The ANNOTICO Report

The Italian Government Proclaimed February 10 as Memorial Day for Victims
of the "Foibe" and the "Julian March".

I dare say few of you know  even know anything about the tragedy of the
"Foibe Victims" and the "Julian March"!   Right  ??

Despite the fact that Tens of 1,000s of  Italians were massacred AFTER the
End of WWII, in large underground rock cavities or ravines called "Foibes",
for merely speaking out against the brutal "occupying" Tito Yugoslavian
Communist regime.

And that 400,000 Italians were forcibly displaced in a massive exodus at
the point of guns, in an "Ethnic Cleansing" from Istria and Dalmatia!!
The "Julian March" is named after the Julian area in The Irrendenta.

Another episode in our Italian and Italian American History that is unknown
because WE are not providing our community with adequate Studies Programs,
or the message stressing the  Necessity.

The monies that are being expended on Scholarships, I believe are a misuse
of Community Resources. It is an outmoded method in this day of the
significant scholarships, grants, and loans available from Universities.
Further one should always be considering as to how our limited resources
can do the GREATEST Good for the Entire community, not a give away to a
"lucky" or well connected youngster.

But back to the subject.

The area of the Istria Peninsula, and the cities of Trieste, Pola
(Pula),Fiume (Rijeka), and portions of the Dalmatian coast  have long been
areas of contention. During the Renaissance they were Venetian territory,
and later fell under Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were  labelled by the
Italians as the "The Irredenta" (The UnRedeemeed Land), and held a special
place in the hearts and pride of Italians.
The Irrendenta was overwhelmingly Italian in numbers and culture, and those
Italians in The Irredenta had a stronger Italian Identity,
than in Italy proper.

Portions, but not all the area was returned to Italy at the end of WWI (a
British -French double cross). At the end of WWII, Yugoslavia seized the
area, in a brutal fashion, that incorporated  "The Foibe Victims" and the
"Julian March" that is detailed below with a Timeline, a previous ANNOTICO
Report, and Background articles.

Today, October 5th, is the 50th Anniversary of the signing of "the
Memorandum of Understanding signed in London on 5 October 1954" that
finally returned Trieiste to Italy, but also lost forever most of Istria,
Fiume, and most of the city of Gorizia, in Friuli.

The roots of the problem go deep.

The history of Trieste is an intricate patchwork of a sleepy seaside
village in the 18th century that was transformed into a large European
port, by the Hapsburgs, with interruptions of rule by Venetian, Spanish and
Napoleonic. Trieste, which had grown to 150,000 remained subjugated by the
Hapsburgs until 1918.

In keeping with the irredentist movements that were taking hold all over
Europe, many inhabitants of Trieste began to show their support for
Garibaldi's forces and the Risorgimento.

The largest reason that Italy did not stay neutral in WWI, and joined the
Allies,  was the promise of the British and French in the Treaty of London
of 1915, for a return/liberation of the "Irredenta" territories, Trieste,
Fiume, Istria, Dalmatia, all which had large Italian populations. Italy was
also promised German and Turkish Colonies.

Even though Italy suffered the greatest physical and economic damage of the
Victors in WWII, Britain and France reneged on Fiume, Istria, Dalmatia, and
German and Turkish Colonies.

The desolation endured, along with the resentment felt, created a climate
that not only facilitated Mussolini's acceptance, but is said to have
influenced Mussolini's entry in WWII against the British and French.

Italy lost the war, and Trieste was invaded by Tito's barbaric Communist
Yugoslavian troops. The thousands of Italians who spoke out against the
Communist regime were killed in large underground rock cavities called
"foibe".

The Yugoslavian were eventually swept out of Trieste after 5 weeks, thanks
to the intervention of Allied troops and the city with feelings of both
euphoria and disorientation came under US Military rule until 1954. It was
at this time that Trieste was finally and definitively returned to Italy
and it became the administrative seat of the  Friuli Venezia Giulia region.

