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| February 10th : WE REMEMBER |
September 3rd, 2010, 12:06am |
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 February 10th : WE REMEMBER (currently 3,808 views) |
| Decimo Paolino |
| Posted on: February 10th, 2006, 1:20pm |
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Plebeian  Viva l'Italia!
Gender:  Male Location: Italia Posts: 5 |
Foibe are often referred to in the context of mass killings in which the majority of victims were ethnic Italians. Such mass killings were committed after the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943 and in 1945, when Yugoslav partisans under Tito's command entered Dalmatia, Istria and parts of Venezia Giulia, and recaptured the "Slovene" territory. The Yugoslav army (IX Corpus) met with the British forces on the river Soča/Isonzo on May 3, 1945, so that the city of Trieste and the surroundings came under Yugoslav military administration.
The number of victims is still unknown, difficult to establish and matter of much controversy. Estimates range from as low as 5,000 to as high as 50,000. According to data gathered by a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, the number of people missing from the region (believed to have been thrown in the foibe), range from 1,300 to 2,000, but this estimate does not include those killed in current Croatian territory. Some prominent historians like Raoul Pupo or Roberto Spazzali estimated the total number of victims at about 7,000. Most of them were court-martialed fascists or enemy soldiers, but civilians were also killed. Actual body-count may be different, as no reliable records exist of executed German soldiers and participants of various Quisling formations.
The episodes of 1945 occurred partly under conditions of guerrilla fighting of Slovenian, Croatian and Italian partisans with the Germans, the Italian Social Republic's forces and their Slavic collaborators, and partially after the occupation of the territory by the army formations of Yugoslavia. Killings may have included war crimes as well as civilian crimes of private or political retaliation. The main motive of the mass killings seems to be a plan of "political cleansing", that is to say, elimination of potential enemies of the communist Yugoslav rule, including members of German and Italian fascist units, Italian officials, Italian, Slovenian and Croatian anti-communists and that part of the Italian elites that supported non-fascist and non-communist Italy.
Some Italian sources claim that ethnic cleansing was another motive, but many historians disagree with that statement. However, a big part of the Slavic population had a very negative attitude towards Italians stereotyped as Fascist oppressors (and a big part of the Italian population had a very negative attitude towards Slavs stereotyped as barbarian communists), so ethnic tensions could have played some role as far as individual motivations are concerned.
Quote from the report of the mixed Italian-Slovenian commission succinctly describes the circumstances of the 1945 killings:
"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 the 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 Venezia Giulia 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 the national level."
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Investigations of the Foibe
No investigation of the crimes had been initiated either by Italy, Yugoslavia or any international bodies, until after Slovenia became an independent country in 1991.
Italian-Slovene relations in the relevant period (1880s to 1950s) have been under intensive study by historians since 1990. A joint report by a commission of historians from both countries was published under the auspices of the two governments in the year 2000. The report puts the Italian-Slovenian relations in a wider context, and touches the question of mass killings associated with the foibe. As no exact count was ascertained, the report includes a wording of "hundreds of victims," referring to the territory relevant for Italo-Slovenian relations, and thus excluding the Croatian territories.
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Current Influence in Politics
The Foibe have for a long time been an issue for the Italian fascist extreme right, ostracised for many decades after World War II. As the post-fascist party National Alliance became part of Silvio Berlusconi's coalition, the issue could be brought back into open discussion.
The debate gained high visibility after the Italian Parliament, under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and especially his right-wing allies, made 10 February a National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe, first celebrated in Trieste in 2005. The 2005 celebration of the Memorial Day was accompanied by an RAI TV movie production, Il Cuore nel Pozzo (The Heart in the Pit) [1].
The movie was seen by 17 million people on its first broadcasting in Italy. Whether a neutral point of view is captured is dubious, as the concept of Italian fascism and its association with the German Nazism and their crimes in the region are neither directly mentioned or implied from the dialogues of this war drama. Many (especially Slovenian politicians and those in the left wing of Italian politics) accused the movie to be tantamount to propaganda, presenting Italians as innocent victims and not as the allies of Nazi Germany. The Italian Social Republic's soldiers were presented as merciful and altruistic, whereas the Yugoslav partisans were presented as ruthless assassins and rapists, the main charachter among them fixated on taking back the son he had had from an Italian woman he raped years before.
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Bibliography
Many books have been written about the foibe, and results, intepretations and estimates of victims can vary largely according to the point of view of the author. Since many of the alleged foibe lie outside Italian territory, no investigation could be carried out during the years of the Cold war, and books could only be of a speculative or anecdotal nature. Since the topic was especially interesting for the extreme right, there is an overrepresentation of authors that can be traced to neofascism. Conversely, authors from the left wing of politics have maintained that the Foibe were either an invention (or at least an exaggeration) of the extreme right for propaganda purposes. Since a definitive investigation on all foibe has not yet been carried out, the subject is still controversial, and one should approach any book in this bibliography with a critical spirit.
Gianni Bartoli, Il martirologio delle genti adriatiche
Gianni Bartoli was the former mayor of Trieste, with the centrist Christian Democracy.
Claudia Cernigoi, Operazione Foibe—Tra storia e mito, Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005, ISBN X001486360. Available online.
Claudia Cernigoi is apparently a former member of the Communist Refoundation Party.
Kappa Vu is a small left-wing publishing house.
Vincenzo Maria De Luca, Foibe. Una tragedia annunciata. Il lungo addio italiano alla Venezia Giulia, Settimo sigillo, Roma, 2000.
Settimo Sigillo is a small publishing house, specialised in revisionist books.
Gianni Oliva, Foibe, Oscar Mondadori, 2003, ISBN 8804515848.
Luigi Papo, L'Istria e le sue foibe, Settimo sigillo, Roma, 1999.
Luigi Papo, L'ultima bandiera.
Luigi Papo was a war criminal in Istria during World War II.
Marco Pirina, Dalle foibe all'esodo 1943-1956.
Pirina has been associated to the youth wing of the neofascist Italian Social Movement, the FUAN, and Fronte Delta, an extreme-right university movement.
Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l'esilio, Rizzoli, 2005, ISBN 8817005622.
Franco Razzi, Lager e foibe in Slovenia.
Guido Rumici, Infoibati, Mursia, Milano, 2002, ISBN 8842529990.
Giorgio Rustia, Contro operazione foibe a Trieste, 2000.
Rustia is apparently close to Forza Nuova, a neofascist movement.
Carlo Sgorlon, La foiba grande, Mondadori, 2005, ISBN 8804380020.
Roberto Spazzali and Raoul Pupo, Foibe, Mondadori, 2003, ISBN 978884249015.
Pol Vice, Scampati o no - i racconti di chi usć "vivo" dalla foiba, Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005.
[by Wikipedia] |
Decimo Paolino - Nazionalista Italiano |
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| Posted on: February 12th, 2006, 2:53am |
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