Foibe massacres
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Foibe massacres are referred to in the context of mass killings in which the majority of victims were ethnic Italians. Such carnages were committed in 1943, after capitulation of Italy on 8 September, 1943 and in 1945, when Yugoslav partisans under the command of the Yugoslav communist leader Tito entered Istria and parts of Venezia Giulia. 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 Yugoslavian military administration, according to the agreements between the Allies, of which the provisional government of Yugoslavia was a member.
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[change] Number of killed Italian citizens
Estimate is about 20.000 killed Italian citizens. According to a report issued in 2000 by a mixed Slovene-Italian historical commission established in 1993, the number of people missing from the region, most of whom finished in the foibe, alias local geological clefts, range from 1,300 to 1,600 but this estimate does not include those killed in current Croatian territory. Some of them were court-martialed fascists or enemy soldiers, but many civilian persons were also killed. Great majority of the persons killed were of Italian nationality.
The killings of 1943 were partly a reaction to the Italian pre-war and war crimes, such as concentration camps killings, political repression, forceful italianisation and nationalistic repression of Slavs exercised by Italian fascist regime in the previous decades. Episodes of 1945 occurred partly under conditions of guerrilla fighting of Slovenian and Croatian partisans with the German and remaining Italian Fascist forces, 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, as well as "political cleansing" and planned ethnic cleansing.
[change] 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. It touches also on 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.
[change] Italian-Slovene relationships
Even since Slovenia joined the European Union the relations between the two nations are a matter of political debate. The debate gained high visibility after Italian Parliament, under Prime Minister Berlusconi and his coalition partners of centre-right provenance, 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 The Heart in the Pit (It: Il Cuore nel Pozzo) [1]. The movie was wiewed by 17 million spectators on its first broadcasting in Italy alone.
[change] Exiles from Istria and Dalmatia
Many Italians were forced to leave the country after massacres. Economic insecurity, fear of further retaliation and the change of regime that eventually led to the Iron Curtain splitting the Trieste-Istria region, resulted in approximately 350,000 people, mostly Italians, leaving territories in Istria and Dalmatia. The inhabitants of territories that were under Italian rule since World War I according to the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920, later assigned to Yugoslavia by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947-02-10 and the London Memorandum of 1954 were given a choice of opting to leave (optants) or staying. These exiles were to be given compensation for their loss of property and other indemnity by the Italian state under the terms of the peace treaties.
On February 18, 1983 Yugoslavia and Italy signed a treaty in Rome where Yugoslavia agreed to pay 110 million USD for the compensation of the exiles' property which was confiscated after the war. By its breakup in 1991 Yugoslavia paid 18 million USD. Slovenia and Croatia, two Yugoslav successors, agreed to share the remainder of this debt. Slovenia assumed 62% and Croatia the remaining 38%. Italy did not want to reveal the bank account number so in 1994 Slovenia opened a fiduciary account at Dresdner Bank in Luxembourg, informed Italy about it and started paying its 55,976,930 USD share. The last payment was paid in January 2002. Until today Croatia hopes of a different solution of this matter and has not paid a dollar yet. Italian side has not withdrawn a single dollar from the account yet.
[change] Bibliography
- Vincenzo Maria De Luca, Foibe. Una tragedia annunciata. Il lungo addio italiano alla Venezia Giulia, Editor Settimo Sigillo, 2000
- Luigi Papo, L'Istria e le sue foibe, Editor Settimo Sigillo, 1999
- Giorgio Rustia, Contro operazione foibe a Trieste, 2000
- Claudia Cernigoi, Operazione Foibe - Tra storia e mito, Edizioni Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005 ([2])
[change] See also
[change] References
Report of the Italian-Slovene commission of historians (in three languages)
- Slovene-Italian Relations 1880-1956 Report 2000
- Relazioni Italo-Slovene 1880-1956 Relazione 2000
- Slovensko-italijanski odnosi 1880-1956 Poročilo 2000
[change] Links
- Official site of exiles italian and english
- Foibe italian
