Albania’s new pavilion on communist regime abuse
Feb 20, 2012, 2:50 PM
TIRANA, Albania (AP) – Albania’s National Museum has opened a new pavilion focused on the abuses of the former communist regime, marking the 21st anniversary of the toppling of former communist dictator Enver Hoxha’s monument.
The museum’s pavilion opened Monday and contains handcuffs and chains as well as the clothes and personal items of many of the 100,000 Albanians who were imprisoned, sent to internment camps or executed during the 46 years of Hoxha’s repressive regime.
It also features photographs of mass graves where many of those executed were buried.
Albanians toppled a 6-meter (20-foot) statue of Hoxha in the capital’s central Skanderbeg Square on Feb. 20, 1991, about two months after the collapse of the communist regime. Hoxha himself died in 1985.
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