The Belene Concentration Camp was established on the 27 April 1949. The communist government decided to create a Labour Education Hostel (LEH), entrusting the Ministry of the Interior with establishing the camp on the Danube island Persin. The opponents of the communist dictatorship were forced to live in inhuman conditions – daily physical labour, intolerable demands and under constant armed guard. They were forced to stay in bunkers and huts which they built themselves with whatever materials they could find.
Tens of thousands of prisoners passed through the camp.
After the collapse of the communist regime in Bulgaria in 1989, Belene Concentration Camp became a site for remembrance of the victims of the prison camps. On 7 June 1990, the first organised pilgrimage to the Persin island took place at the initiative of the Club of the Repressed. The pilgrimage turned into a rally. Thousands of people from all over the country took part, including many former prisoners and representatives of the political opposition. Every following year at the end of May an annual pilgrimage to the site of the former Second Camp is held.
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