Italy remembers the victims of Foibe massacres

As Italy marks the Giorno del Ricordo, Mattarella condemns the "ruthless violence" against Italians by Tito's partisans.

Italy on Monday commemorates the victims of the Foibe mass killings in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia by Tito's partisans, both during and after world war two.

The massacres were committed mainly against the local ethnic Italian population by Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during the last two years of the war.

Foibe massacres

Italy's president Sergio Mattarella on Monday hosted a commemorative event in Rome to remember the victims of the Foibe killings which occurred in 1943 and again in the weeks before and after the end of the war in 1945.

The exact number of victims is unknown but there may have been up to 15,000 killed, with many of them tortured, shot or pushed to their deaths into the deep, narrow carsic sinkholes or chasms known as foibe.

The Giorno del Ricordo commemorates the victims of the ethnic cleansing as well as the exodus of Italians who left their homes in Dalmatia and Istria in the years after 1943.

Mattarella

"In the areas of the eastern border, after the fascist oppression, responsible for a harsh segregationist policy towards the Slavic populations, and the barbaric Nazi occupation, Tito's communist dictatorship was established, inaugurating a ruthless season of violence against the Italians living in those areas", President Mattarella said during the commemorative event at Palazzo Quirinale on Monday.

#GiornoDelRicordo, #Mattarella: la furia omicida dei comunisti jugoslavi si accanì su impiegati, intellettuali, famiglie, sacerdoti, anche su antifascisti, su compagni di ideologia, colpevoli soltanto di esigere rispetto nei confronti della identità delle proprie comunità pic.twitter.com/E3siDU3wtE
— Quirinale (@Quirinale) February 10, 2025

Stressing the importance of reconciliation, Mattarella remembered the plight of the exiles as "a tragedy that was underestimated and ignored".

Political contention

A source of political contention in Italy, the annual commemoration is embraced by the right which has sought to draw comparisons between the mass murder of Italians by Communist-led anti-fascists with the Holocaust.

In a video post on X on Monday, Italy's right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni described the Foibe massacres as "a painful page of our history forgotten for too long", stating: "Remembering is a duty of truth and justice, to honour those who suffered and to pass this memory on to new generations. Italy does not forget."

Nel Giorno del Ricordo rendiamo omaggio alle vittime delle foibe e a tutti coloro che subirono la tragedia dell’esodo giuliano-dalmata, una pagina dolorosa della nostra storia per troppo tempo dimenticata. Ricordare è un dovere di verità e giustizia, per onorare chi ha sofferto e… pic.twitter.com/C9jxI60jI9
— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) February 10, 2025

Vandalism

This year's commemoration was marred after the Foibe memorial in Basovizza, near the northern Italian city of Trieste, was vandalised with graffiti over the weekend.

The messages in Slavic language read: "Trieste is ours", "Death to fascism" and "Freedom to the people" while another, written in Italian, read: "It's only a well" - a reference to the foibe where thousands of Italians met their deaths.

The vandalism was condemned strongly by the Italian government, with Meloni slamming it as "an act of unprecedented gravity, which cannot go unpunished".

La Foiba di Basovizza è un luogo sacro, un monumento nazionale, da onorare con il silenzio e con la preghiera. Oltraggiare Basovizza, per di più con scritte ripugnanti che richiamano a pagine drammatiche della nostra storia, non vuol dire solo calpestare la memoria dei martiri… pic.twitter.com/xP5XdbIIs7— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) February 8, 2025

"To insult Basovizza with repugnant writings that recall dramatic pages of our history not only tramples on the memory of the martyrs of the Foibe but offends the entire nation," Meloni said in statement, adding that the site is "a sacred place, a national monument, to be honoured with silence and prayer".

Deputy premier Matteo Salvini condemned it as "a serious, shameful, unacceptable episode", while fellow deputy premier Antonio Tajani said it was "a vile gesture" whose only aim was to "undermine the dialogue between peoples who want to look towards a future of peace."

Gorizia and Nova Gorica

The outcry over the vandalism came the same day as the presidents of Italy and Slovenia united to inaugurate the European Capital of Culture, shared between the neighbouring towns of Gorizia, in northeast Italy, and Nova Gorica, in western Slovenia.

Until 1947 Gorizia and Nova Gorica were part of the same town however after world war two, Gorizia was abruptly split down the middle when the Treaty of Paris established Europe's new borders, restricting travel between Italy and the former Yugoslavia.

Commemorative initiatives

To mark the solemn occasion, the façade of the government buildings at Palazzo Chigi in Rome will be illuminated with the colours of the Italian flag, with the words "Io Ricordo" (I Remember).

A special Train of Remembrance will depart from Trieste on Monday and make its way to Taranto, in southern Italy, evoking the journey of the exiles from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia.

The train, which hosts a multimedia exhibition on board, will pass through seven Italian cities and will arrive in Rome on Sunday, where the exhibition will remain open at platform 1 at Ostiense Station on 16 and 17 February from 09.00 to 18.00.

Museo del Ricordo

This year’s Giorno del Ricordo takes place a few months after the Italian parliament approved a plan to establish a museum in Rome to commemorate the Foibe victims.

The €8 million Museo del Ricordo project was launched last January by Meloni and former culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano before receiving the definitive go-ahead from parliament in October.

Giorno del Ricordo

Known in English as the 'National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe', the annual remembrance day was declared in 2004 by then Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In 2007 Ciampi's successor, President Giorgio Napolitano, referred to the Foibe as "one of the barbarities of the past century."