(ANSA) – ROME, FEB 8 – A memorial to the victims of the Foibe massacres, the mass killings and deportations by Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans of Italians living in the area that stretches from the Trieste zone in Italy’s Friuli Venezia Giulia region across the Istrian peninsula to Dalmatia in Croatia during and immediately after WWII, was found to have been vandalized on Saturday.
The memorial of the Basovizza Foiba, near Trieste, was defaced with graffiti declaring ‘Trst je nas’ (Trieste is ours) and two other statements in Slovenian, two days before Italy’s Foibe Remembrance Day.
Most of the Foibe were natural pit-like karst sinkholes typically found in Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Slovenian part of Istria into which victims were thrown, sometimes alive.
The Basovizza Foiba, however, was a mineshaft.
It is estimated that as many as 15,000 Italians largely, but not always, identified with Fascism were tortured or killed by Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during the last two years of the war.
Many of the victims were thrown into the narrow mountain gorges during anti-Fascist uprisings in the area and the exact number of victims of these atrocities is unknown, in part because Tito’s forces destroyed local population records to cover up their crimes.
Many Italians were forced to flee their homes because of the massacres.
Italy established Foibe Remembrance Day only in 2004, as the tragedy had been swept under the carpet by anti-Fascists in the postwar years. (ANSA).
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The memorial of the Basovizza Foiba, near Trieste, was defaced with graffiti declaring ‘Trst je nas’ (Trieste is ours) and two other statements in Slovenian, two days before Italy’s Foibe Remembrance Day.
Most of the Foibe were natural pit-like karst sinkholes typically found in Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Slovenian part of Istria into which victims were thrown, sometimes alive.
The Basovizza Foiba, however, was a mineshaft.
It is estimated that as many as 15,000 Italians largely, but not always, identified with Fascism were tortured or killed by Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during the last two years of the war.
Many of the victims were thrown into the narrow mountain gorges during anti-Fascist uprisings in the area and the exact number of victims of these atrocities is unknown, in part because Tito’s forces destroyed local population records to cover up their crimes.
Many Italians were forced to flee their homes because of the massacres.
Italy established Foibe Remembrance Day only in 2004, as the tragedy had been swept under the carpet by anti-Fascists in the postwar years. (ANSA).
Read article…
