Foibe massacres

The "foibe" massacres refers to mass killings mainly in Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia during and after World War II, perpetrated mainly by Yugoslav Partisans[1] against the local Italian population.

Labin, December 1943: bodies recovered from a foiba by Italian firefighters and German soldiers. Local civilians are trying to identify relatives or friends.[2]
Locations of some of the foibe

Origin and meaning of the term

The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called foiba.[3] The term includes by extension killings in other subterranean formations, such as the Basovizza "foiba", which is not a true foiba but a mine shaft.

In Italy the term foibe has, for some authors and scholars,[4] taken on a symbolic meaning; for them it refers in a broader sense to all the disappearances or killings of Italian people in the territories occupied by Yugoslav forces. According to author Raoul Pupo, "It is well known that the majority of the victims didn't end their lives in a Karst cave, but met their deaths on the road to deportation, as well as in jails or in Yugoslav concentration camps".[5]

The terror spread by the disappearances and the killings eventually contributed to an atmosphere sufficient to cause the majority of the Italians of Istria, Rijeka and Zadar to flee to other parts of Italy or the Free Territory of Trieste.[6]

Other authors have asserted that "the post-war pursuit of the 'truth' of the foibe as a means of transcending Fascist/Anti-Fascist oppositions and promoting popular patriotism has not been the preserve of right-wing or neo-Fascist groups. Evocations of the 'Slav other' and of the terrors of the foibe made by state institutions, academics, amateur historians, journalists and the memorial landscape of everyday life were the backdrop to the post-war renegotiation of Italian national identity.[7] The estimated number of people killed in Trieste is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands.[8]

Events

4 November 1943: next to the Foiba of Terli are decomposed corpses of Albina Radecchi (A), Catherine Radecchi (B), Fosca Radecchi (C) and Amalia Ardossi (D)

The first (very disputed) claims of people being thrown into foibe date back to 1943, after the Wehrmacht took back the area from the Partisans, when around 70 local people were thrown into a foiba by the Germans after the bombing of a cinema.[9] Other authors claimed the 70 hostages were killed and burned in the Nazi lager of the Risiera of San Sabba, on 4 April 1944.[10][11][12][13][14][15]

Many of the bodies found in the Basovizza pit, and in the foibe of Corgnale, Grgar, Plomin, Komen, Socerb, Val Rosandra, Cassorana, Labin, Tinjan, Cerenizza, Heki and others were ethnic Italians, but, according to Katia Pizzi, "despite evidence that Fascist soldiers had also used foibe as open-air cemeteries for opponents of the regime, only their equivalent use on the part of Yugoslav partisans appeared to arouse general censure, enriched as it was with the most gruesome details".[16]

The number of those killed in foibe during and after the war is still unknown, difficult to establish and a matter of controversy. Estimates range from hundreds to twenty thousand. Pizzi claims that "In 1943 and 1945, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Italians, both partisans [belligerents] and civilians, were imprisoned and subsequently thrown alive by Yugoslav partisans into various chasms in the Karst region and the hinterland of Trieste and Gorizia".[17] According to data gathered by a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, "the violence was further manifested in hundreds of summary executions - victims were mostly thrown into the Karst chasms (foibe) - and in the deportation of a great number of soldiers and civilians, who either wasted away or were killed during the deportation".[18]

Some historians, including Raoul Pupo and Roberto Spazzali, estimate the total number of victims at about 5,000, but this is again contested by many. Italian historian Guido Rumici estimated the number of Italians executed, or died in Yugoslav concentration camps, as between 6,000 and 11,000,[19] while Mario Pacor estimated that after the armistice about 400-500 people were killed in the foibe and about 4,000 were deported, many of whom were later executed. According to some, the episodes of 1945 occurred partly under conditions of guerrilla warfare by Croatian and Slovenian Partisans against the Germans, the Italian Social Republic and their Slavic collaborators (the Chetniks, the Ustaše and Domobranci) and partly after the territory had been secured by Yugoslav army formations.

