Father Zef Pllumi, Franciscan priest, writer, passed away at the “Gemelli” hospital in Rome (Italy). He was born in Mali i Rencit (Lorenci), in Shëngjin, in 1924, in a family originating from Shkreli. He was baptized with the name Prenkë. In 1929, at the age of 5, he became a student of the German missionary Alfons Tracki, in Velipojë. In 1931, he entered the Franciscan College of Shkodra, where he attended the entire cycle of education, until 1944. In the years 1943-1944, he collaborated with the magazine “Hylli i Dritës“ (“The star of the light”) and was chosen as the personal secretary of Father Anton Harapi. He was 22 years old when, on December 14, 1946, he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. The reason for his arrest, as he himself says, was because the communists thought that he should know a lot and that they could extract information from him. He served his sentence in the “Big Prison” of Shkodra, in the camps of Beden in Myzeqe and Orman-Pojani in Maliq in Korça. After his release, he returned to the Franciscan Assembly. In the years 1949-1951 he dealt with numismatics, as a technician of the Museum of Shkodra. In 1956 he was ordained a priest and, for 12 years, he served as a priest of Dukagjin based in Shosh, where he left on September 14, 1958, together with Father Augustin Ashiku. In 1967 he was arrested again and for 23 years he served his sentence in various prisons and camps, such as in Spaç, Reps, Skrofotinë in Vlora, Ballsh, Zejmen-Shënkoll and Tiranë. He was released in 1989. A year later, he began teaching at the Shna Nou Church in Tirana, until 1997. From 1993 to 1997, he republished the magazine “Hylli i Dritës“. During these years he wrote and published the trilogy “Rrno vetëm për me tregue“ (“Live only to tell”). In 2006, the President of the Republic decorated him with the “Honour of the Nation” order. This same year, he was also awarded the “Golden Feather” literary award, awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Albania, for the trilogy of memoirs “Rrno vetëm për me tregue” He passed away in 2007 and was buried on September 30, 2007, in Shkodër. (In the photo: Zef Pllumi)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. VI , Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, “WestPrint“, Tirana, 2017, page 333-334.
Graphic processing: AHCF
