Edip Tërshana (1907–1948) was a prominent figure in Dibër, known for his role as a leader of the resistance and later a non-communist faction during World War II. He was arrested in 1947 during political purges and executed a year later. His family was not allowed to retrieve his body, and as a result, his grave has never been located.
Following the 1990s, Tërshana’s family identified the area where he was executed, based on testimony from a police officer who was present during the event. Despite conducting excavations, they were unable to find his remains. As a symbolic gesture, the family created a small box to represent a coffin, filling it with stones instead of Edip’s bones. “This was the funeral. Afterward, we had lunch, and this was the end of Edip,” recounts his relative, emphasizing the tragedy of a man who could have been a reformist leader for Albania in a different context.
The case of Tërshana is just one of many instances—numbering in the hundreds of thousands—where political executions were accompanied by the denial of the deceased’s body to their family, complicating the process of identification. Even after 35 years of systemic change, many families still do not have identified graves for their loved ones.
This video testimony was produced by journalist Luljeta Progni, as part of an initiative by the Institute of Political Studies (ISP).
ISP is implementing the project “Victims of the border: Information and awareness for the victims of murders and disappearances during border escapes throughout the years 1988-1991”, which is supported by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), through a grant funded by the European Union in Albania.
The content is the sole responsibility of ISP.