It was not possible to extract all the corpses from the foibe, some of which are deeper than several hundred meters; some sources are attempting to compile lists of locations and possible victim numbers.[20] Between October and December 1943, the Vigili del Fuoco of Pola, helped by mine workers, recovered a total of 159 victims of the wirst wave of mass killings from the foibe of Vines (84 bodies), Terli (26 bodies), Treghelizza (2 bodies), Pucicchi (11 bodies), Villa Surani (26 bodies), Cregli (8 bodies) and Carnizza d'Arsia (2 bodies); another 44 corpses were recovered in the same period from two bauxite mines in Lindaro and Villa Bassotti.[21][22] More bodies were sighted, but not recovered.[21][22] Between November 1945 and April 1948, firefighters, speleologists and policemen inspected foibe and mine shafts in the "Zone A" of the Free Territory of Trieste (mainly consisting in the surroundings of Trieste), where they recovered 369 corpses; another 95 were recovered from mass graves in the same area. No inspections were ever carried out either in the Yugoslav-controlled "Zone B", or in the rest of Istria.[22]

Other foibe and mass graves were discovered in more recent times; for instance, human remains were discovered in the Idrijski Log foiba near Idrija, Slovenia, in 1998; four skeletons were found in the foiba of Plahuti near Opatija in 2002; in the same year, a mass grave containing the remains of 52 Italians and 15 Germans was discovered in Slovenia, not far from Gorizia; in 2005, the remains of about 130 people killed between the 1940s and the 1950s were recovered from four foibe located in northeastern Istria.[23][24][25][26][27]

Background

Since the early Middle Ages, Latin, South Slavic and Venetian communities in Istria and Dalmatia lived peacefully side by side. The population was divided into urban-coastal communities (mainly Romance speakers) and rural communities (mainly Slavic speakers), with small minorities of Morlachs and Istro-Romanians.[28] Sociologically, the population was divided into Latin middle-upper classes (bourgeoisie and aristocracy in coastal areas and in the towns) and Slavic lower classes (peasants and shepherds inland).

After the Napoleonic age (1800–1815), nationalism spread among the populations of Istria and Dalmatia, with each ethnic group starting to strive for the unification of their lands with the respective fatherland. To counter Italian irredentism, which was seen as a threat to the Habsburg Empire, the government decided to "encourage an influx of Slavic populations into the coastal region".[29] Also, German-speaking population, coming from inner parts of the Empire and mainly working in the government bureaucracy, moved to Venetia increasing the German community of Trieste to 5%.[29]

After World War I, the whole of Istria was annexed by Italy, while Dalmatia (except Zadar) was annexed by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Each state began a policy of cultural homogenisation, a common practice in Europe at the time (see—for example—Germans in Alsace-Lorraine or in the Sudetes, Ukrainians and Lithuanians in eastern Poland, Magyars in Transylvania and Banat etc.). The remnants of the Italian community in Dalmatia (which had started a slow but steady emigration to Istria and Venice during the 19th Century) left their cities toward Zadar and the Italian mainland.

The Italianization of the Slavic population started during the Fascist era, and was marked by an intense policy aiming to Italianize the Slavic population.[30] During the early 1920s, nationalistic violence was directed both against the Slovene and Croat minorities in Istria (by Italian nationalists and Fascists) and the Italian minority in Dalmatia (by Slovene and Croat nationalists). Examples are the 1918–20 unrest in Split, when members of the Italian minority and their properties were assaulted by Croatian nationalists (and two Italian Navy personnel and a Croatian civilian were later killed during riots), and the burning of the Trieste National Hall, the main center of the Slovene minority in Trieste, by Italian nationalists and fascists.

