The Site of Witness and Memory Museum in Shkodër attracts foreign visitors interested in Albania’s communist past. Through documents, personal testimonies and preserved rooms, they learn about political prisoners and persecution under the dictatorship. The museum occupies a former branch of the Internal Affairs Department. Photographs, letters, manuscripts and personal belongings reveal the prisoners’ lives and suffering.

Museum director Pjerin Mirdita described the latest season as very positive. He said visitor numbers continue to rise each year, confirming the museum’s cultural and tourism value for Shkodër.

For foreign tourists, the museum offers insight into how the communist regime operated and how it affected people’s lives. Visitors said the testimonies and preserved rooms helped them understand a period they knew little about. One visitor stressed that people, especially young generations, must hear this painful history. Another said the experience had deeply affected them because they knew almost nothing about Albania’s past. A third visitor expressed surprise that these events had occurred so recently, yet remained largely unknown in Italy.

The museum opened in 2014. It preserves the memory of dictatorship victims and presents the history of political persecution in Albania to local and foreign visitors.

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