Film opens wounds of Italy war massacre

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futter
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#16

Post by futter » 12 Feb 2005, 23:58

I agree, the fact is the Italian right has killed 100s of peiople since world war two, in Italy, more than in any otehr democracy. Also teh Italisn right massacred 15000 people in world war teo, in Italy, and saw Nazi Germanmy massacre 10,000 outside, Italy, and saw it gas in camps, and such like, Italisn Jew, and also Christian, well over 50000, and in Yugoslavia, the Italin right massacred, according to teh experts, and I will not quote them as then Nazis, will get their allies, to kill them, via their nazi establishment members style way, well they kileld over 15000, and in North Africa, they massacred, over 10,000 inlcduing Jews and Christains, and in Ethiopia, they massacred a jaw dropping 100,000, not including bombing.
So Yugoslav communists, kileld some people, teh fact is Yuogoslavs, had been needlessly and "roman empire" style invaded by Italy, what would you do if a moron invaded your land, I would not massacre the people of taht l;and, who were in mine, but you have to accept, it would not be taht people would have a nice view, of morons, invading a country, and caliming it was teh new Roman Empire, in total in taht era, Musoolinui's wars killed over a million, and pointlessly invaded lands, in their moron, ways, that dop not have anything to pride about, and now some deranged rightists pretend, that because stalin is a hero, and killed more, they should worship Mussolini, well lets face it Mussolini is famous as he was a joke figure, teh soft under belly, who killed massive amounts of peopkle, Stalin is famous, as he helped defeated teh biggest force of satan, in Europe, since the Tsar was ousted in 1917, no before him, since late 18thC ser4fdom increaser tsars, priding in Mussoloni is liek priding in an idiot who killed people, priding in Hitler is like priding in a serial killer, but priding in Stalin is like prising in teh unbeatable red coatred soldiers, freeing the people of Europe from certain anhialation, that is something to be proud of, so is teh pride in Italian communists who helped overthrow teh biggest release of Satan from Hell ever,
So they comitted some attrocities, these pale into insignificanmce compared to what teh UItalian right were doing, none of us are perfect but compared to the Italin right the commies, were perfect, andpretedning otherwise, is so wrong, and pointless, it is astonishing,
What teh commies did in Yugoslavia, was wrong,

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#17

Post by David Thompson » 13 Feb 2005, 00:08

futter -- I have already asked you several times to read the section rules about opinion posts and sourcing claims, so you have nothing else coming. This is my last warning to you. You have no further to look than the mirror to see the source of the problem. This warning puts you on notice that I intend to delete your noncomplying future posts.

The section rules are posted for all to see at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962


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Oberst Mihael
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#18

Post by Oberst Mihael » 13 Feb 2005, 02:36

my thoughts on the matter can be read here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&start=15

michael mills: would it surprise you that Trieste was the biggest SLOVENE city (meaning, the majority of the populace was Slovene, and it was viewed by just about everyone as a Slovene city, and indeed the heart of Slovene culture at the time) until it was captured by Italy in WW1? So someone might say it wasn't really occupied in 1945, but liberated.

The level of ignorance of some people in this topic is beginning to border on the unbelievable.

DrG: The killings after the war committed by the partisans were warcrimes, and noone in Slovenia would dare deny that, save perhaps the partisan organisation themselves, who do not justify their actions, but quite basically don't want to talk about it. Let me remind you that the SLOVENE partisans killed MORE SLOVENES than they did Italians. Indeed, the entire partisan movement killed many many more of its own people than the actual occupiers. Don't you think that I should have more reason to hate them than you?
Nonetheless, some of your accusations are pretty silly. Ethnic cleansing? So did you skip the history lesson where the fascist authorities in the annexed territories (after WW1) banned the Slovene language from public? Or that fascists burned down many cultural buildings in Trieste, extremely important to the Slovene populace there (such as the Narodni dom)? Or the ways in which the Black Shirts tortured and killed many Slovene patriots? Or the fact that Italy invaded in 1941, and in the course of the war deported many people into concetration camps?
Just who had ethnic cleansing on the agenda my friend?
The people killed and thrown into the foibe certainly did not deserve their fate, at least not the majority of them. Many died simply because they were Italian soldiers. But ethnic cleansing it was not. It was a mixture of vengeance for 20+ years of suffering under fascist rule, a mixture of personal vendettas, and more or less an ideological hatred of communists against fascists. It had nothing to do with anyone hating Italians just for being Italians. Not the same could be said for the fascists in relations to the Slavs, eh?

Oh and just one more thing; in the movie itself, is there not a part where two Italians talk about Slavs having dogs on their graves to protect the souls of the dead? I didn't think the movie was set in the year 1000.... :lol:

Anyways, I wish all out Italian friends a happy celebration of their new national holiday.