Menacing messages were delivered by nationalists on both side. In 1927, the Italian Fascist Minister for Public Works Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli wrote, with the pseudonym Giulio Italico, in the party magazine Gerarchia, that "The Istrian muse named as foibe those places suitable for burial of enemies of the national [Italian] characteristics of Istria". Previously, in 1919,[31] in the book "Trieste, la fedele di Roma", the future minister had written a ditty in Venetian: "A Pola xe l'Arena/la Foiba xe a Pisin/che i buta zo in quel fondo/chi ga certo morbin" ("In Pula there is the Arena, in Pazin the Foiba, into that abyss is thrown, whoever has some itching [meaning 'bad thoughts]")[32][33] Croat poet and chauvinist Vladimir Nazor wrote: "We will wipe away from our territory the ruins of the destroyed enemy tower, and we will throw them in the deep sea of oblivion. In the place of a destroyed Zara, a new Zadar will be reborn, and this will be our revenge in the Adriatic".[34] In 1911, the Slovene nationalist organization Edinost had declared "We will never give up our struggle until we will stomp over the destroyed Italianness of Trieste".[35]

Italian presence in Istria (1900-10)

According to Galliano Fogar and Giovanni Miccoli there would be "the need to put the episodes in 1943 and 1945 within [the context of] a longer history of abuse and violence, which began with Fascism and with its policy of oppression of the minority Slovenes and Croats and continued with the Italian aggression on Yugoslavia, which culminated with the horrors of the Nazi repression against the Partisan movement".[36] After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Italian troops engaged in counterguerrilla operations against Yugoslav partisans committed several war crimes against the population of occupied Yugoslavia, such as the Podhum massacre in 1942, and the deportation of Slovene and Croat civilians to concentration camps like Rab and Gonars.

Investigations

Investigations of the crimes had not been initiated either by Italy, Yugoslavia or any international bodies in the post-war period until after Slovenia became an independent country in 1991. In 1993 a study titled Pola Istria Fiume 1943-1945[37] by Gaetano La Perna provided a detailed list of the victims of Yugoslav occupation (in September–October 1943 and from 1944 to the very end of the Italian presence in its former provinces) in the area. La Perna gave a list of 6,335 names (2,493 military, 3,842 civilians). The author considered this list "not complete".[38]

A 2002 joint report by Rome's Society of Fiuman studies (Società di Studi Fiumani) and Zagreb's Croatian Institute of History (Hrvatski institut za povijest) concluded that from Rijeka and the surrounding area "no less than 500 persons of Italian nationality lost their lives between 3 May 1945 and 31 December 1947. To these we should add an unknown number of 'missing' (not less than a hundred) relegated into anonymity due to missing inventory in the Municipal Registries together with the relevant number of victims having (...) Croatian nationality (who were often, at least between 1940 and 1943, Italian citizens) determined after the end of war by the Yugoslav communist regime."[39]

In March 2006, the border municipality of Nova Gorica in Slovenia released a list of names of 1,048 citizens of the Italian city of Gorizia (the two cities belonged until the Treaty of Paris of 1947 to the same administrative body) who disappeared in May 1945 after being arrested by the Partisan 9th Corps.[40] According to the Slovene government, "the list contains the names of persons arrested in May 1945 and whose destiny cannot be determined with certainty or whose death cannot be confirmed".[41]

Alleged motives

It has been alleged that the killings were part of a purge aimed at eliminating potential enemies of communist Yugoslav rule, which would have included members of German and Italian fascist units, Italian officers and civil servants, parts of the Italian elite who opposed both communism and fascism (including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations and the leaders of Fiume's Autonomist Party, including Mario Blasich and Nevio Skull), Slovenian and Croatian anti-communists, collaborators and radical nationalists.

Others claim the main motive for the killings was retribution for the years of Italian repression, forced Italianization, suppression of Slavic sentiments and killings performed by Italian authorities during the war, not just in the concentration camps (such as Rab and Gonars), but also in reprisals often undertaken by the fascists.[42]

However, still others claim Tito's political aim of adding the Istrian territories as far as Trieste to the new Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The ethnic map of the area could potentially be a decisive factor in a treaty of peace with Italy and for this reason, according to some Italian historians, the reduction of the ethnic Italian population was held desirable.

