Nikola Daskalov has passed away - one of the last living camp inmates from the communist concentration camp "Belene" from the 1950s. His family announced his death on social media.
“This night at the age of 90, our father Nikola Daskalov passed away. He lived with dignity and was a strong and active man until the end“, his relatives wrote in their Facebook post.
Nikola Daskalov was born on September 8, 1934. His father, Dimitar Daskalov, was the regional director of Plovdiv. After the communists came to power, the father was arrested, mistreated and subsequently sentenced to death by the communist People's Court. He was shot on February 10, 1945.
In 1948, Nikola and his classmates decided to join the anti-communist resistance movement in the Balkans. The mother of one of his classmates betrayed them to the authorities after reading the farewell letter left by her son. When they were arrested, the authorities seized Nikola's diary, where they found his writings against the regime and Georgi Dimitrov.
Nikola was nevertheless released, but shortly afterwards he was deported from Sofia together with his mother. The two settled in his father's native village - Brestnitsa, Teteven District. Nikola studied at the Yablan High School. In the high school, the communist authorities continued to monitor Nikola. They sent him provocateurs who tried to trick him into participating in a conspiracy to blow up a bridge, as well as in one to escape abroad.
When he had barely turned 18, in 1952, while waiting for the bus to Brestnitsa in Teteven, he was arrested for the same conspiracies for which provocateurs had previously tried to recruit him, writes the website “Stories from Belene“. Thus, he was sent to the Belene concentration camp, where he spent nine months.
After leaving the camp, he worked as a digger, bricklayer, tinsmith, mason-plasterer, rubber presser, professional driver and photographer.
He is the author of several books, including his memoirs "No Oases in the Red Desert".
For a short time, Nikola Daskalov was also Deputy Minister of Defense in the cabinet of Filip Dimitrov in the period June-December 1992.