ACADEMIC RESEARCH
"These stories must be told."
Artan Minarolli, Director, National Albanian Film Institute
One of the goals of AHRP is to make our materials available to scholars and historians for use as primary sources. As of 2016, 100 first hand testimonies of survivors of persecution, imprisonment, and internment during the Communit Regime (1945-1991) have been filmed and transferred to DVD. All 100 testimonies are preserved at the Albanian Central Archive in Tirana, Albania, and are being curated in a partnership with the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Los Angeles. Original footage has been digitized and preserved for study at the USC Digital Repository at the University of Southern California for the next 20 years and beyond.
In 2012, AHRP began negotiations with the Wende Museum of the Cold War to place on permanent deposit all of AHRP's complete inventory, including original material and records archive. As one of the Warsaw Pact countries, Albania is part of the purview of the Museum and the historial witness interviews are valuable additions to its holdings. The collection of testimonies is now available for scholars, educators, and students as a beacon of truth and source of inspiration for generations to come. Among the 100 transcribed testimonies on file, three testimonies with English subtitles are currently available for study on Wende's Open Access online catalog.
Accompanying the testimonies is a collection of detailed questionnaires filled out by each survivor. These 30 page questionnaires follow the guidelines used by the USC Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education. The questionnaires are being placed in an extensive database for future use in scholarly study and education at the Wende Museum of the Cold War.
For further information, on the AHRP/Wende research program, scholars and educators may contact Kate Dollenmayer, Audiovisual Archivist of the Wende Musem at kdollenmayer@wendemuseum.org, or at (310) 216-1600, ext. 306.
SHORT FILMS & PRESENTATIONS
To learn more about Albania, read AHRP's presentation on Albania Yesterday and Today. AHRP has also produced two short documentary films narrated in English: “Prison Nation: Albania 1943-1990” and “Lost Voices Making History.” The original Albanian version of “Lost Voices Making History” is also available in Albanian under the title, “Zera te Heshtur.” See Rose Dosti speaking about AHRP on Voice of America (in Albanian).