Pamela Ballinger in her book, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans, wrote:[43]

I heard exiles' accounts of "Slavic barbarity" and "ethnic cleansing," suffered in Istria between 1943 and 1954, as well as Slovene and Croat narratives of the persecution experienced under the fascist state and at the hands of neofascists in the postwar period. Admittedly, I could not forget--as many exiles seemed to do--that the exodus from Istria followed on twenty years of the fascistization and Italianization of Istria, as well as a bloody Italian military campaign in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1943. Nor could I countenance some exiles' frequent expressions of anti-Slav chauvinism. At the same time, however, I could not accept at face value the claim by some that the violence the Slavs suffered under fascism justified subsequent events in Istria or that all those who left Istria were compromised by fascism. Similarly, I came to reject the argument that ethno-national antagonism had not entered into the equation, as well as the counterview that the exodus represented simply an act of "ethnic cleansing".

The report by the mixed Italian-Slovenian commission describes the circumstances of the 1945 killings as follows:[44]

14. These events were triggered by the atmosphere of settling accounts with the fascist violence; but, as it seems, they mostly proceeded from a preliminary plan which included several tendencies: endeavours to remove persons and structures who were in one way or another (regardless of their personal responsibility) linked with Fascism, with Nazi supremacy, with collaboration and with the Italian state, and endeavours to carry out preventive cleansing of real, potential or only alleged opponents of the communist regime, and the annexation of the Julian March to the new Yugoslavia. The initial impulse was instigated by the revolutionary movement which was changed into a political regime, and transformed the charge of national and ideological intolerance between the partisans into violence at national level.

Post-War

The foibe have been a neglected subject in mainstream political debate in Italy, Yugoslavia and former-Yugoslav nations, only recently garnering attention with the publication of several books and historical studies. It is thought that after World War II, while Yugoslav politicians rejected any alleged crime, Italian politicians wanted to direct the country's attention toward the future and away from the idea that Italy was, in fact, a defeated nation.

So, the Italian government tactically "exchanged" the impunity of the Italians accused by Yugoslavia for the renunciation to investigate the foibe massacres.[45] Italy never extradited or prosecuted some 1,200 Italian Army officers, government officials or former Fascist Party members accused of war crimes by Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Greece and other occupied countries and remitted to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.[46] On the other hand, Belgrade didn't insist overmuch on requesting the prosecution of alleged Italian war criminals. Thus, both Italian war crimes and Yugoslav war and post-war mass killings were set aside if not forgotten to maintain a "good neighbour" policy.

Re-emergence of the issue

For several Italian historians these killings were the beginning of organized ethnic cleansing.[47] The event was discussed by Jože Pirjevec in connection to the Porzûs massacre, in which seventeen member of the anti-fascist group "Brigate Osoppo" (among which a female prisoner) were killed by members of the Italian Communist Party (among them, the nineteen years old Guido Pasolini, the brother of famous Italian writer Paolo Pasolini).

Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government brought the issue back into open discussion: the Italian Parliament (with the support of the vast majority of the represented parties) made February 10 National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe, first celebrated in 2005 with exhibitions and observances throughout Italy (especially in Trieste). The occasion is held in memory of innocents killed and forced to leave their homes, with little support from their home country. In Carlo Azeglio Ciampi's words: Time has come for thoughtful remembrance to take the place of bitter resentment. Moreover, for the first time, leaders from the Italian Left, such as Walter Veltroni, visited the Basovizza foiba and admitted the culpability of the Left in covering up the subject for decades. However, the conciliatory moves by Ciampi and Veltroni were not endorsed by all Italian political groups.

Nowadays, a large part of the Italian Left acknowledges the nature of the foibe massacres, as attested by some declarations of Luigi Malabarba, Senator for the Communist Refoundation Party, during the parliamentary debate on the institution of the National Memorial Day: "In 1945 there was a ruthless policy of exterminating opponents. Here, one must again recall Stalinism to understand what Tito's well-organized troops did. (...) Yugoslav Communism had deeply assimilated a return to nationalism that was inherent to the idea of 'Socialism in One Country'. (...) The war, which had begun as anti-fascist, became anti-German and anti-Italian."[48]

Italian president Giorgio Napolitano took an official speech during celebration of the "Memorial Day of Foibe Massacres and Istrian-Dalmatian exodus" in which he stated:[49]