It has only really been in the past twenty years that Trieste has been able
to carve out a new niche for itself. It has now become the most important
center for scientific research in Italy and this is a sector which is
providing work for an increasing number of young people...

Contemporaneously, and during the next nine years, some 400,000 Italians
were at the point of guns, forcibly displaced by Tito's troops, with NO
Compensation in  "The Julian March"

Who has previously heard of the "Foibe", or the "Julian March"??

How can perhaps Tens of Thousands be Killed, and Hundreds of Thousands
Displaced and it is Ignored???

Is because this was a Communist "atrocity", and the "tilt" of our
Historians would not "permit" such an examination??? [Nor any attention to
the Italians soldiers "lost" to the Communist Gulag, or the Italian
Communist Partisans causing German "slaughter" of 15,000 innocent Italian
Civilians??]

Are they too busy, trying their best to continue to attempt to "discredit"
Fascism and Mussolini ad naseum, that there is no time nor inclination to
explore those aspects that might be "embarrassing" to our "Comrades???
 

1. TIMELINE BY Dr. GIORGIO IRACI
2. ITALY AND FORMER YUGOSLAVIA- MEMENTO MORI -The Economist
3. FIFTY YEARS OF TRIESTE IN ITALY- Rete Civica Trieste-

In World War I (1915-18), a date just as meaningful is Nov 4, 1918 (date of
the armistice between Italy and Austria, with the latter surrendering, 7
days before German surrender to the Allies on the Western front).

May 3, 1945: surrender of the last German troops occupying Trieste.

June 12, 1945: Allied troops force the Yugoslavian ones out of Trieste
after 5 weeks of their occupation, a nightmare for the Italian population
(majority). The Yugoslavian chieftain, Josip Broz (a.k.a."Marshal" Tito),
declares that the whole of the "Venezia Giulia" region is Balcanian (hence,
Yugoslavian).

Feb 10, 1947: Peace Treaty signed. Dalmatia (a region where the signs of
civilization are those left by the Venetian republic -, and that supplied
the Republic with some of its most devoted troops, the "Schiavoni"), most
of Istria with Pola (now, "Pula") and Fiume (now, "Rijeka") go to
Yugoslavia. The city of Gorizia, in Friuli, is split into an Italian and a
Yugoslavian section, with apartments having the bedroom in one sector, and
the kitchen in the other one.

Oct 8, 1953: USA and GB determine that the administration of Trieste should
be given back to Italy.

Nov 4, 1953: the Italians of Trieste give a massive demonstration of
feeling such, exposing the Italian flag. Reaction of the Allied military
police, the revolt extends to the whole city: 6 youths shot and killed.

Oct 5, 1954 (today's anniversary) in London: signature (USA, GB. Yugoslavia
and Italy) of the "Entente Memo" by which Trieste returns to Italy.

Oct 26, 1954: Italian troops re-enter Trieste to substitute the Allies,
received by a population in a delirium of joy.

Nov 4, 1964: Italy reassumes the direct administration of Trieste and of
the "A" Zone. The administration of the "B" Zone is assigned to Yugoslavia,
even though sovereignty on it is recognized to Italy.Yugoslavian
persecution of the Italian population (already initiated with the killing
of tens of thousand Italians in the "foibe" in 40 days) makes countless
Italians emigrate, with just their clothes on and leaving
all the rest behind, with main destination Italy - then, maybe, other
countries including the USA. Their homes and properties, to be assigned to
Yugoslavians by the Tito government (do I remember an historical precedent,
in Mittel-Europe?).

The 9 years between 1945 and 1954 had seen the perpetuation of the
nightmare (persecution, killings, pogroms). Numbers smaller (hundreds of
thousand people instead of millions), but the principle was the same:
Italian, instead of Jewish ethnicity, at the hands of yet another
dictatorship.

Nov 10, 1975: Italy and Yugoslavia sign the "Treaty of Osimo", with which
sovereignty over the "B" zone is definitely assigned to the latter: final
loss of Istria.

