As in many other parts of Europe, World War II in Albania had been a vicious, obscene affair, with different partisan groups often switching from fighting the Axis armies to joining with them in order to attack one another. During the war, most every Albanian political faction or partisan commander—and that included Burke’s new friend, Abas Kupi—had at some point made a pact of convenience with the Axis, had murdered civilians and tortured prisoners. But just as with Peter Sichel in Berlin, none of that was important now. “Given the black-and-white definition of the Cold War,” Burke wrote,
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