...Already in the unleashing of the first wave of blind and extreme violence in those lands, in the autumn of 1943, summary and tumultuous justicialism, nationalist paroxysm, social retaliation and a plan to eradicate Italian presence intertwined in what was, and ceased to be, the Julian March. There was therefore a movement of hate and bloodthirsty fury, and a Slavic annexationist design, which prevailed above all in the peace treaty of 1947, and assumed the sinister shape of "ethnic cleansing". What we can say for sure is that what was achieved - in the most evident way through the inhuman ferocity of the foibe - was one of the barbarities of the past century.
Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, Rome, 10 February 2007[50]

The Croatian President Stipe Mesić immediately responded in writing, stating that:

It was impossible not to see overt elements of racism, historical revisionism and a desire for political revenge in Napolitano's words. (...) Modern Europe was built on foundations… of which anti-fascism was one of the most important.
Croatian president Stjepan Mesić, Zagreb, 11 February 2007.[51][52]

The incident was resolved in a few days after diplomatic contacts between the two presidents at the Italian foreign ministry. On February 14, the Office of the President of Croatia issued a press statement:

The Croatian representative was assured that president Napolitano's speech on the occasion of the remembrance day for Italian WWII victims was in no way intended to cause a controversy regarding Croatia, nor to question the 1947 peace treaties or the Osimo and Rome Accords, nor was it inspired by revanchism or historical revisionism. (...) The explanations were accepted with understanding and they have contributed to overcoming misunderstandings caused by the speech.
Press statement by the Office of the President of Croatia, Zagreb, 14 February 2007.[53]

In Italy, with Law 92 of 30 March 2004[54] has been instituted the Day of Remembrance in day 10 February, to keep memory of victims of Foibe and of the exodus to which almost the whole population of Italian origins living in Dalmatia and Julian March has been constricted by jugoslavians. The same law has instituted a specific medal to be conferred to relatives of victims:

Medal of Day of Remembrance to relatives of victims of foibe killings

In February 2012 a photo of Italian troops killing Slovene civilians was shown on public Italian TV as if being the other way round. When historian Alessandra Kersevan, who was a guest, pointed it out to the television host Bruno Vespa the photo depicted the killings of some Slovenes rather than Italians, the host did not apologize. A diplomatic protest followed.[55][56]

Bibliography

Many books have been written about the foibe, and results, interpretations and estimates of victims can in some cases vary largely according to the point of view of the author. Since most of the foibe currently lie outside Italian territory, no formal and complete investigation could be carried out during the years of the Cold war, and books could be of a speculative or anecdotal nature. Many authors from the left wing have maintained that the foibe were an exaggeration (or, some suggested, an invention) of the extreme right for propaganda purposes,[57] and that the fascist crimes in the same areas dwarf even the most lavish of the foibe allegations.[45]

An Italian-Croatian joint research carried out by the Italian "Society of Fiuman studies" and the "Croatian Institute of History" , containing an alphabetic list of recognized victims. As foot note, on each of the two lingual forewords, a warning states that Società di Studi Fiumani do not judge completed the present work, because the lack of funds, could not achieve to the finalization that was in intentions and goals of the initial project.

