Goli Otok is an island in the Adriatic Sea (previously belonging to the former Yugoslavia, today to Croatia), on which a prison camp for political prisoners was run from 1949 to 1956. This period is the most notorious in the island’s history, though Goli Otok continued to operate as a penal and correctional facility in which ordinary criminals served their sentences until 1989. The prison camp was opened after the ideological split between Tito and Stalin in 1948, when relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union deteriorated dramatically and a wave of persecution was launched against people believed to have remained loyal to the USSR. Its advantageous geographical location, the marine barrier that impeded escape, as well as its distance from the eastern border in the case of a potential attack by the USSR all played a decisive role in the choice of this place for a prison camp. (The island was named ‘Goli otok’ or ‘Barren Island’ because of its scant natural vegetation, literally ‘bare island’). For a full seven years, Goli Otok served as an internment camp for political opponents until relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR finally improved after the Belgrade Declaration and the main wave of persecution of ‘Cominformists’ and ‘Stalinists’ ceased.
Diverse groups were interned on the 'barren island': intellectuals, workers, party members and all believed to support the Cominform resolution with which, at its session in Bucharest in 1948, it condemned the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Alongside the political prisoners, who made up the vast majority, other prisoners were sent to Goli Otok and interned in the camp in order to serve 'regular' sentences. These prisoners were mainly convicted of more serious crimes; some were sentenced to death. The exact number of prison camp inmates has never been precisely confirmed. 'The Croatian State Archive holds a list of prisoners compiled by the federal UDBA and on which there are the names of 16,101 [male and female] internees of which most were Serbs (44%), Montenegrins (21.5%) and Croats (16%). According to this list, in all camps for ‘Cominformists’ a total 413 people lost their lives in different ways (murder, suicide, death from natural causes).’[1] Most deaths were the result of exhaustion and the poor living conditions. These political convicts were not sentenced to death. The crime of which they were convicted was 'hostile activity in line with the Informbiro [Cominform]'. In the succinct words of the director of Goli Otok, Ante Raštegorac, in a letter to V. Dedijer 'If there had been no Goli Otok, the whole country would have been Goli Otok'. They testify to the severity with which the threat of anti-system and pro-Soviet elements was treated by Yugoslavia's political leadership.
On Goli Otok, an elaborate system of punishment was in place. Among the most well known were: '“the hot rabbit” – with his eyes bound, the newly arrived convict would pass a line of camp inmates who would wildly beat him into a stupor so as to save themselves; the “frying pan” – tied to a chair, the convict sat in the burning sun for days without water; the “swan” – two beams of twelve metres joined with think planks were loaded with hewn stone, which the prisoners had to carry for several kilometres' (S. Cvetković, ‘Between the Hammer and the Sickle’, p. 380).
During their stay in the camp, the prisoners developed a special language among themselves with which they classified types of prisoners. S. Cvetković wrote: ‘To be “tailed” meant that you had not yet revised [your stance] and did not want to reveal the names of free Cominformists; “double-motor” was the nickname for someone who had returned to the camp, was usually punished with the most severe penalties and exposed to general scorn and torture’ (S. Cvetković, ‘Between the Hammer and the Sickle’, p. 381).
In later years, writing and speaking in public about experiences on Goli Otok entailed certain repercussions. 'On being released from hard labour, the terms “Goli Otok” and “Goli Otok inmate” were most strictly forbidden under the threat of being sent back to prison, so that former camp inmates thought up the euphemisms “Hawaii” and “Hawaiian”' (S. Cvetković, ‘Between the Hammer and the Sickle’, p. 381). Nevertheless, the official and systematic persecution of 'Cominformists' stopped with the disappearance of the threat by the USSR, several years after the death of Stalin.
The most well-known prisoners on Goli Otok were writer Dragoslav Mihailović, revolutionary and dissident Vlado Dapčević, writer Aleksandar Popović, writer Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, politician Dragoljub Mićunović and musician Šaban Bajramović.
