crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

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Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes On 1 September 1945, OZNA handed over the above penal camps to the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the Federal Slovenia 28 At this Ministry, the Department for Serving Sentences was established for their management. The preserved entries of convicted persons in individual penal camps indicate that over 6,500 convicted persons served sentences of forced labour until the abolishment of these camps in 1946, of these: – In penal camp Kočevje 1,932 convicted persons; – In penal camp Teharje 1,385 convicted persons; – In penal camp Studenci near Maribor 2,768 convicted persons; – In penal camp Brestrnica near Maribor 431 convicted persons. Camps for forced labour formally existed until January 1946, when they were renamed “institutions for forced labour”. 29 However, only the names of these penal institutions were changed, because they still kept all characteristics of labour camps. Under the name of “institutions for forced labour”, they existed until the autumn 1946, when the last of them were abolished. The abolishment of penal camps did not imply, however, the abolishment of the forced labour sentence. Issuing the sentence on forced labour remained valid until 1951. However, rather than in penal camps, the convicted persons from then on served such sentences in “the penal-correctional institutions”. The courts in Slovenia issued this sentence massively until its abolishment, which is shown by the data indicating that just in the period from 1947 until the end of 1950, more than 8,000 persons received this sentence. 30 The number of all persons in Slovenia who were sentenced to forced labour after 1945 was close to 15,000. 3.1.2. Camps for correctional labour Camps for correctional labour started to be established in the spring of 1949, when the new Yugoslav criminal legislation introduced a new category of sentences called “correctional labour”. That sentence replaced the former sentence of forced labour without deprivation of liberty. Correctional labour was considered the basic principle of political re-education of convicted persons. 31 Serving this sentence was aimed at “averting the convicted person from repeating the criminal act, at re-educating him/her, to get him/her used to work discipline and capacitate him/her for work in the new social order”. 32 This sentence was issued to the convicted persons by both the courts and administrative authorities for internal affairs in local, municipal and regional people’s committees. The courts issued this sentence for certain criminal acts and the administrative authorities for certain minor offences. The courts were entitled to issue the sentence of correctional labour lasting up to two years and the administrative authorities only up to three months. Among the persons convicted to forced labour and the persons sentenced to correctional labour, the vast majority were sentenced for political reasons. The sentence of correctional labour was issued by the courts only in the years 1949 and 1950, because it was abolished in January 1951. In those two years, the courts and administrative authorities for internal affairs sent a total of 6,816 convicted persons to serve the sentence of correctional labour in labour camps (working groups). 33 The following numbers of people were sent to labour camps in 1949 and 1950: 34 Court sentence of correctional labour Administrative sentence of correctional labour Total Year M F M F M F 1949 1,598 479 1,111 360 2,709 839 1950 1,076 308 1,534 350 2,610 658 Total 2,674 787 2,645 710 5,319 1,497 28 The prisons and penal institutions were placed under the Ministry for Internal Affairs of LRS or the Republic Secretariat for Internal Affairs until 1967, when they passed under the Republic Secretariat for Justice. 29 ARS, AS 1267, sign. arh. of the unit 1/33, Circular Letter of the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the People’s Republic of Slovenia on the implementation of sentence of 14 January 1946. 30 ARS, Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of Slovenia, Criminal Statistics for 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1950. 31 Ibid. 32 ARS, AS 1267, sign arh. of the unit:1/72, Provisional Rules on the house order in the working groups of correctional labour. 33 ARS, AS 1267, sign. arh. of the unit. 34 Ibid. 152
Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes The first camps for correctional labour were established in April 1949 and they were officially called “working groups”. For the entire territory of Slovenia, two administrations of correctional labour working groups were established, one with headquarters in Strnišče near Ptuj and one with headquarters in Kočevje. 35 The working group for women was established in Ferdrenk in Kočevsko. Camps for correctional labour were located in places where major construction works were underway and then were relocated to new locations – building sites – after the completed construction of the planned facilities. The working time of persons convicted to correctional labour was 8 hours. The convicted persons were free to leave the camp after the working time. They were remunerated in money for the work performed but only if they reached a certain norm. Camps (working groups) for correctional labour in Slovenia were abolished at the beginning of 1951, when the sentence of correctional labour was abolished by the new criminal legislation. 3.1.3. Camps for socially beneficial labour Camps for socially beneficial labour began to be established in July 1949. Their establishment was directly linked with the introduction of socially beneficial labour that was introduced by the Offences against Public Order and Peace Act of 11 May 1949. 36 Socially beneficial labour represented a compulsory administrative criminal sanction issued by the administrative authorities for internal affairs for a certain category of offences. Commissions for Minor Offences were established for the issuing of these sanctions at the local, municipal and regional people’s committees. Party authorities played an important role in deciding who shall be sent to the socially beneficial labour. In 1949, the numbers sent to socially beneficial labour reached a peak when the Commissions for Minor Offences issued such sentences to 1,900 persons. 37 Because even the authorities acknowledged that the commissions for offences were greatly exaggerated, they were forced to intervene and released a few hundred convicted persons in 1949. In 1950, the number of persons sentenced to socially beneficial labour was reduced to 80 and in 1951 to 43. The compulsory administrative sanction of socially beneficial labour had an extreme class implication. Its victims were above all those who were treated by the Communist rule as the enemies of the new social order, i.e. the so-called people’s rule. In the opinion of the Communist authorities, these were above all members of the former capitalists (“entrepreneurs”), larger farmers (“kulaki”), clergy and all those who criticised Communist rule or expressed sympathies with the countries of Western democracy. The first three camps (working groups) for socially beneficial labour were established in July 1949. For male convicted persons, such camps were established in Ljubljana (working group for the construction of Litostroj factory) and in Strnišče near Ptuj (working group for the construction of the bauxite and aluminium factory), and for female convicted persons, such a camp was established in Ferdrenk in Kočevsko. When both factories were built in April 1950, the male camps in Ljubljana and Strnišče near Ptuj were abolished and the convicted persons were transferred from there to the working group Medvode, where they were building a hydropower plant. A large labour camp for socially beneficial labour was also established at the building site of the hydropower plant in Moste at Žirovnica. Before the winter, the women were transferred from Ferdrenk first to the castle of Škofja Loka and from there to the penal-correctional home in Rajhenburg, where they established a working group for socially beneficial labour. Because of the extremely severe regime in the camps for socially beneficial labour, these labour camps can be compared with Stalin’s gulags. Upon their arrival, the hair of the convicted persons was cut to the skin, any contact with other convicted persons in the camp were forbidden and they went to work in groups led by armed guards. The immediate supervision over them was carried out by guards whom the camp managers usually recruited from among common criminals. Those guards treated them in a cruel manner and even beat them. The women were tortured also by having to stand assembled in the sun for longer periods of time, which caused some of them to lose consciousness. The camps (working groups) for socially beneficial labour were abolished in 1951. When they were released, the convicted persons had to sign a statement that they would not tell anyone where they had been all that time and what they had been doing there. 35 ARS, AS 1267, sign. arh. of the unit: 1/72. 36 Official Gazette of the LRS, No 16/1949. 37 ARS, AS 1931, technical unit 1440, Report of the Ministry for Internal Affairs of LRS for 1949. 153
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CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN RE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Lovro Št
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IV. REMEMBRANCE, RECOGNITION AND PU
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Crimes committed by totalitarian re
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crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

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