Albanians Tell Tales of Hardship as They Start Life in a New Country

Albanian refugees arrived in West Germany and other European destinations Saturday, telling stories of hardship in the Stalinist homeland that they fled and saying that any future is better than what they left behind.

A thousand tired but happy refugees came to West Germany by train after occupying Bonn’s embassy in Tirana and being ferried to Italy on Friday.

“We had no freedom and nothing to eat,” said Agron Thachi after he arrived in the West German-controlled station in the Swiss border town of Basel.

“We’ll stay here forever,” said Thachi, 32, who fled with his brother but left their mother behind. “We do not know how to thank the German Embassy.”

“Albania is a beautiful country, but it is a very difficult life. You can compare it to (Nicolae) Ceausescu’s Romania,” said Zefi Pjerin, 27, a welder who left with his pregnant wife.

“I want to lead a normal life, and there was no way but to leave. I’ve worked for 11 years, and I’ve earned nothing,” he said, adding that it took a month’s wages just to buy a pair of pants.

Weary, unshaven men wearing navy-blue jogging suits issued by the Red Cross smiled and waved as the 20-car train pulled into Basel after a 20-hour journey from Brindisi, Italy.

Red Cross staff gave out diapers for the babies, hot drinks, pea soup and sausages while the passenger cars were disconnected to be sent on to transit camps around West Germany.

Two more trains were scheduled to arrive later in the day with the remaining 3,200 refugees who forced their passage abroad by occupying Bonn’s embassy in Tirana.

The refugees began crowding into foreign embassies two weeks ago, seeking to flee Albania, which has resisted the sweeping democratic reforms that have radically altered other Eastern European countries.

Also Saturday, other refugees who occupied embassies in the Albanian capital were sent to France, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Some of the refugees chose to remain in Italy.

In Budapest, Hungary, 39 Albanian refugees chanted “Viva Hungaria” and flashed victory signs as they walked into the airport customs lounge.

“I’m going to the U.S.A.,” said one young man, a picture of rock star Michael Jackson emblazoned on his T-shirt.