From Prague to hell and back. The Albanian story of Helena and Nuri
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Helena Sallakuová, maiden name Munzarová, was born in Supíkovice, Jesenice, on 2 November 1947. She grew up in Jeseník. Her father was a clerk in a company called Kamenoprůmysl. He came from a poor background from the Podkrkonoší region and joined the Communist Party in 1945. Helena also believed in the ideals of socialism, but left them during her studies at university in Prague. After the invasion in August 1968, her father left the Communist Party. Helena Sallakuová worked in a research institute, but this work did not give her any meaning. She played the organ in Prague churches and refused to inform to State Security. In 1991 she met Nuri Sallaku, a doctor, partisan and political prisoner from Albania. They married and Nuri Sallaku became the father of Helena’s daughter from a previous relationship. Helena Sallakuová gave an account of her husband’s life to Memory of Nations. About his participation in the partisan resistance during World War II and his twenty-five years in the labor camps and prisons of dictator Enver Hoxha.
