It was the year 1931 when Tirana was being dressed with an urban fabric, which almost resembled a city. Right here, in that “Alla Frenga” costume, which had started to be “sewn”, a medical clinic took shape. A building, which was conceived to save lives, but whose fate would be marked for exactly the opposite:Disfigured between wars, since 1950, this building was transformed into the beating heart of the State Security.

Along with the creeping plants that covered his body, this building was ALSO covered by the shadow of horror. The shoots, stuck to the walls, resembled apparatus cables, which stretched between our lives, conveying anxiety and fear.

Over the years people began to stop seeing him, to pretend he wasn’t here, to change lanes when they passed on the sidewalk, not even to touch him out of the corner of the eye, because otherwise they would wake up Cerberus.

Those who dared would never return from Hades, or would return transformed, turned off… and decades later would be writtenin the stories, that are told together in the pavilions of this museum.

If George Orell’s “1984” had not been written in 1949, many of us would think that it was inspired by Albania, where a “Big Brother” watched over everything, and the Leafy House was his ear.

Let me quote a wise man who left us some time ago:

“In former Soviet Russia, with a history similar to ours, it is said: If you want to know the history of America get a book, if you want to learn the history of Soviet Russia get a spade.

We have taken the shovel to uncover the graves of the victims, but we have not yet taken the shovel of the archives, and this museum will serve as a shovel to dig in an area yet unknown”.

This is how the art researcher, Gëzim Qendro, who was part of the working group for the establishment of the National Museum of Recordings “The house with leaves”, would say.

And indeed it did. Opening the doors of the house of horror, would reveal one of the most sophisticated schemes of dictatorship, to rule people’s lives, that through fear, built like the circles of the Dantesque “Hell”, where the eavesdroppers roam of phone calls and telegrams; microphones-“bugs”, to hide as parasites in the house and in the body (Strange how the poorest country in Europe, spared no effort to acquire the latest technology, for nefarious purposes.);

I don’t want to dwell on how files were filled, machinations were produced, how the ordeal towards punishment started right here and how the lists of “enemies of the people” , who prayed to God in the dark, but it was added..

I want to dwell only on the undeniable truth, that the reason for which we are here today, THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THIS MUSEUM “Museum of the Council of Europe 2020”, is the evidence that the dimensions of that human deformation, which started here inside, were transformed right here, in that drop of water, which day after day, awakens our memory, which does not we are sleepy from everyday life; that we have NOT allowed the past to repeat itself and that right here we are reminding YOUNG PEOPLE that freedom and democracy are not an eternal gift, but must be defended every day.

Today we are at this time stop, which marks another stage in the urban fabric of Tirana, thanks to the vision of those who conceived, realized and supported the rise of this the museum; who believed in the mission and the truths he had to confess, and today this award is yet another hug of gratitude that comes from afar.

Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, for seeing the investment in memory preservation as an investment in the future.

And today we accept this award, not without pride and gratitude, but mostly with an increased responsibility, to clarify the past; not to let go of the ‘shovel of search’, for only knowledge truly makes a man free, only knowledge truly makes us better!

Thank you for seeing this small museum, in this corner of Europe, as the voice that must be heard in these troubled times that humanity is going through.
And let this award be EVEN one more invitation to get to know, understand and accept us in your family, in the European Union!

Thank you!