The island is located in the northern Adriatic Sea just off the coast of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia with an area of approximately 4.5 square kilometers (1.7 sq mi). Exposed to strong bora winds, particularly in the winter, the island's surface is almost completely devoid of vegetation, giving Goli Otok (literally, 'barren island' in Croatian) its name. It is also known as the "Croatian Alcatraz" because of its island location and high security.[5]
Despite having long been an occasional grazing ground for local shepherds' flocks, the barren island was apparently never permanently settled other than by the prisoners during the 20th century.[6] Throughout World War I, Austria-Hungary sent Russian prisoners of war from the Eastern Front to Goli Otok.[6]
Many anti-communists (Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Albanian and other nationalists etc.) were also incarcerated on Goli Otok. Non-political prisoners were also sent to the island to serve out simple criminal sentences[7][8] and some of them were sentenced to death. A total of approximately 16,000[9][10] political prisoners served there, of which between 400[11] and 600[5][12] died on the island. Other sources, largely based on various individual statements, claim almost 4,000 prisoners died in the camp.[13][14][15]
The prison inmates were forced to labor (in a stone quarry, pottery and joinery), without regard to the weather conditions: in the summer the temperature would rise as high as 40 °C (104 °F), while in the winter they were subjected to the chilling bora wind and freezing temperatures.[16] The prison was entirely inmate-run, and its hierarchical system forced the convicts into beating, humiliating, denouncing and shunning each other. Those who cooperated could hope to rise up the hierarchy and receive better treatment.[17][18]
After Yugoslavia normalized relations with the Soviet Union, Goli Otok prison passed to the provincial jurisdiction of the People's Republic of Croatia (as opposed to the Yugoslav federal authorities). Regardless, the prison remained a taboo topic in Yugoslavia until the early 1980s.[19]Antonije Isaković wrote the novel Tren (Moment) about the prison in 1979, waiting until after Josip Broz Tito's death in 1980 to release it. The book became an instant bestseller.[20]
The prison was shut down on 30 December 1988[21] and completely abandoned in 1989.[6] Since then it has been left to ruin.[5] It has since become a tourist attraction and is populated by shepherds from Rab. Former Croatian prisoners are organized into the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Goli Otok.[22] In Serbia, they are organized into the Society of Goli Otok.[23]
1993: Lov na stenice ('Hunting for Bedbugs') by Dragoslav Mihailović.
1996: Goli Otok: stratište duha ('Goli Otok: Gallows of the Soul') ‒ non-fiction book by Croatian author Mihovil Horvat, containing the events of his arrest and imprisonment during Informbiro period.
1997: Goli Otok: Italiani nel Gulag di Tito ('Goli Otok: Italians in Tito's Gulag') ‒ historical report by Italian-Croatian author Giacomo Scotti.[14]
1997: Zlotvori ('Evildoers') – novel by Dragoslav Mihailović.
1997: Tito's Hawaii ‒ novel by author using the pen-name Rade Panic (name taken from a political victim of the same name whose wife was interred on the island; not his actual name).[38]
2005: Razglednica s ljetovanja ('A Postcard From Summer Vacation') ‒ autobiographical short novel by the Croatian author Dubravka Ugrešić; published in the Belgrade literary review REČ časopis za književnost i kulturu, i društvena pitanja, br. 74/20, 2006, and in the book Nikog nema doma, ed. devedeset stupnjeva, Zagreb 2005. Italian translation Cartolina Estiva by Luka Zanoni Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 2008.[39]
2010: Island of the World - novel by Canadian author Michael D. O'Brien.
2019: Life Plays with Me (Published in North America as More Than I Love My Life) - novel by Israeli writer David Grossman. One of the main characters, Vera, was interned as a political prisoner in Goli Otok before immigrating to Israel.
Square of Goli Otok victims in Danilovgrad, Montenegro, pictured 2022.
2023: The Secret of Bald Island - non-fiction book by Claudia Sonia Colussi Corte, describing her father's (Cherubino Colussi Corte) return to Mali Lošinj, Yugoslavia, as part of the Italian Controesodo, his arrest on suspicion of being a Stalinist, and his imprisonment on Goli Otok during the Informbiro period.[40]
Film and television
1996: The Seventh Chronicle (Sedma kronika) – Croatian feature film about a Goli Otok inmate who escapes by swimming to the island of Rab, based on a novel by Grgo Gamulin[41]
2002: Eva ‒ documentary film told in German, Hebrew and English recounting the experiences of Eva Panić-Nahir, a former prisoner of the island; produced/directed by Avner Faingulernt[42]
2009: Strahota - Die Geschichte der Gefängnisinsel Goli Otok ‒ German-language documentary film with 8 former prisoners; produced/directed by Reinhard Grabher[43]
2014: Goli – documentary film directed by Tiha K. Gudac[46]
2014: In the Name of the People ‒ exhibition in Belgrade; with an alphabetical list of 16,500 names of people who were jailed at the Goli Otok available for online search on their websiteArchived 2024-04-17 at the Wayback Machine
2019: Mysteries of the Abandoned ‒ Season 4 Episode 9 "Haunting on Plague Island"[47]
^Žižek, Slavoj (2009). The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p. 288. Goli otok ... a notorious Communist concentration camp
^Almond, Mark (1994). Europe's Backyard War: The War in the Balkans. London: Mandarin. p. 158. The island concentration camp of Goli Otok ...
^Dežman, Jože (2006). The Making of Slovenia. Ljubljana: National Museum of Contemporary History. p. 140. the concentration camp on Goli otok established in 1949
Goli Otok: Hell in the Adriatic is the true story of Josip Zoretic's tragic experience and survival as a political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's most notorious prison, Goli Otok, and the circumstances that led to his imprisonment [1]
