Massacres of Foibe

The Massacres of Foibe are the mass killings in which the majority of victims were ethnic Italians in 1943, after the capitulation of Italy on 8 September, and in 1945, when Yugoslav partisans under the command of Tito occupied parts of Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia. Historians have claimed the violence  and consequent Italian Istrian-Dalmatian exodus was a planned ethnic cleansing. National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe is Italian celebration in memory of the victims.

Number of killed Italian citizens
The estimate is several thousand 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. The great majority of the persons killed were of Italian nationality.

The killings beginning after the capitulation of Italy in 1943, and the massacres 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 since 1947. Also Italian communists with Slav partisans killed Italian people; in addition to the foibe, several other carnages committed by Italian communist partisans under Palmiro Togliatti's command in the resistance movement have remained unacknowledged and undiscussed for many years.

Victims
Victims were not all Italians because many killed citizen were anticommunist Croats and Slovens: many women were raped before killing. Historians like Raoul Pupo or Roberto Spazzali estimated the total number of victims at about 5,000; Guido Rumici calculates from 11,000 upwards including all people died in concentration camps; Giampaolo Pansa calculates around 15,000 always including all people died in concentration camps; fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò calculated total from 10,000 upwards. It was never possible to extract all the thousands of corpses from foibes  because some of them are deeper than several hundreds meters. Until few years ago it had been able to extract from the pits just a small number of bodies, less than six hundred while other sources are attempting to compile lists of locations and possible victim numbers. Almost all historians calculate hundreds of victims real assassinated by hard pushes to foibe while the estimated number of total people killed in concentration camps is disputed and varies in thousands; probably only a part of total cadavers was hided in foibe but a lot of bodies were accumulated in mass graves. Main concentration camps were in: Borovnica, Skofja Loka, Osijek, Stara Gradiska, Sisak, Zemun, Vrsac, Osseh, Aidussina, Maribor.

Renowned Italians
 Norma Cossetto, she was raped
 Francesco Bonifacio
 3 Radecchi sisters of Croat ancestry: original surname was Radeki; they were raped
 Mario Blasich
 Giuseppe Sincich
 Mario Skull
 Giovanni Baucer
 Mario De Hajnal
 Giovanni Rubinich
 Icilio Bacci
 Riccardo Gigante
 Carlo Dell'Antonio
 Romano Meneghello
 Augusto Bergera
 Luigi Podestà
 Carlo Schiffrer
 Michele Miani
 Licurgo Olivi
 Augusto Sverzutti
 2 Luxardo brothers
 Dora Pezzoli

Renowned Slavs
 Ivo Bric
 Vera Lesten
 Alojzij Obit
 Lado Piščanc
 Ludvik Sluga
 Anton Pisk
 Filip Terčelj
 Izidor Zavadlav
 Andrej Uršič

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.

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 the 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)  . The movie was viewed by 17 million spectators on its first broadcasting in Italy alone.

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 for 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.

Charge
In 1992 Italian judge Giuseppe Pittitto started a criminal trial after a complaint against suspected Slav criminals of war. Oscar Piskulic and Ivan Motika were both principal accused but they were discharged because territorial jurisdiction was rejected and they received acquittal under the amnesty of 1959. In 1997 some Italian deputies pressed their government for extradition of suspected Slav criminals but diplomatic problems stopped Italian action. All Italian historians consider Josip Broz Tito the chief of Slav criminals, but his corpse still stays in a mausoleum.

Main foibe
 Foiba of Basovizza (Trieste) national monument
 Foiba of Monrupino (Trieste) national monument
 Foiba of Barbana
 Foiba of Beca
 Foiba Bertarelli (Pinguente)
 Foiba of Brestovizza
 Foiba of Campagna (Trieste)
 Foibe of Capodistria
 Foiba of Casserova
 Foibe of Castelnuovo d'Istria
 Foiba of Cernizza
 Foiba of Cernovizza (Pisino)
 Foiba of Cocevie
 Foiba of Corgnale
 Foiba of Cregli
 Foiba of Drenchia
 Quarry of bauxite in Gallignana
 Foiba of Gargaro or Podgomila
 Foiba of Gimino
 Foiba of Gropada
 Foiba of Iadruichi
 Foiba of Jurani
 Quarry of bauxite in Lindaro
 Foiba of Obrovo (Fiume)
 Foiba of Odolina
 Foiba of Opicina
 Foiba of Orle
 Foiba of Podubbo
 Foiba of Pucicchi
 Foiba of Raspo
 Foiba of Rozzo
 Foiba of San Lorenzo in Basovizza
 Foiba of San Salvaro
 Foiba of Scadaicina
 Pit of Semez
 Foiba of Semi (Istria)
 Pit of Semich
 Foiba of Sepec (Rozzo)
 Foiba of Sesana
 Foiba of Terli
 Foiba of Treghelizza
 Foiba of Vescovado
 Foiba of Vifia Orizi
 Foiba of Villa Surani
 Foiba of Vines
 Foiba of Zavni (forest of Tarnova)

Related pages
 Istrian-Dalmatian exodus
 Ethnic cleansing

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 (Claudia Cernigoi: Operazione Foibe - Tra storia e mito)

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

Other websites 
 Official site of exiles Italian and English
 Foibe Italian

Video
 
 

1940s in Italy
Massacres during Word War II
Massacres in Europe
Yugoslavia