Bulgarian camp survivors in this fragment of the 1991 documentary.
Between 1944 and 1953, some 12,000 men and women passed through these camps, with an additional 5,000 between 1956 and 1962.
The camp at Belene alone is believed to have held 7,000 people in 1952. Another source estimates a total of 187,000 prisoners during this period, 'The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression', Paris 1997.
The Camps, 1991. Courtesy, the director of the film Atanas Kiryakov.