Spac Prison: a place of dialogue and action – Addressing communist-era heritage

Spaç prison is one of the most symbolic sites of persecution under the Communist regime, as well as perhaps the site that is most present in the collective memory of Albanians.  As such, the primary value of Spaç today is as a much-needed place of memory for the crimes of the Communist regime —a physical space to ‘locate’ and address the traumas of that past, both for the former political prisoners who suffered there and for the rest of the Albanian people.

In 2014 the ‘Dialogues for Spaç’ were implemented, a platform which brought together stakeholders from local government, national institutions, local residents, former prisoners and non- profit organization. Combining visioning and dialogue techniques, stakeholders group coproduced a detailed action-plan for the future of the site. Some of the actions are currently being implemented by the stakeholders.

In 2017, CHwB Albania, via support from Sweden, conducted emergency consolidation works in the remaining buildings in Spaç to reduce on the short-medium term the risk of total collapse of the last standing buildings in Spaç. In parallel to this process, CHwB Albania is also working on short term solutions that would actually prepare for and carry over into the long-term, such as documenting and disseminating to the public what the site has lost by doing extensive onsite and archival research, as well as interviews with former prisoners and staff of Spaç prison. Based on this work and a pioneering process of inclusive planning with a diverse panel of stakeholders and future users of the site (former persecuted persons, local inhabitants, history teachers, tour operators, tourists, diplomats, high school students, journalism, history and heritages studies students, museum professionals, human rights activists, international memory professionals, etc.) CHwB Albania has elaborated a comprehensive and realistic memorialization concept that will guide the future efforts for Spaç