like to emphasis from my observation on the day, which include how things were done in the past and how they were done in 2019.

It was obvious that those who still identify themselves with the Socialist past in Albania were those who wore a red scarf around their necks. This was part of the ‘uniform’ of the Partisans. This I have pointed out in many descriptions of the lapidars which have appeared on the page under the heading of the Albanian Lapidar Survey.

The military presence existed but on a much reduced level – just really a couple of officers in regular, i.e., not dress, uniform. Whether it was seen as an obligation I can only surmise. During the Socialist period the military presence would have been in the form of the People’s Militia which consisted of both men and women.

Proud Relative

The tradition at ceremonies in the Martyrs’ cemeteries always consisted of children from the Young Pioneers standing at each of the tombs and during the ceremony a single red carnation would be placed on each tomb. As time passed it would obviously mean that many of the martyrs would not have any surviving relatives who might be able to place flowers on the tombs. By having the Young Pioneers do so, in a formal and organised manner, it meant that none of the anti-Fascist fighters were forgotten and left out. In 2019 it was again young people who brought baskets of flowers and then placed a single flower on each tomb – but these were older children, in their teens, rather than the younger, primary school children, who would have carried out the task pre-1990. (But someone ‘forgot’ to count the tombs as at the end of the flower distribution there were still quite a number without a flower.)

Child distributing flowers

There was very little ‘formality’ during the 75th Anniversary celebration at the cemetery. People tended to mill around rather than stand in any formal manner. If you want to draw comparisons then the fact that this is being written on 11th November provides an easy and almost direct comparison.

At 11.00 on Remembrance Sunday (in the United Kingdom) in the centre of London at the Cenotaph there will be a very formal presence of politicians and aristocracy. After the Minutes’ Silence there will be a very formal and organised laying of wreaths and then a march past of veterans. To do otherwise in Britain would cause an outcry of indignation from various sectors of the population and media. For people to just walk by and see who had left the wreath at the Cenotaph during the Minutes’ Silence would be considered disrespectful. That was virtually what was happening in Gjirokaster on 18th September 2019.

I’m not saying that is either good or bad. It’s just to remind readers that countries have various ways in commemorating their dead in past wars. It should also be remembered that, in theory if not really in ultimate practice, in the early 1940s the so-called ‘Allies’ were supposed to be fighting on the same side and that the defeat of Fascism was the aim of all the countries. So perhaps people should remember this when they start to make judgements on the past in Albania.

Without significant help from any other army of the major warring Allies the Albanian people were able to liberate themselves from both the Italian Fascist and German Nazi invaders. In some respects that was their greatest crime – at least in the eyes of the British and the Americans. It meant they weren’t beholding to any external power and would fight to maintain the independence they had gained on 29h November 1944. It was for this reason that the British threatened and made attempts at ‘regime change’ in Albania even before the sound of the cannon fire had disappeared in the distance.

But back to the ceremony on 18th September 2019.

One small event that caused a local stir was the presence of an older man who help a portrait of Comrade Enver Hoxha, in a glass frame, high above his head in front of the images of the eight heroes/heroines of Gjirokaster depicted on the lapidar. He drew the attention of the media present as well as a number of onlookers. Though a single incident it was good to see that the spirit of the past still exists within the city.

Holding Enver High

Hopefully, readers will be able to get an idea of the event from the pictures in the slide show below.

Event at the theatre

Much of the celebration that continued in the theatre an hour or so after the ceremony at the celebration went over my head as a non-Albanian speaker. However, it was possible to get the general tone in that the Liberation of the town from the Nazis 75 years previously was still an event that needed to be remembered and commemorated.

(This is despite the fact that in Tirana Park, in the capital, there’s a monument to the Nazi fallen – put there to please the so-called democrats of Germany and, no doubt, in a bid to curry favour with a principle player in the European Union – which Albania is desperate to join and which (even though it goes against all the logic of the EU Constitution). This is likely (bizarrely) to happen in the not too distant future. High level talks are taking place in 2021 – when the rest of the EU is starting to implode – and the only reason I can see for this is the huge mineral resources that have so far remained untapped in the (at the moment) relatively inaccessible part of the north east of the country. But how many other countries that fought the Fascists in the Second World War have monuments to the dead of the invaders?)

As part of this celebration there was a small exhibition of Socialist Realist Art in the entrance to the theatre – examples which are included in the slide show below. Some of these had been brought down from the Museum in the Castle for the occasion – and can be seen in the badly maintained and positively dirty museum at present. Others seems to have come from storage – as was the picture of Persefoni and Bule, the two so-called ‘Hanged Women of Gjirokaster’, two young, Partisan women, in their early twenties, who were publicly hung in the main square in the old town on July 17th 1944. This particular picture has been added as an update to the post on these two brave young Communist fighters.

Persefoni and Bula – G Modhi 1966

Also in exhibition was a brand new, and very fine, tapestry of the Liberation which, I assume, was made specifically for the 75th Anniversary. The artist has signed their name SC – but I have no further information to date.

18 Shtator 1944 – SC – tapestry

Update on the cemetery

I took the opportunity of a quiet moment to have another visit to the cemetery to try to get an idea of what the Anti-Fascist National Liberation war was all about. I had missed them in the past but was slightly surprised to see that (although there are many young people remembered on the tombs) there were two children of 14 (Sulo Hysi (1929-1943) and Kristo Cavo (1929-1943)) and one 16 year-old (Celo Sinani (1928-1944)) who also fell in the struggle for liberation.

Kristo Cavo

I have been having difficulty in tracking down someone in Gjirokaster who might know exactly who is represented amongst the eight heads which are depicted on the lapidar. In the cemetery there are a few tombstones which carry a red star as well as the name of the individual. These will be officially Heroes of the People. Two of those, Bule Naipi (1922-1944) and Persefoni Koadhima (1923-1944) are the so-called ‘Hanged Women of Gjirokaster’ and are the young female faces on the lapidar.

I am assuming that of the other Heroes of the People whose tombs are in the Martyrs’ Cemetery – Themo-Vasi (no dates), Celo Sinani (1928-1944) and Muzafer Asqueria (1918-1942) – might well be also depicted on the panel but if so I’m not sure which they are.