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The Foibe killings refers to the killings that took place mainly in Istria during and shortly after World War II from 1943 to 1949, perpetrated mainly by the Yugoslav Partisans.. This term includes by extension killings in other subterranean formations, such as the Basovizza 'foiba', which is not a true foiba but a mine shaft. The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called a foiba .

In Italy the term foibe has, for some authors and scholars, 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 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" . The terror spreaded 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.

Other authors have asserted that "he 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..

Estimates of the numbers of dead range from several hundred to several thousand .

Background

Since the early Middle Ages, Latin and Slavic communities in Istria and Dalmatia lived peacefully side by side. The population was divided into urban-coastal communities (mainly of Romanic language) and country-mountain communities (mainly of Slavic languages), with small minorities of Morlachs and Istro-Romanians. 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). Some contemporary Croat studies suggest that Dalmatia's towns were settled almost exclusively by Slavic population since A.D. 1000 and Italian ethnics emigrated there after Venetian domination.

After Napoleonic Age (1792 - 1815) nationalism spread among the populations of Istria and Dalmatia, and - each ethnic group started to fight for the unification of their lands with the respective fatherland. Since the rising of an unite Italy (1848 - 1868) was the worst menace for Hapsburg Empire, Vienna decided to boost Slavic nationalisms against Italian communities. After the annexation of former-Venetian lands to the Austrian Empire, rose a bureaucracy mainly of German language, coming from inner parts of the Empire.

After First World War, the entire Istria was annexed to Italy, while Dalmatia (except Zadar) was annexed to SHS Kingdom (later, Yugoslavia). Each State initiate to force the ethnics groups foreign language to accept a forced homologation or to flee: a common practice in Europe (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 Italian community of Dalmatia (that had started a slow but continuous emigration to Istria and Venice during XIX Century) left their cities toward Zadar and Italian mainland. Slavic communities of Istria, Trieste and Gorizia countryside was subjected to an harsh Italianization since 1918.

The Italianization of the Slavic population in the 1920s and 1930s went worst during Fascism, and was , "exacerbated by a blatant policy of erasure of Slavic identity" and by a "fascist terrorism not hampered by the authorities" .

In 1927, Italian fascist minister for public works Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli wrote in Gerarchia magazine, a fascist publication, that "The Istrian muse named as foibas those places suitable for burial of enemies of the national characteristics of Istria". The minister also added stanzas of a poem, written in dialect: "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 Coliseum, in Pazin the Foiba, into that abyss is thrown, whoever has some itching" .

According with Galliano Fogar and Giovanni Miccoli there would be "the need to put the episodes in 1943 and 1945 within a longer history of abuse and violence, which began with Fascism and with its policy of oppression of the minority Slovenes and Croatians and continued with the Italian aggression on Yugoslavia, which culminated with the horrors of the Nazi repression against the Partisan movement".

Events

The first (very disputed) claims of people being thrown into foibe date back to 1943, when the Wehrmacht took back the area from the Partisans, when around 70 local people were thrown into a foiba by the Germans after a cinema bombing .

Many of the bodies found in the pit of Basovizza, and in the foibe of Lokev (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". The number of those who died in foibe during and after the war is still unknown, difficult to establish and a matter of much controversy. Estimates range from hundreds to several thousand. According to Katia Pizzi: "In 1943 and 1945, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Italians, both partisans 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". 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" . Some historians like Raoul Pupo or Roberto Spazzali estimated the total number of victims at about 5,000, but this is again contested by many.
The episodes of 1945 occurred partly under conditions of guerrilla fighting of Croatian and Slovenian Yugoslav Partisans against the Germans, the Italian Social Republic and their Slavic collaborating allies (the Chetniks, the Ustaše and Domobranci) and partly after the territory had been secured by the Yugoslav army formations.

The number of bodies extracted from the pits has been put at 570 , while other sources are attempting to compile lists of locations and possible victim numbers .

Investigations of the Foibe

No investigation of the crimes had 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 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". The study has, however, been the subject of criticism, in that its "list of over 6000 dead includes not just those who disappeared in the foibas or Yugoslav concentration camps but also legitimate wartime casualties, executions after due process of Fascist officials, Germans or German collaborators. Finally, many Slovenes or Croats are listed as Italians because they happened to be Italian citizens; the fact that they were from the South Slav nations persecuted by the Italian Fascists does not seem to bother the author".

A 2002 joint report by the "Society of Fiuman studies" (in Rome) (Società di Studi Fiumani) and the "Croatian Institute of History" (in Zagreb) (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) relegate into anonymity due to missing inventary in the Municipal Registries together with the relevant number of victims having (...) Croatian nationality (which were often, at least between 1940 and 1943, Italian citizenship) determined after the end of war by the Yugoslav communist regime."

