4.15 avg rating — 39 ratings

"“The camp was established by a classified decree of the Council of Ministers on 27 April 1949,” Hristo Hristov says. “Of course, the communist party didn’t invent anything new, but simply boosted the violence and torture, copy-pasted from the sample – the monstrous Soviet GULAG. It’s an interesting fact that Belene used to be a village back then and, as the State Security archives themselves testify, they expected trouble there due to the Catholic population and the zero impact of the communist party. However, the Persin Island was selected because of its isolate geography with the idea to transfer there the prisoners from the other camps. Belene was active till 1953 – till the death of Stalin and afterwards the regime would loosen its grip a bit. Some 15,000 were imprisoned there – quite many people for small Bulgaria. One should bear in mind that 18,000 – 30,000 people were executed by the so-called People’s Court over the first months of the communist terror, many of them simply disappeared. Another 10,000 were officially sentenced by this illegal tribunal.”"

4.35 avg rating — 13,796 ratings

3.84 avg rating — 1,503 ratings

3.69 avg rating — 406,170 ratings

4.02 avg rating — 4,502,463 ratings