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German Embassy Opens Digital Exhibition/How Thousands of Albanians Flocked to Escape the Communist Regime

2025-07-02 09:44:00, Kulturë CNA

German Embassy Opens Digital Exhibition/How Thousands of Albanians Flocked to

The German Embassy in Tirana has opened a digital exhibition that reflects how thousands of Albanians flocked to the Embassy to seek protection from the communist regime.

The digital exhibition presents original images from this period. German Ambassador Karl Bergner has described it as a historic date.

Bergner adds that the exhibition commemorates the victims of political persecution under communist rule.

This virtual exhibition, the ambassador emphasized, which shows original footage from that period, was first presented in 2020 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary. Due to the importance of the events and moving images, it has returned to the online exhibition.

"Welcome - Willkommen"

Dear visitors to our virtual exhibition,

I warmly welcome you to our digital exhibition space!

In my capacity as German Ambassador to Albania, it is a pleasure for me that with this exhibition we are commemorating an important historical event: the storming of the German Embassy in Tirana, which happened 34 years ago today.

At that time, around 5,000 Albanian citizens were seeking refuge in foreign embassies in Tirana. In the end, more than 3,200 people were found on the territory of the German Embassy, ??the construction of which had been completed only a few months earlier. They wanted to leave communist Albania under its Stalinist tyranny at all costs. The risk they thus took for themselves and their families was extremely great.

People were looking for freedom, for well-being, for a new beginning. Some of them were also inspired by the images broadcast on television about East German refugees in 1989.

After ten days of dramatic conflict, the conflict was resolved. After difficult negotiations with the Albanian side, the international community succeeded - the government agreed to leave the country. The latter took place on the night of July 12, via Durrës towards Italy and then by train to Germany.

We wish through our exhibition to honor the courage of those who fled and to commemorate the victims of political persecution under communist rule. Although those ten days of the Embassy occupation were only a brief episode, that mass escape heralded the beginning of political change in Albania.

This virtual exhibition, which shows original footage from that period, was first presented in 2020 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary. Due to the importance of the events and moving images, we have decided to put this exhibition online again.

The desperation and lack of perspective that drove people to the embassy at that time should be a warning to us for the present and the future: because it is about freedom, democracy and economic development for all. Never again dictatorship, never again terror and tyranny!

Albania is today part of the European family and a country with a not always easy transformation process behind it. Germany will continue to stand by the Albanian citizens on their path towards the European Union.

And now I wish all visitors, by clicking through our exhibition, a lot of fun and new knowledge!

Sincerely,

"Yours, Karl Bergner," writes Ambassador Bergner./ CNA