In the Adriatic Sea there are the Quarnerine islands, a series of small islands belonging to Croatia, among which the most famous is the Bald Island, home to the infamous prison camp of the Yugoslav dictator Tito after the Second World War. The Calva Island (in Croatian Goli otok) is located 3.3 kilometers from the Croatian coast, from which it is separated by the Morlacca canal. The islet is small in size, an area of ​​4.54 square kilometers, which is currently uninhabited. The name of Calva derives from its aridity and almost non-existent vegetation.
A barren and anonymous island, like many in the Adriatic, if it were not that from 1949 to 1989 the Bald Island was the site of a political re-education camp wanted by General Josip Broz, who went down in history with the name of Tito, for isolate his opponents and convert them to Yugoslav socialism. Tito had been head of the Yugoslav partisans during the entry of Yugoslavia into the Second World War alongside the British, French and Soviet allied forces. The war conflict ended, in 1949 the future Yugoslav dictator, defined as the tear with the USSR of Stalin with the beginning of the "Informbiro Period", is Prime Minister of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia under the presidency of Ivan Ribar.
In that year Tito, free from any duty towards the Soviet Union and persuaded that it was the right time to strengthen his power, decided to set up a concentration camp destined to host all the opponents who could have thwarted his rise to the chair of President of the Republic, which took place in 1953, and from there to the role of dictator of the country. In the inconsistent shadow of Mount Glavina (the highest point of the island with its 227 meters above sea level), near the now abandoned settlement of Maslinje, the prison camp of the Bald Island was born - known to the Slavs like Isola Nuda - a small complex of rectangular buildings lashed by the wind and aged by the sun.
Calva Island
Address: Loparo, Isole Quarnerine
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