Today, Oct 5, 2004, is the 50th anniversary since Trieste's return to Italy
after WW2.

THe above is extracted and summarized from an article on Oct 5, 2004, "Il
Giornale", page 1 (continuing on 30).

There is a final comment by a Renzo de Vidovich, 20 years old in 1954,
hence 70 now, then a leader of the students' movement that had organized
the manifestations of Nov 4, 1953: "The "Risorgimento" ended, for us, on
Oct 5, 1954".

MEMENTO MORI
>From The Economist
Aug 26th 2004 | ROME

..A television series in production "Cuore nel Pozzo", being shot by the
Italian state-owned RAI network, recalls a particularly barbaric episode.
Between 1943 and 1947, thousands of Italians were dragged from their homes
by Yugoslav partisans, often tortured, bound hand-and-foot and tossed
(sometimes alive) into deep chasms known as foibe.

The killings occurred in and around the Istrian peninsula, which were
returned to Italy at the end of the first world war (The Irredenta) but was
lost to Yugoslavia after the second world war...

Italy's telecommunications minister, Maurizio Gasparri,stated ".... History
needs correction. The murders of so many Italians were ignored after 1947
for reasons of cold-war diplomacy.

Italian governments did not want to upset Yugoslavia, whose independence
from Moscow offered a buffer against the Soviet block.

The Communist opposition was not eager to draw attention to a shameful page
in Communist history.

Those days are now over. In February, an Italian parliamentary motion to
declare a day of commemoration for the victims passed by an overwhelming
502-15, and even won support from the formerly communist Democrats of the
Left.

Party's leader, Piero Fassino, said: The crimes committed during the
"foibe" can Not be justified.

Economist.com | Italy and former Yugoslavia
http://www.economist.com/World/
europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3136394

On 26 October 1954 Trieste officially returned to Italy after an absence
lasting nine years.  On that day, on behalf of the Italian State, an
Italian official “ General Edmondo De Renzi“ substituted the Allied
Military Government which had run the city since 12 June 1945, the date
which marked the end of the Yugoslavian occupation.

Those nine years were some of the most difficult and tragic for Trieste,
marked by mourning and suffering.  Today the Municipality commemorates this
event not only in remembrance of a national identity which the city
ceaselessly reaffirmed, even at the cost of human life, but also because it
appears legitimate and right to go over the events of its own recent
history, so that the members of the younger generation “who did not live
through those events“ are aware of the historical memory preceding them,
without which even the future appears uncertain.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, the Municipality has the aims
of reviewing those events, reproducing moments of daily life through
exhibitions and displays, tackling the difficult and complex events of
those nine years with a rigorously historical outlook open to all cultural
components of the city, and reliving the sentiments and anxiety which moved
the inhabitants of Trieste at that time through photographs and period
films.

This is to be done without rhetoric, but rather with the desire to render a
service to both those who remember those times with the same emotion today
as they felt half a century ago, and those who are approaching the subject
for the first time and need to be informed to be able to recognize
themselves in this complex and marvelous national sentiment.

In this respect Trieste is a city which in those nine years yearned to be
Italian.  The city's sense of national identity arises from a difficult and
troubled choice: denied the right to return to the homeland, Trieste had
the resolve and the courage to resist and to constantly feed that sense of
national belonging.  In a certain sense it was lucky because in the end its
request was granted, being reunited to Italy with the Memorandum of
Understanding signed in London on 5 October 1954.  For other cities and
other areas the same Memorandum sanctioned the end of hope and signified
the definitive handing over of the B zone to Yugoslavia, a transfer which
was sanctioned by the Osimo Treaty in 1975.

The vicissitudes which led to the reunification of Trieste to Italy
demonstrate the extent of this desire.

