The Belene camp was the largest and longest-running concentration camp in Bulgaria during the communist period. Thousands of people were interned there without trial, subjected to torture and humiliation, denied the right to defend themselves, and kept in indefinite detention.

It is our shared responsibility to turn Belene into a place of remembrance. Yet to this day it has not been declared a protected cultural site, and there is still no museum to tell visitors the story of what happened there. Anyone arriving at the former camp’s so-called “Site 2” on Persin Island (also known as Belene Island) finds only dense vegetation and buildings slowly being reclaimed by time.

That is why, in partnership with the Municipality of Belene, the Belene Island Foundation, and the The Convo Foundation, and under the scholarly guidance of Prof. Momchil Metodiev, Prof. Daniela Koleva, and Borislav Skochev, we have created an exhibition featuring artifacts that share the stories of a several former internees – stories of courage, resilience, and survival.

When installing the exhibition, our guiding principle was to avoid any damage to the historic camp structures because of their great historical value.

The exhibition continues the tradition of other civic initiatives over the past 36 years, including a prayer room, a display of personal stories on the building’s facade, and a portrait series of former internees.

The artifacts are inspired by the testimonies of Bistra Sapunova, Velichko Velev, Veselin Ivanov, Nikola Daskalov, Pavel Tonchev, Sezay Kyosev, Stefan Chakarov, Tsvetana Dzhermanova, and Tsveti Ivanov. An interactive screen also allows visitors to listen to recorded testimonies of former internees, collected and preserved by our team on the website belene.camp.

These exhibits are not meant to be comprehensive. By allowing visitors to experience the fate of even a few of the prisoners, they are a step toward making Belene a place that inspires us to cherish and protect freedom.

After the exhibition was launched, we received criticism that the word “Bulgarians” (which we had used in the sense of “Bulgarian citizens”) on the introductory panel excluded those internees who did not identify as Bulgarian or who were citizens of other countries. We apologized then and do so again now, in addition to replacing the panel with more inclusive wording. Our organization has always been, and will remain, open to feedback.

This and other existing exhibitions can be visited at “Site 2” of the Belene Camp on Persin/Belene Island.
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The exhibition was created by the Sofia Platform Foundation with the support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation.
Partners: Municipality of Belene, Belene Island Foundation, The Convo Foundation
Scholarly consultants: Borislav Skochev, Prof. Daniela Koleva, Prof. Momchil Metodiev
Production team: Childish/Vector-Labs.ai (software & IT), Lens2Lens (video), Studio Accent (fabrication), MP Studio (technical support)