CROATIAN FILM INSTITUTE

POLITICAL PRISONERS

# 16,789      46:28 min           2024    

For centuries, the Croatian people had striven to create their own free and independent Croatian State. Immediately after the creation of the Yugoslav state in 1918, any expression of dissent among Croatians was met with repression. It began with the imprisonment of political dissidents from the Croatian Party of Rights. Prominent members were stripped of their university degrees and doctorates. They were prevented from practicing their professions, and many were forced to emigrate. Croatian peasants who resisted the confiscation of their livestock were tried. The regime responded to every mention of Croatian State independence with persecution, arrest, trial, imprisonment, and even death. Croatians understood that any establishment of Yugoslavia was a negation of Croatian independence, that an independent and sovereign Croatian State could not exist within any Yugoslavia.

 

Through first-hand testimony, this film examines the phenomenon of political imprisonment in Yugoslavia. The regime used prisons and concentration camps for individuals, men and women, young and old, who were considered politically undesirable. Thus, these penal institutions became symbols of national resistance. The entire history of the first Yugoslav state of SHS, and then of communist Yugoslavia, is a history of suffering, torture and persecution. Modelled on Stalin's principle that for every ten people there should be one spy, in Yugoslavia Kardelj and Ranković introduced the concept that for every man and woman there should be ten spies. After being imprisoned, the people identified by the spies experienced life-threatening conditions: solitary confinement, meaningless hard labor, beatings, starvation, humiliation and human degradation.

 

Today, in 2024, Alfred Obranić, one of the surviving camp inmates from Goli Otok, states: “I think I share the opinion of all Croatian political prisoners who suffered terribly, and many who lost their lives.  Our dreams were fulfilled in 1990 with the creation of the Croatian State. This was our reward for all we endured.  We were all repaid for every day of our incarceration on Goli Otok, at Lepoglava, Stara Gradiška, and other prison camps.”

Director           Nikola Knez

Producer         Croatian Film Institute,  iFilms LLC

Screenplay      Dr. Dorothy McClellan

Cinematographer David Knez

Film Genre      Documentary, History

Country             USA /Croatia

                         

Croatian Film Institute, 2015 © All Rights Reserved.                                                          

All Content © 2015 - 2025 Croatian Film Institute, All Rights Reserved