I would like to say clearly that we condemn the summary executions in the foibe, which, according to historians, were caused in many cases by political choices tied to the liberation and the revolution taking place in Yugoslavia, in other cases by a blind desire for revenge, in other cases by personal settling of scores – a tragedy that also affected so many innocent people and which must be acknowledged. And we look back with deep respect at the drama of the exodus that affected so many Italians from Istria and Dalmatia.
We know well that in 1943 and 1945, in different circumstances and with different protagonists, there was a climate of reckoning against the fascists and against the fascist state in Istria, Slovenia and Italy, to which even those who had no personal responsibility fell victim.
But at the same time, we denounce the fact that, after the establishment on February 10, 2004 of the National Memorial Day in Italy in memory of the victims of the foibe, of the drama of the exodus and – as the law says – of the more complex matter of the eastern border, there have been, and there are, exaggerations of all kinds and instances of exploitation aimed not at establishing historical truth, but at building symbolic forms of political and national identity on those tragedies. It is precisely a case of biased memory.
In Italy, there is a memorial day for the victims of the crimes of the foibe and the drama of the exodus. But there is no memorial day for the Italian invasion of Yugoslavia, no memorial day for the Italian massacres that followed, no memorial day for the hundreds upon hundreds of women, partisans, messenger girls or ordinary citizens who were tortured and killed by the Nazi-Fascists in Italy, there is no memorial day for the crimes of the Italian X Mas, which collaborated with the Nazis, there is no memorial day for the occupation of Carnia by the Cossack armies in the service of the Third Reich, there is no memorial day for the more than 600,000 Italians who ended up in military internment camps in Germany, many of whom never returned.
Not only that: there is something like an erasure of all those things from public memory, starting with the never-expiated guilt of Italian war criminals in the former Yugoslavia.
This is what we propose: let’s not make the National Memorial Day in Italy an occasion for further conflict, for division among Italians and between Italians, Slovenes and Croats.
Let it truly be a day of observant remembrance of the memory of all: of the foibe, of the exodus, of the massacres carried out in Slovenia and Croatia, of those who died in internment camps. Let it be a day of respect and not outrage, of historical analysis and not propaganda, of brotherhood and not hatred, of peace and not war.
This is the message we undertake to send to the Italian authorities.
This is a passage from the ANPI National President’s speech at the conference on the foibe held on January 20 in Zagreb at the House of Journalists. In addition to Pagliarulo, speakers included the Presidents of the Partisan Associations of Croatia (SABA) and Slovenia (ZZ Nob) and several historians including the Italian Federico Tenca Montini.