See also

References

  1. "Foibe". Treccani.it. Retrieved 27 April 2009. For the use of other actors, at least one case of German use of the foibe is documented, but disputed. Fascist use of the foibe is still disputed.
  2. Other photos from the footage can be see in Giorgio Pisanò, Storia della Guerra Civile in Italia 1943-1945, Milan, FPE, 1965
  3. A City in Search of an Author by Katia Pizzi
  4. See Raoul Pupo (Foibe, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2003; Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l'esilio, Rizzoli, Milano 2005 etc.), Gianni Oliva, (Foibe. Le stragi negate degli italiani della Venezia Giulia e dell'Istria, Mondadori, Milano 2003), Arrigo Petacco, (L'esodo. La tragedia negata degli italiani d'Istria, Dalmazia e Venezia Giulia, Mondadori, Milano 1999), et alia
  5. Raoul Pupo, Le foibe giuliane 1943-45; "L'impegno"; a.XVI; n. 1; April 1996. «È noto infatti che la maggior parte delle vittime non finì i suoi giorni sul fondo delle cavità carsiche, ma incontrò la morte lungo la strada verso la deportazione, ovvero nelle carceri o nei campi di concentramento jugoslavi».
  6. Raoul Pupo wrote: "...the horrible death in a cave (...) become the very representation of a barbaric and obscure violence hanging over as a potential doom of an entire community. This is the image that settles in the memory of contemporaries, and become an obsession in moments of political and national uncertainty. This has the power to condition appreciably the choices of the people, such as the one by Istrians that decide to leave their lands assigned to Yugoslav sovereignty" ("...la morte orrenda in una voragine della terra, (...) diventa la rappresentazione stessa di una violenza oscura e barbarica, sempre incombente come potenziale destino di un'intera comunità. È questa l'immagine che si fissa nella memoria dei contemporanei, che diviene un'ossessione nei momenti di incertezza nazionale e politica, e che ha la forza di condizionare in maniera avvertibile anche scelte di massa, come quella compiuta dagli istriani che decidono di esodare dai territori passati sotto sovranità jugoslava).
  7. Bosworth, R.J.B.; Patrizia Dogliani (1999). Italian fascism: history, memory, and representation. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 185–86. ISBN 0-312-21717-X.
  8. "In Trieste, Investigation of Brutal Era Is Blocked", nytimes.com, 20 April 1997.
  9. A Tragedy Revealed by Door Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler; accessed 17 March 2016.
  10. , bibliolab.it; accessed 17 March 2016.
  11. , storiain.net; accessed 17 March 2016.
  12. , lageredeportazione.org; accessed 17 March 2016.
  13. Katia Pizzi, 'Silentes Loquimur': 'Foibe' and Border Anxiety in Post-War Literature from Trieste, questia.com; accessed 26 September 2015.
  14. Katia Pizzi, 'Silentes Loquimur': 'Foibe' and Border Anxiety in Post-War Literature from Trieste; accessed 26 September 2015.
  15. "Period 1941-1945". Kozina.com. 8 September 1943. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  16. Guido Rumici, Infoibati (1943-1945). I Nomi, I Luoghi, I Testimoni, I Documenti, Mursia, 2002; ISBN 978-88-425-2999-6.
  17. "Elenco delle foibe note" (in Italian). Digilander.libero.it. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  18. 1 2 Foibe: revisionismo di Stato e amnesie della Repubblica
  19. 1 2 3 Foibe, bilancio e rilettura, nonluoghi.info, February 2015; accessed 17 March 2016.
  20. Sono 130 i corpi riemersi da quattro foibe istriane, gelocal.it; accessed 17 March 2016.(Italian)
  21. Monte Maggiore, quattro infoibati I resti appartengono a persone decedute poco più di cinquant’anni fa
  22. Slovenia, da una fossa comune spuntano i resti di 52 italiani
  23. Esplora il significato del termine: Cosi’ ho fatto scoprire la foiba dimenticata Cosi' ho fatto scoprire la foiba dimenticata
  24. Alla foiba di Montenero d’Idria
  25. "Italian islands in a Slavic sea". Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9.
  26. 1 2 Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9.
  27. Miklavci, Alessandra. "Diverse minorities in the Italo-Slovene borderland: "historical" and "new" minorities meet at the market." (PDF). Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  28. Claudio Sommaruga, Radici fasciste delle “foibe” e prigionieri di Tito
  29. (Italian) FOIBE: GIORNO DEL RICORDO. MEMORIE E VERITA’!!!
  30. (Italian)Predrag Matvejević: le foibe e i crimini che le hanno precedute
  31. L'esodo.
  32. Una grande tragedia dimenticata
