holiday day 5: olamina

olamina

holiday day 5

May 09, 2007 13:03

Day 5

On the fifth day, we set sail for Goli Otok (Naked Island) which is the prison/gulag island from Communist Yugoslavia. My hosts spent a fair amount of time waxing nostalgic about Communist times and voicing their concerns about the ways the country will change with capitalism and globalization. While many of their claims were valid, it is also true that they themselves had encountered very few of the horrors of Tito's time. So this visit to Goli Otok was eye opening for all of us. Some people claim that Tito did not know about this "naked island" where some of his fiercest political opponents were sent to toil in their final days. Regular citizens were not allowed to speak of it and definitely not allowed to tread anywhere near its shores. Even now the place is not a formal monument. There are no signs or tour guides. No inhabitants to explain anything to you. You simply pass through gawking and try to piece it together with the few clues that are left behind. What was this for? What does this word mean? What went in here?

This says, "it is finished!" Was this written when the place closed or simply after they finished a project.

As we were heading towards our boat we ran into a Slovenian family and stopped to talk. As we neared the shores we looked down and saw an octopus swimming just nearby. Everyone took pause.

Then we all hopped on our boats and left.