Foibe massacres

Origin and meaning of the term

The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called foiba. 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, 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".

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.

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. The estimated number of people killed in Trieste is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands.

Events

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. Other authors claimed the 70 hostages were killed and burned in the Nazi lager of the Risiera of San Sabba, on 4 April 1944.

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".

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". 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, 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, 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. 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. More bodies were sighted, but not recovered. 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.

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.

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. 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". 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%.

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. 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, 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]") 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". 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".

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". 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 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".

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."

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. 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 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.

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:

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

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. 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 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. 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."

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:

...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.

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.

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.

In Italy, with Law 92 of 30 March 2004 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:

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.

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