Visiting the Communist Labor Camp of Belene – “If the enemy doesn’t surrender, he must be eliminated”

Visiting the Communist Labor Camp of Belene – “If the enemy doesn’t surrender, he must be eliminated”

Why do people hate the West? Why do people loathe the good? … The West of course had colonialism, imperialism, racism, slavery, we all know that. But you have to understand something: whatever flaws the West has had, every other civilization has had. They don’t make the West unique. What makes the West unique is not its flaws but its achievements. Where else was the liberty of the West achieved? Where else was the democracy of the West achieved? Where else was the art, music, and literature achieved?… Western greatness is universal, and it is often greater. Why do people hate the better? Jealousy. Resentment. Here’s another reason: the West presents standards of excellence. And people who cannot measure up to them hate anything that represents measures of excellence. The talentless hate the talented. The standardless hate those who excel in standards. 

Dennis Prager

What unites the current LA riots, Greta Thunberg, campus protests, intersectionality, and leftist globalist ambitions, is a profound hatred and envy of the good that is symbolized by the West. The expression of this hatred may constantly vary, and the causes it embraces may seem incompatible and wildly diverse. The essence, however, is the same. The present-day haters of America, Israel, and the West in general, often profess allegiance to leftist ideologies and are quick to condone totalitarian socialism, both in its Nazi and communist versions. Their ignorance is extremely dangerous.

On my recent trip to my native Bulgaria, I had one of the most memorable experiences in my life. I visited the communist camp of Belene, located on an island in the Danube between the shores of Bulgaria and Romania. The camp was active between 1949 and 1987. The entrance to the camp is marked by a wooden gate, which bears a quote by the Soviet poet Maxim Gorky: “Yes – a human being – this sounds dignified. Labor Correctional Facility – Belene – 2nd Site.”

The reverse side of the gate, however, has a different inscription: “If the enemy doesn’t surrender, he must be eliminated.”

The cynicism of the welcoming quote about human dignity naturally reminds one of the similarly perverse Nazi slogan: “Arbeit macht frei.”

The Belene camp is situated on the picturesque island of Persin. Currently, the island is part of a natural preserve with fascinating wetlands and over 240 bird species.

In 1949, political prisoners from one of the most brutal gulag camps in Western Bulgaria, called Bogdanov Dol, were transferred to the island. My own grandfather had been sent by the communists to Bogdanov Dol for refusing to fire a couple of employees who happened to disagree with the regime. By a miraculous turn of events, he was released and sent home, since a courageous attorney, retained by my grandmother after months of despair and no news of her husband’s condition or whereabouts, discovered a gross procedural error on the part of the communist officials who had conducted the arrest. If my grandfather had not been released but transferred instead to the island, he would probably have perished, and I wouldn’t be here today.

The Belene camp is one of the very few places with a museum and any material remains of the communist atrocities. Most other camps were destroyed by the regime in order to eliminate all traces of its crimes. It is still unknown how many people were murdered and imprisoned by the communist regime in Bulgaria since no proper records were maintained. The hitherto known names, collected with extreme difficulty, are likely much fewer than the actual number. 

To this day, no one has been successfully prosecuted despite thousands of survivors’ testimonials proving extreme torture, abuse, and murder. The people who were sent to Belene – as well as all other totalitarian camps – had done nothing wrong. Some had been part of the political opposition and the country’s elite. Others were industrialists, farmers, priests, doctors, intellectuals, and anyone else who was perceived as a potential threat or was merely disliked by the communist rulers. 

Initially, the Belene prisoners had to dig holes in the ground in which they slept. They were later forced to build wooden barracks and eventually stone and brick buildings.

The prisoners were ordered to construct dykes to protect the island from being flooded. One of the preserved rooms, now part of the museum exhibit, shows the amount of dirt that constituted the daily digging quota for the inmates. If they managed to excavate this amount, they received a meager portion of stale bread (shown on the left wall, for comparison) for the entire day, plus a few spoons of broth made from fish heads but without any fish.

The guards not only forced the prisoners to work impossible shifts, but often took pathological pleasure in torturing and murdering them. A favorite torture method was to leave them naked in the nearby marsh, which was teeming with mosquitoes, until they succumbed to malaria and perished. 

The communists took extra care to conceal the frequent murders. They built a regular prison in a different part of the island and pretended that the camp inmates were actual criminals. Soon, however, disposing of the bodies became a problem for the regime, despite the remote location of the island, the prohibition to access it, and the extreme secrecy involved. Due to tidal fluctuations in the Danube, many bodies washed up on Romanian shores. Apparently, this caused diplomatic issues between the two communist countries, as well as pressure from Western governments. 

After Stalin’s death, the camp was briefly closed, but then it was reopened several years later. A women’s camp was built on a small neighboring island called “The Cricket.” A husband and wife ended up being imprisoned on the two islands respectively, within close proximity of each other, without even knowing whether the other spouse was alive. They both survived against all odds and were finally reunited after many years of physical and psychological torture.

Later, a teenagers’ camp was added on the main island, where young people who listened to Western music, wore Western clothes, or expressed mild dissent with the government were “reeducated.” High-school students were regularly expelled and remanded to such correctional facilities for wearing denim, miniskirts, or listening to English-language music despite the fact that many of the music groups were pro-socialist and anti-Western. 

The cynical quote on Belene’s front gate, “Human being – this sounds dignified,” was one of the myriad ways in which the system destroyed human dignity. Yet, the darkest hours of hopeless oppression were interspersed with stories of survival, resilience, and kindness. 

On a cold winter day, one of the Belene prisoners suffered an acute appendicitis attack while working. Another inmate happened to be a physician. He disinfected a pocketknife by lighting a match and operated on the patient, who was placed on the frozen ground. The doctor then managed to stitch him up with a primitive oversized needle and a thread torn from a shirt.

The physician took an extreme risk by saving the sick man’s life, as doctors were not allowed to help their fellow prisoners and could be murdered for providing assistance. Needless to say, there was no medical staff in the camp. The patient survived, and the same physician later operated on another inmate successfully under impossible conditions.

Today, Belene is peaceful and idyllic. Visitors enjoy boat rides and admire the tranquility of the “blue Danube,” the unique flora and fauna, the impressive Roman ruins, and the rich spiritual life in the area.

Visiting the camp takes special knowledge and a dedicated effort. I sometimes wish that Western intellectuals who condone the crimes of totalitarian regimes could be mandated to tour both Nazi and communist concentration camps, but perhaps most of them are too cynical and self-assured to experience a profound change. Yet, there’s hope that children, if educated with proper knowledge and values, would remember this horrific history. It is our duty to ensure it is never forgotten. A small plaque before the pontoon bridge that leads to the island reminds us: “Never again totalitarianism.”

Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.

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