Dino Kalenja, participant of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, Hero of the People, was born in Kalenjë, Mallakastra. As a student at the Korça Lyceum, he participated in the Bread Demonstration (1936). With the establishment of the Albanian Communist Party, he worked energetically for the realization of its political platform. In the years 1942-1943, he developed anti-fascist activities in Tirana. Working in the Ministry of the Interior, he provided important information and helped in the illegal activities of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Movement; he was closely connected with the guerrilla units of Tirana and together with them organized the escape of political prisoners from the prison and from the prison hospital. Member of the Albanian Communist Party, in the summer of 1943. Partisan in the Peza detachment (1943) and then commander of the country command in Mallakastër and commissar of the “Ismail Klosi” battalion (1943). He took part in a number of actions and battles and showed leadership skills. He was killed in Gradishte of Hekali (Mallakastra), during the war with the German invaders, in 1944. (In the photo: Dino Kalenja)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1094.
Photo: © https://www.facebook.com/151402498339962/photos/a.155725384574340/1093293720817497/?locale=sq_AL
Graphic processing: AHCF
