5. Petar’s pit

Photograph: Darko Bavoljak

The Petar’s Pit camp, also known as R-101 and the Monastery, consisted of one large barrack that housed around 130 people, and two smaller stone buildings for the camp kitchen. The camp was built in a pit some ten metres deep, one of several such pits dug on Goli Otok between the two world wars for the purpose of bauxite mining. The inmates in Petar’s Pit were mainly convinced Comin­formists, old Communists, leaders of the Yugoslavian Communist Party before Tito, people who had spent years of service in the Soviet Union, and celebrated Partisan commanders. Due to their long years of party service, all of them were ill-disposed towards Tito, and mostly supported Stalin. In order to isolate them from other inmates, they were housed in this lonely place, where they were submitted to severe forms of torture. After the camp was decommissioned, it was levelled, and this location is where it was most likely situated.