Tito's Private Concentration Camp. Political Violence in Communist Yugoslavia on the example of "Goli Otok" (PDF)

Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject Cultural Studies - East European Studies, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (Osteuropa Institut), course: Regimes of Violence in Post-Socialist Countries, language: English, abstract: The Yugoslav political prison named "Goli Otok", located on a barren and uninhabited island in the Adria, was one of the worst detention centres in the 20st century, but it has gone rather unnoticed by contemporary scholars. This text aims to unravel the story about the prison on a small island, situated between the Croatian vacation paradises Krk and Rab, which served as the private concentration camp of the Yugoslav Communist Party - or more precisely: of Marshall Tito. It seeks to find solid answers to the question why this top-secret prison was formed in the first place and what purpose it served for the communist elite at the time.

Yugoslavia's "Barren Island" internment camp was established back in 1949, merely a year after the famous split from the Soviet Union, and it is therefore usually said that this political prison was mainly for the so-called "Stalinists". Although this is somewhat true, there were also other political enemies who were imprisoned on Goli Otok, mostly after 1955 and the reconciliation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union when basically all opponents of the regime were brought to the infamous island. Thus, this essay examines the need for political repression in former Yugoslavia, considering the historical background of the time and consequently addressing the question of the detainees on the Yugoslav Barren Island in the period between 1949-1989, when the Iron Curtain began to crumble across Eastern Europe and the detention centre was abandoned.