Foibe massacre

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Simplified scheme of a foiba
Locations of some Foiben in Istria , where mass executions are alleged to have taken place.

The term Foibe massacre is used to describe war crimes that occurred during and after World War II. At that time, Yugoslav partisans committed crimes against the Italian population in revenge, mainly in Julisch Veneto , in the Istrian and Dalmatian coastal areas. The victims were thrown into karst caves , the so-called foibs , often alive.

A foiba (from Latin fovea , fossa ; Croatian fojba ) refers to inaccessible karst caves along the Croatian and Slovenian coasts in the Italian language .

The victims of these massacres were mainly members of the Italian ethnic group as well as Slavic non-communists who opposed the efforts to annex Titoist Yugoslavia or were viewed by the new rulers as a possible danger. There were also personally motivated acts of revenge. Although most of the “infoibati” were innocent civilians (including women and children), fewer soldiers (Wehrmacht, Italian Social Republic , Slavic collaborators and even a few New Zealand allies) died there.

The violent Italianization of the Slovenian and Croatian populations began after the fascists came to power in 1922 and was intensified during the war years (especially 1940–1943).

Casualty numbers

The exact number of victims is not known. The numbers range from a few hundred to 20,000, but this can only be achieved including the Italians sunk in the Mediterranean ( annegati ) and those who perished in Yugoslav penal camps. The research distinguishes between two phases: the first killings took place immediately after Italy's surrender in September 1943 (with around 500 to 700 Foibe deaths), while a much higher number of victims was due to the second wave of persecution from April to June 1945.

Remembrance day

For decades, the massacres in Italy were taboo and were marginalized in public opinion as well as in school lessons. Since 2001, the Foibe massacres have received more and more attention in public discussion. At the initiative of the Alleanza Nazionale , which emerged from the neo-fascist MSI , a day of remembrance was introduced during the Berlusconi government , the Giorno del Ricordo , which has been celebrated since 2005. This is held annually in Italy on February 10th. On this day of remembrance not only the victims of the foibe, but also the 200,000 to 350,000 Esuli (displaced persons) from Julian Venetia ( Istria , Fiume / Rijeka and Zara / Zadar ) and Dalmatia are remembered.

Current reference

Increased attention has been paid to the subject since February 2007, as the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, on the occasion of the holiday commemorating the events at the end of the Second World War , told the last Italian prefect of the fascist regime in Zara (Croatian Zadar ) in today's Croatia, Vincenzo Serrentino, and about thirty other victims of the Yugoslav partisans posthumously awarded medals. Serrentino was convicted and executed as a war criminal in the former Yugoslavia. In his memorial day speech, Napolitano spoke of the fact that “one of the barbarities of the last century was committed”, of “a movement full of hatred and bloodthirsty anger”, as the “Slavic annexation plan [...] the sinister form of 'ethnic cleansing' assumed".

The Croatian President Stjepan Mesić announced on February 12, 2007 that for him “in such statements the signs of open racism, historical revisionism and political revanchism cannot be overlooked, and that it is therefore difficult to do this in accordance with the declarative wish To improve bilateral relations between the two countries ”. Mesić interpreted Napolitano's statements as “calling into question the peace treaty” signed by Italy, but for Croatia there is no question of calling into question the Osimo (Croatian Osimski sporazumi ) border treaties of 1975. He also threatened in an interview that “such an attitude could ultimately lead to another war”. Mesić said several times in the past that the winners had committed crimes during and after the war and that he condemned them. He also advocated a consideration of the broader historical context and spoke out against the cover-up of facts, as well as against the transformation of historical losers into historical winners.

The center-left government led by Romano Prodi sided with the statements of Italy's president and reacted indignantly to Mesić's statements. These are "unjustified" because they come "after a period of good cooperation between Italy and Croatia". Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema summoned Croatia's ambassador to express his "amazement and pain" at the attacks against Napolitano.

Afterwards, President Napolitano said several times that the Foibe massacre should be seen as “measures of ethnic cleansing within the framework of the Slavic annexationist tendencies in the peace treaty of 1947 ” and resisted the “diplomatic repression” of the events.

At the suggestion of Croatia, a joint commission of historians should shed light on the events during the Second World War and the years after.

Compensation payments

The issue of compensation payments also remains a major point of contention. In 2002, a bilateral commission was set up to deal with compensation and the return of former Italian properties. However, the work of the commission did not produce any results.

Under the Treaty of Rome , the former Yugoslavia pledged to provide US $ 110 million in compensation for the Italian refugees and their property left behind. Of this, around 17 million had been paid out by 1991. The successor states Slovenia and Croatia agreed to distribute the remaining debt of 93 million among themselves in a ratio of 60 to 40. Slovenia has assumed around 56 million liabilities, Croatia 37 million.

Slovenia paid its share into an account at Dresdner Bank in Luxembourg in 2002 . The Italian government refused to accept this payment as legal. For its part, Croatia has offered to pay off its debt.

