In 1948, as Europe struggles to rise from the rubble of war, a new nightmare unfolds in the lands of Yugoslavia. Far from the gaze of the West, Tito's regime ushers in a period of brutal repression, political purges, and prison camps destined to swallow thousands of lives.

Writer Valentina Motta brings to light a forgotten chapter in the history of the eastern border: that of the women persecuted, deported, and locked up in the Yugoslavian concentration camps, from Goli Otok to Sveti Grgur. Wives, mothers, and daughters transformed into "enemies of the people," guilty of family ties, ideological suspicions, or simply arbitrary accusations.

Through firsthand accounts, documents, memoirs, and historical reconstructions, a universe of suffering untold for decades emerges: hunger, forced labor, psychological torture, isolation, betrayal. A ruthless repressive mechanism that strikes not only bodies, but also consciences, destroying families and identities.

1948 – The Terror is a journey into the denied history of postwar Europe, an investigation into the forgotten victims of Tito's totalitarianism, and, at the same time, an act of moral restitution to those who silently paid the price of political violence. Because there can be no reconciliation without truth. And there can be no truth without memory.

Valentina Motta, 1948 The Terror. Prisoners under Tito , Passaggio al Bosco, Florence 2026, 160 pp.

The Author – Valentina Motta is a Professor, PhD, and writer, author of numerous articles and essays published in Italian and international journals and series. With a degree in Modern Art History from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and a degree in Greek Philology from the University of Verona, she conducts research in the fields of history and art, focusing on the philological study of literary and iconographic sources. Her essays have received several awards and recognitions at international literary competitions between 2019 and 2024, following which Valentina Motta began serving as a judge in the fiction section.