The annual pilgrimage in memory of the victims of the totalitarian communist regime in the concentration camp "Belene" will take place today at the Second Site on Persin Island on the Danube River. This was announced by the journalist and executive director of the "Truth and Memory" foundation. Hristo Hristov, quoted by BTA.
The worship will be opened by the president (1997-2002) Petar Stoyanov, the official minister of defense Atanas Zapryanov will also take part. This year's special guest is the writer Teodora Dimova. The host is the actor Rusi Chanev.
Before the beginning of the pilgrimage, announced for 11:30 a.m., the temporary exhibition "40 years of memory for the victims of the Belene" camp will be opened. (1984-1987)". It presents the campers during the forced name change of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin in the People's Republic of Bulgaria by the communist regime headed by Todor Zhivkov. The exhibition was initiated by the civil organization "Justice, rights and cultural cooperation in the Balkans", which united the former campers in "Belene" during the assimilation and their relatives, added Hristov.
On the Second site of the concentration camp "Belene" two permanent exhibitions can also be viewed. The outer one is on the wall of the first building of the Second Site and is called "Witnesses: Memory of the concentration camp "Belene". The indoor one is located in the first building of the Second Site – "Breach in the Wall" with drawings by the former camper Petar Baichev.
After a three-year hiatus last year, the pilgrimage in memory of the victims in the camp "Belene" was restored. It took place on June 3, with the participation of hundreds of citizens, including former campers and relatives of the victims, who came from different parts of Bulgaria and Turkey.
The "Belene" concentration camp was established by a confidential decision of the BKP government with Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov on April 27, 1949. In 1953, it was closed, following Moscow's policy of temporarily reducing repression in the camps of the Gulag penal system in the USSR. After the outbreak of the Hungarian People's Uprising in the autumn of 1956, the communist authorities reopened "Belene". In 1959, the camp was closed again after the then Prime Minister Anton Yugov stated in an interview with a Western publication that there were no more camps in Bulgaria. At the end of 1984, the communist regime reopened "Belene", where it isolated 517 Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin, opponents of the so-called revival process. The last campers were released in 1987.