In March 2006, the border municipality of Nova Gorica in Slovenia released a list of names of 1,048 citizens of Gorizia (Nova Gorica is the twin town of Gorizia on the former Yugoslav, now Slovene, side of the border, founded in 1947-'48) who disappeared in May 1945 after being arrested by the Partisans' 9th Corps. 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" .

Alleged motivations

It has been said that the main motive for the mass killings seems to have been 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 officers and civil servants, parts of the Italian elite who opposed both communism and fascism (including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations) Slovenian and Croatian anti-communists collaborators and radical nationalists.

Others see the main motive for the killings as having been retribution for the years of Italian repression, forced Italianization, suppression of Slavic sentiments and, indeed, mass killings performed by Italian authorities during the war, not just in the concentration camps (among them the Rab and Gonars camps), but also in the punitive expeditions often undertaken by the fascists

However, others point out Tito's political aim of adding the Istrian territories as far as Trieste and including the city itself to the new FPR Yugoslavia. The ethnic map of the area could potentially be a decisive factor in the post-War conferences and for this reason, according to some Italian historians, the reduction of the ethnic Italian population was held desirable. However, the Istrian exodus, which reduced the Italian population of Istria and Dalmatia, started before the killings were widely known and was motivated, for the most part, by the desire of the Italian people to live in their own country.

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

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:

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 silence

The foibe have been a neglected subject in mainstream political debate in Italy, Yugoslavia and former-Yugoslav nations, only recently garnering attention with the recent 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 - at facts - a defeated nation.

Another reason for the neglect of the foibe can be found in the high degree of ideology historically present in the public debate in Italy. Many Istrians concealed their origins for fear of being identified by other communist Italians, who tended to believe that Italian Istrians who left after the war likely co-operated with the Fascists, since they were abandoning a "Socialist heaven".

Moreover, when Cold War outbroke, in order to maintain good relations with Tito, the foibe were a dangerous topic to broach.

So, Italian government tacitly "exchanged" the impunity of the Italians accused by Yugoslavia for the renunciation to investigate the Foibe killings.. 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. On the other side, Belgrade didn't insist too much asking the prosecution of Italian alleged war-criminals in order to avoid investigations on foibe and their responsibility.

Both Italian war-crimes and Yugoslav war and post-war mass killings was forgotten for a good neighbor policy.

Re-emergence of the foibe issue

For several Italian historians these killings were the beginning of organized ethnic cleansing.. Others assert that the number of victims was too small for this to be true, and that the killings were mostly restricted to fascists, both military and civilians, who might have had committed war crimes during World War II in Yugoslavia.

The coalition of Silvio Berlusconi 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 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 killings, 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. (...) Yugoslavian 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." However, Malabarba and his party maintained that the discussion on the killings was being manipulated by the right-wing parties and that the new Memorial day was part of a general attempt to criminalize anti-fascism and Resistance.

In February 2007 a period of diplomatic tension between Croatia and Italy arose after Italian President Giorgio Napolitano described the killings as "ethnic cleansing" and said the massacre had been motivated by "a wave of bloodthirsty hatred and fury as well as a Slavic annexation plan". Croatian President Stipe Mesić responded in writing, saying "it was impossible to not see overt elements of racism, historical revisionism and a desire for political revenge" in Napolitano's words .

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 alleged 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. Since the topic seemed especially appealing to the far right, there is an overrepresentation of authors that can be traced to neo-fascism. Many authors from the left wing of politics have maintained that the foibe were either an exaggeration (or an invention) of the extreme right for propaganda purposes, since the fascist crimes in the same areas dwarf even the most lavish of the foibe allegations. Since a definitive investigation on all foibe has not yet been carried out, and is unlikely to be carried out anytime in the near future due to technical and political difficulties, the subject is still controversial, and one should approach any book in this bibliography with a critical spirit.

• Template:En icon Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans, Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 0691086974.
• Template:En icon Benjamin David Lieberman, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe, Ivan R. Dee, 2006 - Original from the University of Michigan 9 Jun 2008, ISBN 1566636469.
• Template:En icon Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A Tragedy Revealed: The Story of the Italian Population of Istria, Dalmatia and Venezia Giulia, 1943-1956, University of Toronto Press, 2005 ISBN 0802039219.
• Template:En icon Glenda Sluga, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity, and Sovereignty in Twentieth-century Europe, SUNY Press, 2001 ISBN 0791448231.
• Template:En icon Raoul Pupo, Roberto Spazzali, Foibe, Mondadori, 2003 ISBN 8842490156.
• Template:It icon Gianni Bartoli, Il martirologio delle genti adriatiche

Gianni Bartoli was the former mayor of Trieste, with the centrist Christian Democracy.