On 30 April 1945, at the end of the second world war, Trieste was occupied
by the troops of the IX Yugoslavian Corps.  Tito insisted on drawing the
border with Italy at the Isonzo river, and for two cities, Gorizia and
Trieste, a severe see-sawing of options began.  In the forty-five days of
the Yugoslavian occupation, Trieste suffered violence and deportations
directed at the Italian inhabitants and the well-to-do, regardless of
political affiliation: in fact victims of the violence also included many
antifascists who saw the inclusion of Trieste within the Italian state as a
logical solution.  The outlook of communist totalitarianism which inspired
Tito's Yugoslavia aimed not only at the denationalisation of those areas,
but also at the end of the economic elites established there for decades,
in favour of a collectivist vision of goods and property.

This situation, which lasted for only forty-five days, was to be the cause
of not only the phenomenon of the foibe or mass graves, but also the
deportation of defenceless people to Yugoslavian concentration camps.  In
Istria, Fiume-Rijeka and Dalmatia on the other hand, the situation drew out
for months, forcing more than 300 000 people to abandon those regions so as
to maintain their own national identity.

On 12 June 1945 the Allies forced Tito to leave the city, which was then
administered by the Allied Military Government.  The Julian area was
divided into two zones: the A Zone under direct Anglo-American control and
the B Zone administered by Yugoslavia.

The Peace Treaty signed in Paris by the Italian government on 10 February
1947 officially sanctioned the division of the two zones within the Free
Territory of Trieste, a political-administrative unit which extended from
Duino to Cittanova-Novigrad in Istria and which encompassed 360 000
inhabitants.  The political life of the years of the Allied Military
Government was lived out according to the book in the A Zone, whereas the B
Zone immediately suffered the Yugoslavian action of violent coercion
against the Italian communities, which were numerous and in the majority
particularly along the Istrian coast.  In Trieste the local elections held
in 1949 and 1952 were a clear sign of the inhabitants desire to be Italian.

1953 was an eventful year marked by a number of tragic episodes.  Following
an agreement reached by the United States and the United Kingdom on 8
October 1953 which anticipated the withdrawal of the allied troops from the
A Zone and their substitution with Italian troops, Belgrade held that the
destiny of Trieste was definitively compromised and Tito decided to
manifest his opposition with a hard line in the face of the allied
decisions.  The Italian government, at the time led by Giuseppe Pella,
strongly reacted against the Yugoslavian protests, which led to the events
of 3-4 November.  Trieste had already seen violent clashes in March which
caused dozens of injuries.  On 4 November, faced with the refusal of the
allied commander to allow the flying of the Italian flag outside the town
hall, a request made by the mayor Gianni Bartoli, the city arose.  In the
clashes which followed between 4 and 6 November six demonstrators lost
their lives, struck by a police force which reacted disproportionately in
the face of the unarmed demonstrators.

By December secret negotiations began between the Allies and the
Yugoslavian government to define the situation.  The talks lead to the
aforementioned Memorandum of Understanding which established the handing
over of Trieste to Italy and the B Zone to Yugoslavia.

So ended the complex events of the eastern border, which nonetheless left
open wounds, with a human cost “the foibe and the exodus“ which can not
easily be erased.  The situation of the Italians who remained across the
border was a cause for controversy, owing to the difficulties that the
Italian communities faced for a long period in openly expressing their own
cultural identity.

Today, in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the return of Trieste to
Italy, there is the conviction that the defence of the respective cultural
identities no longer means nationalistic abuse of power, but simply the
respect for the history, culture and sentiments of a people.  The European
perspective will be able to heal old wounds, in a broader outlook which
nonetheless maintains the sense of cultural belonging and the respective
national identities and which transforms those diversities, which were the
cause of mourning and tragedy, into mutual enrichment.  This is not a
simple perspective, but the European project, if it is not limited simply
to a different management of the borders, may prove to be an important
resource for cooperation and peace in this region.

- Rete Civica Trieste -
http://www.retecivica.trieste.it/new/
vis_articolo.asp?pagina=-&link=81&tipo=
articoli_home&ids=21