Albania, persecutions, prisoners, Catholic Church, Jesuits, imprisonment 

Here, published for the first time in English, is the actual eye-witness account and personal experiences of one of the many victims of the brutal Communist persecutions in Albania. A country which has officially declared itself "atheistic" in its constitution, Albania, in its fierce endeavors to carry out its diabolical ideology, completely isolated itself from the rest of the world, allowing not even its most famous and revered daughter, Mother Teresa, entrance into her homeland. Fr. Giacomo Gardin, a Jesuit missionary for 20 years in Albania, including 10 years in prison, retells with moving simplicity and deep faith the story of the communist takeover, mock trials, labor camps, persecution and the heroic suffering and martyrdom of his fellow Albanian prisoners.

"Like 'poor Jonah,' I was spewed out onto the beaches of freedom, while my persecuted fellows - priests, religious, and laypeople - gathered in their hands the palm of martyrdom! This was the role that Providence assigned to me! Maybe I was not ripe for martyrdom. Or maybe God wanted me to be His witness here today, in order to bring you a living testimony of how much people have suffered there, in that small land of Albania; a testimony of how much labor in hardship and bloodshed I witnessed during the ten years I was there." - Fr. Giacomo Gardin, SJ.

"I have read your book with interest and emotion as I remembered the suffering endured by the Albanian Church and people. I offer my prayers for the Albanian Church whose life is still so tried but enriched by the testimony of the martyrs." - Pope John Paul II

Taken from the back cover.

Originally published in Rome as Dieci anni di prigionia in Albania (1945-1955).