Regards,
M.

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#19

Post by Oberst Mihael » 13 Feb 2005, 02:45

michael mills wrote: Trieste was and is quite clearly an Italian city in terms of its population, and it is right that it should remain with Italy. Once Slovenia joins the EU and the border between Italy and Slovenia becomes an administrative conveninence rather than a barrier, Trieste may again assume the economic significance it had before the First World War.
Wow, didn't see this before. Just a quick reply;

1. refer to my previous post. Before world war 1, Trieste was in no point in history an Italian city. It was a Slovene city with a strong Italian MINORITY. It was one of the most important ports in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Austro-Hungarian does not include Italian. Indeed, the entire concept of trading territories after ww2 was funny. The West didn't want Trieste to become Yugoslav, so they bargained to give Istria to Yugoslavia, but keep the major port. So in fact, the parts populated by many Italians were given to Tito, and the regions with a lot of Slovenes were given to Italy. Makes you wonder...

2. Slovenia already is a part of the EU, just to let you know...

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#20

Post by David Thompson » 13 Feb 2005, 03:12

(1) Avoid personal remarks in posts.

(2) Stay on topic.

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#21

Post by Dan W. » 13 Feb 2005, 08:04

For those interested:
Italians mark war massacre

Over the past few days millions of Italians have been watching dramatic scenes of ethnic cleansing on their television screens. But the images are not of the Holocaust, Rwanda or Darfur: it is the first film to be made in Italy about the massacre of up to 15,000 men, women and children, many killed by Yugoslav communists towards the end of the second world war just for being Italian.

It is the hardest-hitting part of a government campaign to draw attention to a little-known event which was marked for the first time yesterday, 60 years on, with a national day of remembrance. Parliament observed a minute's silence and the foreign minister, Gianfranco Fini, and other dignitaries attended a military ceremony in the north-eastern city of Trieste, where many of the crimes were committed.

Red, white and green lapel ribbons and 3.5m special stamps were issued by the newly formed 10th February Committee.

Between 1943 and 1945 thousands of Italians living in Trieste, Gorizia and the Istrian peninsula were tortured, shot or pushed to their deaths in rocky chasms by communists determined to cleanse Yugoslavia of its Italian population.
Some were sympathisers of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy. Others were innocent civilians.

They were left, some still alive to rot in natural ditches known in Italian as foibe. About 300,000 Italians had been forced to flee the area by 1947 and estimates of the number killed vary between 6,000 and 15,000.

After the war the massacres were swept under the political carpet as Italy sought to heal its wartime wounds.
Most of the so-called foibe killings have never been properly investigated.

Italian history books have traditionally portrayed communist partisans as national heroes who fought to free the country from fascism. Italian communists and today's hard left have long tried to bury the matter, out of embarrassment.

But the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, who personally considers communists a lingering threat to Italy, is determined to make sure that as many Italians as possible are aware of this dark part of the country's past. In the run up to the memorial day, more than 10 million people watched the first film on the subject, Il Cuore nel Pozzo (Heart in the ditch) which cost the state television service RAI €4.5m (£3.09m) to produce.

The film shows the atrocities through through the eyes of a group of children who manage to escape, though the priest accompanying them is shot. "If we look back to the 20th century we see pages of history we'd prefer to forget," Mr Berlusconi said in advance of yesterday's events.

"But we cannot and should not forget." The communications minister, Maurizio Gasparri, a member of the National Alliance, which traces its roots back to Mussolini's fascist party, said: "We must pull from this abyss of lies a truth hidden by the imposition of a cultural bias." The party has openly supported Il Cuore nel Pozzo, which had its premiere in a conference hall built for Mussolini outside Rome, calling it "a historic event".

While the Italian hard-left has long tried to bury this part of the country's history, centre-left politicians have agreed that it is time to face up to the past.

Last week the mayor of Rime, Walter Veltroni, went to the killing grounds to pay homage to the dead.

"The Holocaust was a tragedy without equal, but it was not the only tragedy of the 20th century," he said.

"What is certain is what I have seen here is witness to a guilty silence, even involving the left, the communists".
But critics argue that the film fails to address all sides of the story. The region around Trieste and the Istrian peninsula had come under Italian control after the first world war and had been brutally "Italianised" by Mussolini's henchmen.
The Slovenian foreign minister, Ivo Vajgl, criticised the making of the film last year as an "offence and provocation" to the Slovenian people.
Guardian.com

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Oberst Mihael
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#22

Post by Oberst Mihael » 13 Feb 2005, 14:36

:roll:

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#23

Post by Dan » 13 Feb 2005, 17:37

Last week the mayor of Rime, Walter Veltroni, went to the killing grounds to pay homage to the dead.

