Beauty as ideological enemy: corporal re-education of female inmates in Yugoslav political prisons (1949-1956)

The notorious Goli otok (Barren Island), off Croatia’s Adriatic Coast, was the site of a high security political prison and labour camp during the so-called Cominform years (1949-1956). It has remained a shameful secret of Tito's Yugoslavia to this day. Thousands of men and women accused of political dissidence underwent brutal corporal abuse including heavy beatings, starvation and dehydration at the hands of their guards and those of other prisoners. Although confined to separate camp units on this island, the male and the female prisoners suffered equally harsh treatment. Exhausting forced labour in the island's stone quarries contributed to inmates’ extreme physical debility. They were also exposed to various diseases- the result of the poor hygiene conditions in the camps. Starvation and malnutrition of the inmates in both camps induced various endocrinological problems leading to the striking morphological resemblance between the emaciated male and female bodies. Goli otok inmates were forced to mutually abuse each other under the signature programme called ‘re- educational self-management’. Survivors of this labour camp and the handful of scholars concerned with their story agree that the aim of the Barren Island regime was to alter the inmates’ ideological and political beliefs, rather than destroy them physically. However, certain re-educational methods in the female camp were clearly aimed at harming women’s physical appearance and their ability to bear children. This paper discusses the motives that spurred this corporal violence and its consequences on the Goli otok’s female inmates during the Cominform era. It situates the violent acts that targeted female prisoners’ physical attributes in the context of what the prison authorities arguably defined as class struggle. This perception helps explain the extreme zeal with which prison authorities pursued the abusive methods of ideological re- education in the Goli otok female camp.