WPetko Ogojski, freed from a communist Bulgarian concentration camp in 1953, erected a six-story monument in his hometown of Chepinci. Furious at the state's lack of recognition for the suffering he and thousands of others had endured, Ogojski had been imprisoned for writing a poem that compared the Soviet rulers to the devil. He filled the room with relics reminiscent of detention and deprivation.
Two loaves of dry bread represent one day's food. A cloth harness used to move heavy stones in quarries where prisoners were forced to work. A pair of clogs with hollowed out heels, they are used for everything from holding pencils to smuggling notes from camp.
Such “DIY memorial spaces” are common across Bulgaria, says a Bulgarian-Canadian who has spent the past 20 years visiting hundreds of “local museums” in homes across the country and collecting voices from former prisoners. Humanist Lilia Topuzova says: , including that of Ogojski, who passed away in 2019.
“Petco's house was the most elaborate, but what all survivors' living spaces have in common is that there was always some part of the camp in there,” she says. “I think that's because as a memory, it's not part of the public sphere, it exists only in the home.”
Topozova's research is an attempt to “unsilence” the prisoners, she says, and will form the basis of Bulgaria's pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The museum exhibits include artists and LGBTQ+ people, including Turks, Roma, Muslim minorities, and countless others who are considered deviants simply for dancing on a swing or wearing a Western-style coat. From people to people, the stories of those who survived the silence of state violence are being told.
According to Topuzova, these people suffer to this day not only due to historical persecution, but also due to a lack of national and national recognition and a widespread reluctance in Bulgaria to confront the past.
Supporters of the Biennale installation say it is a long-overdue act of resistance against oblivion, led by a new generation. (Topouzova, a documentary filmmaker at the University of Toronto, was only 10 years old when communism collapsed; her fellow artists Krasimila Butseva and Julian Chehirian were not yet born.)
The installation, supervised by Vasyl Vladimirov, is titled “Neighbors'' and recreates the homes of camp survivors. At first glance, it appears to be a typical apartment, but upon closer inspection it reveals that it was assembled from a former concentration camp. Contains items such as stones, soil, grass, and water. site. The voices of survivors, sighs, sobs, and sometimes laughter, evoke their presence.
This is a welcome sign that the memory culture of the country, perhaps the most loyal to Moscow of all Soviet satellites, is finally changing, as Bulgaria, an EU member state since 2007, finally asserts its own identity. Some people say. They also point to the recent toppling of the 37-meter (121-foot) Soviet military monument in central Sofia, sparked by anger over atrocities in Ukraine and traditionally This shows that a rift has appeared in the once-close relationship with Moscow.
For human rights activist Sabri Iskender, who was sent to Belene, once the largest detention center, in the 1980s, the facility should bring him and others much-needed recognition as the number of survivors dwindles. “It doesn't make up for the lack of justice, but it at least goes some way to informing Bulgarians and the wider world about our history,” he says.
Some people criticize what they see as a negative portrayal of Bulgaria, which is trying to show the scars of its history on the international stage.
Amelia Gesheva, Bulgaria's deputy culture minister, acknowledged the ambivalence but said the country as a whole should be proud of the pavilion. “This is the largest project of its kind on this subject that we have ever undertaken,” she says. “'Neighbors' represents all the stories that have never been told.”
She says the government's efforts will soon give Belene, on the Danube, national heritage status. To date, none of the 40 former camp facilities have been preserved. Instead, most are abandoned, abandoned, or in some cases repurposed as maximum-security prisons, police firing ranges, and forensic accident sites.
At the site of the Lovech concentration camp in north-central Bulgaria, a temporary memorial has been erected by survivors at the quarry where prisoners were forced to work and many died, marking what was once considered the harshest forced labor camp. This is the only evidence that it was. A miniature ceramic church contains bottles of Rakia brandy and candles in memory of the victims. On the ruins of the camp's buildings, someone painted one of the slogans that prisoners were once faced with: “If you want peace, you must work.”
The site where the barracks once stood is the site of a police forensic collision investigation. Interior Ministry guards shrugged when asked what they knew about Lovech. “I didn't learn about it in school, so I only know what I saw on TV,'' says a man in his 50s. “It was a prison for enemies of the state and criminals.”
Mr. Christopher, 66 years old, still alive. At a nearby nursing home built by prisoners using rock cut from a quarry, he identifies himself as a former member of the Communist secret police. “Most civilians were unaware of the camp's existence,” he says. “That was intentional.”
The justice system has not provided redress for concentration camp victims. The only trial related to the camp, in which five people were tried for abuse in Lovech, was canceled because it violated a 35-year statute of limitations. One of the main witnesses, Nadia Dunkin, an actor who was sent to Lovech in 1961 and also appeared in the BBC Panorama documentary, was found murdered in his home in 1994.
Gesheva doesn't think a trial will help. “I think at some point survivors just want to forget everything,” she says.
Iskender, who was imprisoned for refusing to comply with the government's forced assimilation of Turkish citizens, disagrees.
“You know, they beat me so bad that my back turned like a roasted eggplant. I still have nightmares and shoulder pain. I won't and can't forget it. ” he says.
“We know the names of those who beat us, those who are behind forced assimilation, and they are still alive, but they are protected and there is no will to pursue them. I would really like to see him appear in court, but I fear that will never happen.”
One of the most recent concentration camp survivors who died in February was 96-year-old Tsvetana Germanova. She was arrested in 1948 for campaigning against anarchists and sent to a forced labor camp, where she was detained for three years. “After that experience, her mother was no longer upset about anything in her life,” says her daughter Elsa.
Elsa believes she has suppressed much of her own pain. “For years, I didn't have anyone to share it with,” she said, alluding to the lack of discussion in her society. “Compared to my mother, I didn’t suffer, but now I recognize the intergenerational trauma.”
Since most Bulgarians will not be able to see the Biennale in Venice, it is hoped that the “neighbors'' gathered in Sofia's industrial warehouses will survive after the Biennale.
“The Biennale should be just the starting point for this conversation,” Topouzova says. She looks forward to the day when DIY museums and victims no longer have to be silenced. She added: “I hope that the memories will instead become part of the public space and that we can eventually get out of this room.”