As in other Eastern Bloc states, the communist People's Republic of Bulgaria operated a network of forced labour camps between 1944 and 1989, with particular intensity until 1962.
These massacres were actively encouraged by Georgi Dimitrov, who sent a telegram from Moscow a week after the Soviets' arrival in Sofia calling for the "torching of all signs of Bulgarian jingoism, nationalism, or anti-Communism".
In early 1945, a government decree allowed for the creation of Work Education Centers (TVO in Bulgarian).
One category of inmates included pimps, blackmailers, beggars and idlers, while the other comprised all those judged as political threats to the state's stability and security.
[1] A number of new inmates arrived at Belene after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and a crime wave in Sofia early in 1958.
Among the figures held at Belene during this period included Konstantin Muraviev, the last Prime Minister of Bulgaria to hold office before the Fatherland Front coup of 9 September 1944.
In spring 1962, the Politburo created a commission, led by Boris Velchev, to inspect Lovech, which was closed in April as a result of his delegation's visit.
The last and harshest of the major Communist labour camps was set up near an abandoned rock quarry outside the city.
Most Bulgarians were unaware of its existence, but it had a reputation among those who had incurred the state's displeasure as a place from where one might never emerge alive.
Repression in this period was of an administrative rather than political nature, targeting those accused of "social parasitism" or "loose morals", often with information given by "people's organisations" such as the Fatherland Front's neighbourhood sections.