Former nuclear bunker becomes museum of Albanian persecution

TIRANA, Albania – A former top-secret nuclear bunker has been reopened as a museum in Albania’s capital to show visitors how Communist-era police persecuted the regime’s opponents.

The 1,000-square-meter (1,077-square-foot) bunker with reinforced concrete walls up to 2.4 metres (8-feet) thick was built between 1981 and 1986 to shelter elite police and interior ministry staff in the event of a nuclear attack.

The museum that opened in Tirana on Saturday now holds photographs and equipment that illustrate the political persecution of some 100,000 Albanians from 1945 until 1991.

Prime Minister Edi Rama says the museum reflects his Cabinet’s “will to pay back a debt to the memory of the former political persecuted, forgotten in the last 25 years.”