Fashion show held on Montenegro’s Mamula Island near former concentration camp — Balkan Insight
A fashion show was held on Montenegro’s Mamula Island, where a concentration camp operated in a fortress during World War II. In a column for Balkan Insight, human rights activist Hatidža Gusić argues that using the site as a luxury hotel and venue for fashion events obscures the memory of those imprisoned and killed there.
The camp under Italian occupation
The Mamula Fortress was built in 1850–1853 on the orders of General Lazar Mamula. It is located in the Bay of Kotor and was part of a system of fortifications together with the Arza and Oštro forts. During World War I, the structure was briefly used as a prison.
From March 1942 to September 1943, during the fascist Italian occupation, a concentration camp operated in the fort. According to data from a Montenegrin veterans’ organization cited by AFP, about 2,000 people were held there. At least 80 prisoners were executed, while dozens more died of starvation.
Hotel and memorial gallery
The restored fortress opened as a luxury hotel in 2023. An Egyptian investor launched the Mamula Island Hotel, and ahead of the 2026 summer season, Banyan Group rebranded the property as Mamula Island by Banyan Tree.
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The Montenegrin government’s decision to lease the former camp for conversion into a hotel about ten years ago drew objections from former prisoners and part of the public. As Gusić notes, the authorities explained that it was necessary either to find an investor to restore the fortress and open it to visitors or allow the structure to deteriorate.
The hotel has a Mamula historical memorial gallery featuring information about the island’s past, personal belongings, testimonies and the names of prisoners. At the same time, the column’s author believes that the memorial exhibition does not resolve the contradiction between preserving memory and turning a place of imprisonment into an elite tourist site.
Criticism of the fashion event
Gusić stressed that a concentration camp cannot be equated with an ordinary prison, whose buildings are sometimes converted into hotels. In her view, the repurposing of the fortress and promotion of the island as a secluded luxury tourist destination gradually weaken Mamula’s historical context.