  33. See Raoul Pupo, Le foibe giuliane 1943-45, "...la necessità di inserire gli episodi del 1943 e del 1945 all'interno di una più lunga storia di sopraffazioni e di violenze, iniziata con il fascismo e con la sua politica di oppressione della minoranza slovena e croata proseguita con l'aggressione italiana alla Jugoslavia e culminata con gli orrori della repressione nazifascista contro il movimento partigiano". "Le foibe giuliane 1943-45", storia900bivc.it; accessed 26 September 2015.
  34. Gaetano La Perna, Pola Istria Fiume 1943-1945, Mursia, 1993
  35. Gaetano La Perna, Pola Istria Fiume 1943-1945, Mursia, 1993, p. 452
  36. p. 95: "Si può comunque affermare con assoluta certezza che a Fiume, per mano di militari e della polizia segreta (OZNA prima e UDBA poi), (...) non meno di 500 persone di nazionalità italiana persero la vita fra il 3 maggio (1945) e il 31 dicembre 1947. A questi dovremmo aggiungere un numero imprecisato di di "scomparsi" (non meno di un centinaio) che il mancato controllo nominativo nell’anagrafe storica comunale ci costringe a relegare nell’anonimato insieme al consistente numero, (...), di vittime di nazionalità croata (che spesso ebbero, almeno tra il 1940 e il 1943, anche la cittadinanza italiana) determinate a guerra finita dal regime comunista jugoslavo.". Pubblicazioni Degli Archivi Di Stat O Sussidi 12 Le vittime di nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939-1947)- Žrtve talijanske nacionalnosti u Rijeci i okolici (1939-1947)
  37. L’Elenco Dei Mille Deportati In Slovenia Nel 1945 – marzo 2006, libero.it, March 2006.
  38. "Clarification of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia relating to the names of deportees in 1945". mzz.gov.si. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. 8 March 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  39. Gian Luigi Falabrino. "Il punto sulle foibe e sulle deportazioni nelle regioni orientali (1943-45)" (in Italian). Retrieved 7 June 2006.
  40. Ballinger, Pamela. "History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans". Press.princeton.edu. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  41. Slovene-Italian Relations 1880-1956 Report 2000
  42. 1 2 Marco Ottanelli. "La verità sulle foibe" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 17 December 2007. Retrieved 3 June 2006.
  43. Crimini di Guerra. "La mancata estradizione e l'impunità dei presunti criminali di guerra italiani accusati per stragi in Africa e in Europa" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2 September 2006. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  44. Silvia Ferreto Clementi. "La pulizia etnica e il manuale Cubrilovic" (in Italian). Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  45. Luigi Malabarba (11 March 2004). "Declaration of Vote" (PDF). Transcript of the 561st Session of the Italian Senate (in Italian). p. 15. Retrieved 5 June 2006.
  46. Presidenza della Repubblica, Giorgio Napolitano, official speech for the celebration of "Giorno del Ricordo" Quirinal on 10 February 2007 integral text from official website of the Italian President Bureau
  47. «....Già nello scatenarsi della prima ondata di cieca violenza in quelle terre, nell'autunno del 1943, si intrecciarono giustizialismo sommario e tumultuoso, parossismo nazionalista, rivalse sociali e un disegno di sradicamento della presenza italiana da quella che era, e cessò di essere, la Venezia Giulia. Vi fu dunque un moto di odio e di furia sanguinaria, e un disegno annessionistico slavo, che prevalse innanzitutto nel Trattato di pace del 1947, e che assunse i sinistri contorni di una "pulizia etnica". Quel che si può dire di certo è che si consumò - nel modo più evidente con la disumana ferocia delle foibe - una delle barbarie del secolo scorso.» from the official website of The Presidency of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, official speech for the celebration of "Giorno del Ricordo" Quirinal, Rome, 10 February 2007.
  48. Fraser, Christian (14 February 2007). "Italy-Croatia WWII massacre spat". BBC News. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  49. "Article". International Herald Tribune. 13 February 2007. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  50. "Article". la Repubblica. 17 February 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
  51. http://www.camera.it/parlam/leggi/04092l.htm Legge n. 92 del 30 marzo 2004
  52. "Article". RTV Slovenia. 15 February 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  53. Il giorno del ricordo - Porta a Porta, from Rai website; accessed 26 September 2015.
  54. Claudia Cernigoi. "Capitolo III: Le foibe triestine". Operazione foibe a Trieste (in Italian). Retrieved 7 June 2006.

Further reading

Report of the Italian-Slovene commission of historians (in three languages):

Links

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Coordinates: 45°37′54″N 13°51′45″E / 45.63167°N 13.86250°E / 45.63167; 13.86250

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