GOLI OTOK (BARE ISLAND)

Goli otok (literal translation: "barren island", Italian: Isola Calva) is an island off the northern Adriatic coast, located between Rab's northeastern shore and the mainland, in what is today Croatia's Primorje-Gorski Kotar county.

The island is barren and uninhabited. Its northern shore is almost completely bare, while the southern one has small amounts of vegetation as well as a number of coves.

The Prison Camp
Humans first took notice of the island during modern times. Throughout World War I, Austria-Hungary sent Russian prisoners of war from Eastern Front to Goli Otok.

In 1949, the entire island was officially made into a high-security, top secret prison and labor camp run by the authorities of SFR Yugoslavia. Until 1956, throughout the Informbiro period, it was used to incarcerate political prisoners. They included known and alleged Stalinists, but also other Communist Party members or even regular citizens accused of exhibiting any sort of sympathy or leanings towards the Soviet Union. Non-political prisoners were also sent to the island. Some were sent to serve out simple criminal sentences.

Goli otok's JailThe prison inmates were forced to do heavy labor in a stone quarry, regardless of the weather conditions: in the summer the temperature would rise as high as 35-40 °C, while in the winter they were subjected to the chilling bora wind and freezing temperatures. Inmates were also regularly beaten and humiliated.

After Yugoslavia normalized its relations with the Soviet Union, Goli Otok prison passed to the provincial jurisdiction of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (as opposed to the Yugoslav federal authorities).

The prison was shut down in 1988, and completely abandoned in 1989. Since then it has been left to ruin.

Today it is frequented by the occasional tourist on a boat trip and populated by shepherds from Rab.

source: wikipedia