Foibe massacres

The "foibe" massacres refers to mass killings mainly in Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia during and after World War II, perpetrated mainly by Yugoslav Partisans against the local Italian population.

The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called foiba. The term includes by extension killings in other subterranean formations, such as the Basovizza "foiba", which is not a true foiba but a mine shaft.

In Italy the term foibe has, for some authors and scholars, taken on a symbolic meaning; for them it refers in a broader sense to all the disappearances or killings of Italian people in the territories occupied by Yugoslav forces. According to author Raoul Pupo, "It is well known that the majority of the victims didn't end their lives in a Karst cave, but met their deaths on the road to deportation, as well as in jails or in Yugoslav concentration camps".

The terror spread by the disappearances and the killings eventually contributed to an atmosphere sufficient to cause the majority of the Italians of Istria, Rijeka and Zadar to flee to other parts of Italy or the Free Territory of Trieste.

Other authors have asserted that "the post-war pursuit of the 'truth' of the foibe as a means of transcending Fascist/Anti-Fascist oppositions and promoting popular patriotism has not been the preserve of right-wing or neo-Fascist groups. Evocations of the 'Slav other' and of the terrors of the foibe made by state institutions, academics, amateur historians, journalists and the memorial landscape of everyday life were the backdrop to the post-war renegotiation of Italian national identity. The estimated number of people killed in Trieste is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands.

The first (very disputed) claims of people being thrown into foibe date back to 1943, after the Wehrmacht took back the area from the Partisans, when around 70 local people were thrown into a foiba by the Germans after the bombing of a cinema. Other authors claimed the 70 hostages were killed and burned in the Nazi lager of the Risiera of San Sabba, on 4 April 1944.

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Wikipedia