• Template:It icon Claudia Cernigoi, Operazione Foibe—Tra storia e mito, Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005, ISBN 001486360. (The first edition of the book, published in 1997 as Operazione foibe a Trieste and limited in scope to the Trieste territory, is available online)

Claudia Cernigoi is apparently a former member of the Communist Refoundation Party.

Kappa Vu is a small left-wing publishing house.

• Template:It icon 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.

• Template:It icon Gianni Oliva, Foibe, Oscar Mondadori, 2003, ISBN 88-04-51584-8.
• Template:It icon Luigi Papo, L'Istria e le sue foibe, Settimo sigillo, Roma, 1999.
• Template:It icon Luigi Papo, L'ultima bandiera.

Luigi Papo has been accused by the left of being a war criminal in Istria during World War II.

• Template:It icon Marco Pirina, Dalle foibe all'esodo 1943-1956.

Pirina has been associated to the youth wing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, the FUAN, and Fronte Delta, an extreme-right university movement.

• Template:It icon Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l'esilio, Rizzoli, 2005, ISBN 88-17-00562-2.
• Template:It icon Raoul Pupo and Roberto Spazzali, Foibe, Mondadori, 2003, ISBN 8842490156

Raoul Pupo is an associate professor in contemporary history at the University of Trieste.

• Template:It icon Franco Razzi, Lager e foibe in Slovenia.
• Template:It icon Guido Rumici, Infoibati, Mursia, Milano, 2002, ISBN 88-425-2999-0.
• Template:It icon Giorgio Rustia, Contro operazione foibe a Trieste, 2000.

Rustia is apparently close to Forza Nuova, a neofascist movement.

• Template:It icon Carlo Sgorlon, La foiba grande, Mondadori, 2005, ISBN 88-04-38002-0.
• Template:It icon Pol Vice, Scampati o no - i racconti di chi uscì "vivo" dalla foiba, Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005.
• Template:It icon Gaetano La Perna, Pola Istria Fiume 1943-1945, Mursia, Milan, 1993.
• Template:It icon Template:Hr icon Amleto Ballerini, Mihael Sobolevski, Le vittime di nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939-1947) - Žrtve talijanske nacionalnosti u Rijeci i okolici (1939.-1947.), Societa' Di Studi Fiumani - Hrvatski Institut Za Povijest, Roma Zagreb, Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali Direzione generale per gli archivi, Pubblicazioni degli Archivi Di Stato, Sussidi 12, ISBN 88-7125-239-X.

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.

Charge

In 1992 Italian judge Giuseppe Pittitto started a criminal trial after a complaint against suspected Slav criminals of war. Oscar Piskulic e Ivan Motika were both principal accused but they were discharged because territorial jurisdiction was rejected. In 1997 some Italian deputies pressed their government for extradition of suspected Slav criminals but diplomatic problems stopped Italian action.

