Helena Sallakuová

* 1947

  • "When they told you that socialism could have a human face, what did you think of that?" - "I was wondering what that human face would look like. Because if the same people are going to do it, how are they going to give it a human face when it was inhuman before? I was really confused. And I didn't want to believe that all of a sudden now, starting in January, everything was going to be different, everything was going to be right..."

  • "When he saw that the prisoners needed some rest, he left them in the infirmary, saying they were in dire need of some care. Maybe a week. Sometimes the guards didn't believe him, sometimes they did. What could they do... The prisoner rested there and then went back to work. He tried to help as much as he could. But he didn't have many options. He also said that he had to repeat medicine a lot, because he diagnosed diseases in primitive ways. Like the eyes, by gait. By tapping, listening. He had to use those diagnostic methods and he was pretty good at it. He had nothing else at hand. Just a stethoscope and nothing else."

  • "He mainly treated injuries. The prisoners were committing a kind of harakiri. They let some kind of explosive go off in their hands. He had to stop the bleeding or cut off the hand. He didn't have any anesthetic. Nothing. So it was crazy. Crazy work. If they managed to stop the bleeding, they took the injured person to the hospital, and a lot of people didn't survive. They were really committing literal harakiri. He said he was literally stuffing the intestines back in and trying to stitch it up. But it was a long way to the hospital. There were no ambulances. They were trucked in. The Spaç work camp in particular is quite high up in the mountains..."

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From Prague to hell and back. The Albanian story of Helena and Nuri

Helena Sallakuová / 1970
Helena Sallakuová / 1970
zdroj: archive of Helena Sallakuová

Helena Sallakuová, maiden name Munzarová, was born in Supíkovice, Jesenice, on 2 November 1947. She grew up in Jeseník. Her father was a clerk in a company called Kamenoprůmysl. He came from a poor background from the Podkrkonoší region and joined the Communist Party in 1945. Helena also believed in the ideals of socialism, but left them during her studies at university in Prague. After the invasion in August 1968, her father left the Communist Party. Helena Sallakuová worked in a research institute, but this work did not give her any meaning. She played the organ in Prague churches and refused to inform to State Security. In 1991 she met Nuri Sallaku, a doctor, partisan and political prisoner from Albania. They married and Nuri Sallaku became the father of Helena‘s daughter from a previous relationship. Helena Sallakuová gave an account of her husband‘s life to Memory of Nations. About his participation in the partisan resistance during World War II and his twenty-five years in the labor camps and prisons of dictator Enver Hoxha.