Report from a survivor

“ Then a tall man took a wire and began to tie two and two together so that he pulled the wire tightly around our wrists. Fate was mapped out and there was only one way to escape: throw me into the abyss before the bullet hit me. . . . I fell on a protruding branch. I couldn't see anything, other bodies fell on me. I managed to free my hands from the iron wire and began to climb. "

See also

literature

  • Gaia Baracetti: Foibe: Nationalism, Revenge and Ideology In Venezia Giulia and Istria, 1943-5. In: Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 44, H. 4, ISSN  0022-0094 , 2009, pp. 657-674, doi : 10.1177 / 0022009409339344 .
  • Claudia Cernigoi: Operazione Foibe. Tra storia e mito. Edizioni Kappa Vu, Udine 2005.
  • Renato Cristin (Ed.) / Italian Cultural Institute Berlin: The Foibe. From political silence to historical truth. = Foibe. Lit, Berlin a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0002-4 .
  • Paolo De Franceschi: Foibe. Prefazione di Umberto Nani. Centro Studi Adriatici, Rome 1949.
  • Sessi Frediano: Foibe rosse. Vita di Norma Cossetto uccisa in Istria nel '43. Marsilio, Venezia 2007, ISBN 978-88-317-9147-2 .
  • Jožko Kragelj: Pobitim v spomin. Žrtve komunističnega nasilja na Goriškem 1943–1948. Goriška Mohorjeva, Gorizia 2005.
  • Giancarlo Marinaldi: La morte è nelle foibe. Cappelli, Bologna 1949.
  • Gianni Oliva: Foibe. Le stragi negate degli italiani della Venezia Giulia e dell'Istria. Feltrinelli, Milano 2003, ISBN 88-04-51584-8 .
  • Luigi Papo: L'ultima bandiera. Storia del reggimento Istria. L'Arena di Pola, Gorizia 1986.
  • Luigi Papo: L'Istria e le sue foibe. Storia e tragedia senza la parola fine (= Historia 20). 2 volumes. Settimo sigillo, Roma 1999.
  • Eno Pascoli: Foibe. Cinquant'anni di silenzio. La frontiera orientale. Aretusa, Gorizia 1993.
  • Arrigo Petacco : L'esodo. La tragedia negata degli italiani d'Istria, Dalmazia e Venezia Giulia. Mondadori, Milano 1999, ISBN 88-04-45897-6 .
  • Raoul Pupo: Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l'esilio. Rizzoli, Milano 2005, ISBN 88-17-00562-2 .
  • Raoul Pupo, Roberto Spazzali: Foibe. B. Mondadori, Milano 2003, ISBN 88-424-9015-6 .
  • Franco Razzi: Lager e foibe in Slovenia. Ed. Vicentina, Vicenza 1992.
  • Guido Rumici: Infoibati (1943-1945). I nomi, i luoghi, i testimoni, i documenti. Mursia, Milano 2002, ISBN 88-425-2999-0 .
  • Giorgio Rustia: Contro operazione foibe a Trieste. A cura dell'Associazione famiglie e congiunti dei deportati italiani in Jugoslavia e infoibati. sn, sl 2000.
  • Fulvio Salimbeni: Le foibe, un problema storico. Unione degli istriani, Trieste 1998.
  • Giacomo Scotti: Dossier Foibe (= Studi 84). Manni, San Cesario di Lecce 2005, ISBN 88-8176-644-2 .
  • Giovanna Solari: Il dramma delle foibe, 1943–1945. Studi, interpretazioni e tendenze. Stella, Trieste 2002.
  • Roberto Spazzali: Foibe. Un dibattito ancora aperto. Tesi politica e storiografica giuliana tra scontro e confronto. Editrice Lega Nazionale, Trieste 1990
  • Roberto Spazzali: Tragedia delle Foibe. Contributo alla verità. Part 1. Grafica goriziana, Gorizia 1993.
  • Giampaolo Valdevit (Ed.): Foibe, il peso del passato. Venezia Giulia 1943-1945. Marsilio, Venezia 1997.

swell

  1. ^ According to Gianni Oliva and Arrigo Petacco.
  2. ↑ Gianni Oliva: The Foibe: The reasons of a silence , in: Renato Cristin (Hrsg.): The Foibe / Foibe. From political silence to historical truth / Dal silenzio politico alla verità storica. Berlin 2007, p. 55 [1]
  3. ↑ Gustavo Corni : L'esodo degli Italiani because Istria e Dalmazia. In: Hannes Obermair , Sabrina Michielli (ed.): Cultures of remembrance of the 20th century in comparison - Culture della memoria del Novecento al confronto. (Booklets on the history of Bolzano / Quaderni di storia cittadina 7). Bozen: City of Bozen 2014. ISBN 978-88-907060-9-7 , pp. 75–96, reference pp. 82–87.
  4. ↑ Renato Cristin: Historical truth and spread of Italian culture in the world , in: Renato Cristin (Ed.): The Foibe / Foibe. From political silence to historical truth / Dal silenzio politico alla verità storica. Berlin 2007, p. 5 [2]
  5. ↑ Law of March 30, 2004, No. 92
  6. ^ Intervento del Presidente della Repubblica, Giorgio Napolitano, in occasione della celebrazione del "Giorno del Ricordo" , quirinale.it, February 10, 2007
  7. ^ Karl-Peter Schwarz: A praise to revisionism , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 16, 2007, p. 1.
  8. ↑ Disgruntlement between Italy and Croatia , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 14, 2007
  9. ↑ vjesnik.hr ( Memento from November 13, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) (Croatian)
  10. ^ La repubblica, Foibe, Prodi: "Sdegnato per quelle parole", Mesic: "Inaccettabile ogni revisione dei trattati", February 14, 2007 (Italian)
  11. ↑ Italy's President: “Don't Forget the Foibe Massacre,” Die Presse, February 10, 2010
  12. ↑ Restituzione o risarcimento dei beni espropriati e nazionalizzati dal regime jugoslavo agli esuli istriani, fiumani e dalmati, p. 31 (Italian; PDF; 1.1 MB)
  13. ↑ The Criminal, My Neighbor , NZZ , February 25, 2006. It is quoted from the work “The Exodus” by Arrigo Petacco, the survivor is the Istrian teacher Graziano Udovisi