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Foiba (plural foibe) is the name adopted to define deep natural sinkholes common in Carso/Kras region, a karstic district located between Italy and Slovenia. However this name is more commonly used in relation to mass killings committed mostly by Yugoslav partisans during and shortly after World War II.
Mass killings
The mass killings in the area of Istria and on the Slovene national territory have been foretold by the Fascist duce Benito Mussolini, later the Royal Italy's Prime Minister (1922 to 1943) in a speech in Pola/Pula (1920):
- "Faced with an inferior and barbarous race such as the Slavs, one does not have to follow a policy that offers candies, but one of the stick. The borders of Italy should be the Brenner, Nevoso and the Dinarides: I think that it is possible to sacrifice 500,000 barbarian Slavs for 50,000 Italians."
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 in 1943, after capitulation of Italy on 8 September, 1943 and in 1945, when Yugoslav partisans under the command of the communist leader Tito entered Istria and parts of Venezia Giulia, and recaptured the Slovene national 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 and difficult to establish. Estimates range from as low as 2,000 to as high as 20,000. According to data gathered 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, range from 1,300 to 1,600, 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 foiba victims at about 5,000. Most of them were court-martialed fascists or enemy soldiers, but many civilian persons were also killed. A great majority of those killed were of Italian ethnicity. Actual body-count may be different, as no reliable records exist of executed German soldiers and participants of various Quisling formations.
The killings of 1943 were mostly spontaneous and were a reaction to the Italian pre-war and war crimes, such as concentration camp killings, political repression, forceful italianization 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 Germans 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". Ethnic cleansing seems to be another motive, according to some sources, as Italian Resistance also took part on the Allied side in the concluding operations of the World War II in the territory. Also, the Italian non-Communist Resistance was specifically targeted and eliminated from territories occupied by the Yugoslav forces. A strong Italian minority still lives and enjoys minority rights including affirmative actions in both Slovenia and Croatia, even if many Italians were forced to leave the country after the war (see also Exiles from Istria and Dalmatia).
Quote from the before mentioned historians' report 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."
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.
Third-Millennium 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 Silvio 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) . The movie was wiewed by 17 million spectators on its first broadcasting in Italy alone. 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.
Exiles from Istria and Dalmatia
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 300,000 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. The Italian side has not withdrawn a single dollar from the account yet.
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
Bibliography
- Giorgio Rustia, Contro operazione foibe a Trieste, 2000
- Claudia Cernigoi, Operazione Foibe - Tra storia e mito, Edizioni Kappa Vu, Udine, 2005
- Guido Rumici, Infoibati, Mursia, Milano, 2002
- Franco Razzi, Lager e foibe in Slovenia
- Marco Pirina, Dalle foibe all'esodo 1943-1956
- Luigi Papo, L'Istria e le sue foibe, Settimo sigillo, Roma, 1999
- Luigi Papo, L'ultima bandiera
- Vincenzo Maria De Luca, Foibe. Una tragedia annunciata. Il lungo addio italiano alla Venezia Giulia, Settimo sigillo, Roma, 2000
- Gianni Bartoli, Il martirologio delle genti adriatiche
- Roberto Spazzali and Raoul Pupo, Foibe
- Gianni Oliva, Foibe, Oscar Mondadori, 2003
- Carlo Sgorlon, La foiba grande
- Pol Vice, Scampati o no - i racconti di chi uscì "vivo" dalla foiba, KappaVu, Udine, 2005
- Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l'esilio, Rizzoli, 2005
External Links
- Template:It iconTemplate:En icon Official site of exiles
- Template:It icon Foibe
- Template:It icon Marco Ottanelli: La verità sulle foibe