The "Ante Zemljar" association of Communist-era political prisoners and the nongovernmental association Documenta on Tuesday held a commemoration on Goli Otok in memory of the first contingent of political prisoners who were sent to that northern Adriatic island 70 years ago during the Yugoslav Communist regime.

The Documenta issued a press release quoting the Ante Zemljar association’s leader Darko Bavoljak as saying at today’s event that it was disgraceful that “we have done nothing to commemorate the suffering of those camp inmates. It is a shame on this state and all its citizens.”

The Documenta’s leader Vesna Terselic said that today’s commemoration was an act of paying tribute to thousands of victims who had been subjected to mental and physical torture on Goli Otok and in other reeducation camps set up by Communist dictatorships.

According to historian Martin Previsic, 13,000 prisoners were held in Goli Otok between 1949 and 1956, when it was transformed into an ordinary prison, and over 400 of them died there.

Goli Otok, which translates as Barren Island, was used as a hard-labour detention camp for people accused by the Communist authorities of supporting Soviet leader Joseph Stalin after Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito severed ties with the Soviet Union in 1948 or who for whatever reason were declared enemies of the state.