References

1. "Foibe". Treccani.it. Retrieved 2009-04-27. For the use of other actors, st least a case of German use of the foibe is documented, but disputed. See below. Fascist use of the foibe is still disputed. See below.
2. A City in Search of an Author by Katia Pizzi
3. 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
4. Le foibe giuliane 1943-45 by Raoul Pupo; "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».
5. Raoul Pupo wrote (ibidem): "...the horrible death in a cave (...) become the very rappresentation 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 conditionate 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).
6. Bosworth,, R. J. B. (1999). Italian fascism: history, memory, and representation. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 185–86. ISBN 031221717X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
7. In Trieste, Investigation of Brutal Era Is Blocked NYT April 20, 1997
8. "Italian islands in a Slavic sea". Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9.
9. http://muceniskapot.nuovaalabarda.org/foto-24-ita.php
10. http://muceniskapot.nuovaalabarda.org/foto-26-ita.php
11. Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9. "To damping the Italian nationalist movement fed by the winds of the Risorgimento blowing in from the peninsula, the Austrian government sought in every way to encourage an influx of Slavic populations into the coastal region"
12. Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9. For example, during last year of the Hapsburg Empire, German community of Triest rose to 5% of the population
13. http://www.drcar-murko.si/en/vsbina.php?id=11
14. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/wgmn_papers/alessandra_miklavcic_paper.pdf
15. http://razor.arnes.si/~mkralj/istra-history/e-periodtotal.html
16. Gerarchia, vol. IX, 1927: "La musa istriana ha chiamato Foiba degno posto di sepoltura per chi nella provincia d’Istria minaccia le caratteristiche nazionali dell’Istria"Template:Sr icon[http://www.ex-yupress.com/novi/novilist34.html
17. Template:Sr iconhttp://www.danas.rs/20050217/dijalog1.html
18. Template:It icon http://www.lavocedifiore.org/SPIP/article.php3?id_article=1692
19. Template:It iconhttp://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/articleview/3901/1/176/
20. Template:It icon http://www.laregione.ch/interna.asp?idarticolo=105997&idtipo=91
21. 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". http://www.storia900bivc.it/pagine/editoria/pupo196.html
22. Other authors suggested that the 70 hostages were killed and burned into the Nazist lager of the Risiera of San Sabba, on april, the 4th 1944. See , , , , ,
23. A Tragedy Revealed by Door Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler
24. Other photos from the footage can be see in Giorgio Pisanò, Storia della Guerra Civile in Italia 1943-1945, Milan, FPE, 1965
25. 'Silentes Loquimur': 'Foibe' and Border Anxiety in Post-War Literature from Trieste by Katia Pizzi
26. 'Silentes Loquimur': 'Foibe' and Border Anxiety in Post-War Literature from Trieste by Katia Pizzi
27. http://www.kozina.com/premik/poreng4.htm
28. Marco Ottanelli: "I quali, calcolati secondo il criterio dei corpi estratti direttamente dalle caverne, sono in effetti 570" ("Of whom, calculated according to the criterion of bodies extracted directly from the caves, there are actually 570"). See http://www.democrazialegalita.it/speciali/Speciale_Marco_foibe07febb05.htm
29. http://digilander.libero.it/lefoibe/elenco%20foibe.htm
30. Gaetano La Perna, Pola Istria Fiume 1943-1945, Mursia, 1993
31. Ibidem, p. 452
32. http://miran.pecenik.com/ts/balkan/balkan6.htm
33. 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.". http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/DGA-free/Sussidi/Sussidi_12.pdf Le vittime di nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939-1947)- Žrtve talijanske nacionalnosti u Rijeci i okolici (1939.-1947.)
34. http://digilander.libero.it/lefoibe/deportati_gorizia.pdf
35. http://www.mzz.gov.si/nc/en/tools/news/cns/news/article/141/7782/
36. Gian Luigi Falabrino. "Il punto sulle foibe e sulle deportazioni nelle regioni orientali (1943-45)" (in Italian). Retrieved 2006-06-07.
37. Paolo Sardos Albertini (2002-05-08). ""Terrore" comunista e le foibe". Il Piccolo (in Italian). Retrieved 2006-06-08.
38. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7366.html
39. http://www.kozina.com/premik/indexeng_porocilo.htm Slovene-Italian Relations 1880-1956 Report 2000
40. ^ Marco Ottanelli. "La verità sulle foibe" (in Italian). Retrieved 2006-06-03.
41. 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). Retrieved 2006-06-03.
42. Silvia Ferreto Clementi. "La pulizia etnica e il manuale Cubrilovic" (in Italian). Retrieved 2006-06-03.
43. Luigi Malabarba (2004-03-11). "Declaration of Vote" (PDF). Transcript of the 561th Session of the Italian Senate (in Italian). p. 15. Retrieved 2006-06-05.
44. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360429.stm
45. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/13/europe/EU-GEN-Italy-Croatia.php
46. Claudia Cernigoi. "Capitolo III: Le foibe triestine". Operazione foibe a Trieste (in Italian). Retrieved 2006-06-07.

Further reading

• Template:En iconHistory in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans by Pamela Ballinger
• Template:En iconIn Trieste, Investigation of Brutal Era Is Blocked

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

• Template:En icon Slovene-Italian Relations 1880-1956 Report 2000
• Template:It icon Relazioni Italo-Slovene 1880-1956 Relazione 2000
• Template:Sl icon Slovensko-italijanski odnosi 1880-1956 Poročilo 2000
• Template:It icon Operazione foibe a Trieste by Claudia Cernigoi
• Template:It icon Le foibe
• Template:It icon Il punto sulle foibe e sulle deportazioni nelle regioni orientali (1943-45), by Gian Luigi Falabrino
• Template:It icon Site connected to Lega Nazionale, claiming 16,500 victims of "slavo-communist" terror.
• Template:It icon The truth about the foibe by Marco Ottanelli. The article claims that crimes on the Yugoslav side were negligible compared to war crimes by the Nazis and Fascists before and during the war.

See also

• Francesco Bonifacio
• Yugoslavia during the Second World War
• Il Cuore nel Pozzo
• Istrian exodus
• Ethnic cleansing

Video

• Italian documentary of 1948
• Italian documentary of 1998

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

• Massacres in Italy
• World War II massacres
• Yugoslavia during World War II
• 1943 in Yugoslavia
• 1945 in Yugoslavia