"The Holocaust was a tragedy without equal, but it was not the only tragedy of the 20th century," he said.


I wonder what brought that on.

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#24

Post by michael mills » 14 Feb 2005, 00:11

Oberst Mihael wrote:
michael mills: would it surprise you that Trieste was the biggest SLOVENE city (meaning, the majority of the populace was Slovene, and it was viewed by just about everyone as a Slovene city, and indeed the heart of Slovene culture at the time) until it was captured by Italy in WW1? So someone might say it wasn't really occupied in 1945, but liberated.
It certainly would surprise me, just as it would surprise me to hear that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

I would accept that Italians were a minority in the whole of Istria.

But every source that I have read about the city of Trieste confrims that it had been ethnically Italian since the Middle Ages.

It never became slavonised as the other Italian cities on the eastern Adriatic coast, such as Ragusa and Spalato, eventually did.

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#25

Post by Klemen L. » 14 Feb 2005, 03:00

It certainly would surprise me, just as it would surprise me to hear that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
I think what Oberst Mihael wanted to say is that by 1910 Triest (Trieste or Trst) was the city with the largest number of Slovenian population (although some say that Cleveland was even "bigger" Slovenian city). I think that at about that time Triest had some 60,000 Slovenes, while Ljubljana had "only" 45,000 or something like that.
But every source that I have read about the city of Trieste confrims that it had been ethnically Italian since the Middle Ages.
I believe it has never been disputed that Triest was a city with Roman (Italian) majority. Like most of the ancient cities along the Dalmatian and or Istrian coast it had Roman (Italian) majority and was surrounded by Slavic (Croatian or Slovenian) majority at the countryside around the town.
It never became slavonised as the other Italian cities on the eastern Adriatic coast, such as Ragusa and Spalato, eventually did.
That is correct.

Anyway here are some useful links which you might find useful:

I lager di Mussolini:
http://www.didaweb.net/fuoriregistro/leggi.php?a=6669

Crimini di guerra. This is probably the best site about Italian concentration camps in World War II with many documents, testimonials and statistics. All in Italian language.
http://www.criminidiguerra.it/Campidiconcentramento.htm

Here is a list of all Slovenes (ca. 1,700), who died in the Rab (Arbo) concentration camp 1942-1943. Judging by the dates I would say that most of them died between October 1942 - January 1943. I cannot vouch for the rest of the names, but I can confirm the identity of about fifty persons from this list as they come from my home county. Here listed are not those who returned but died shortly afterwards like my father's uncle, who never recovered and died shortly after his return from Rab (Arbo).
http://www.criminidiguerra.it/DecArbe.html

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#26

Post by Oberst Mihael » 14 Feb 2005, 11:52

Klemen L. that's exactly what I meant. It was the biggest "Slovene" city, population-wise.

There's talk of the Italian, Croatian and Slovene presidents meeting and apologizing for their nation's "crimes". I hope they do, and we can finally bury this chapter of history. Although, I don't believe this meeting will be anything other than pure propaganda.

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#27

Post by DrG » 14 Feb 2005, 13:32

Klemen L., thank you for your wise corrections of Oberst Mihael pretty uninformed claims about Trieste.
To be more precise, according to the Austrian census of 1910 there were 157,556 Italians (68.6%), 56,916 Slovenes (24.58%), 11,856 German speaking Austrians (5.2%), 1,403 Serbo-Croats (1.1%). Of the 56,916 Slovenes, 20,358 lived within the city of Trieste (instead there were 129,243 Italians), 28,359 lived in the suburbs (26,680 Italians) and 8,199 in the villages around the city (633 Italians). In 1880 Italians were 113,216 (78.2%) and Slovenes 26,263 (18.1%) of which only 2,817 lived within the city of Trieste, along with 67,995 Italians.

The list of people died in Arbe that you have linked is that by Tone Ferenc, I've counted the number of names and they are 1,435.

Oberst, if you had read my post, you would see that I know that partizans killed many Slovenes, more than Italians, but with the difference that Slovenes still stay in their lands and have expanded in a few towns in Istria (the Croats got more) that where inhabited by Italians before WW2. On the other hand the Slovene population (like the Croat) had hard times during Fascism, but there was no ethnic cleasing, no mass expulsion of population and following colonization by Italians (the opposite, instead, has happened after 1945). About the Narodni Dom, besides the fact that similar actions were made (and, sometimes, suffered) by Fascists everywhere in Italy, you should know that Slovenes (not exactly harmless victims, until 1922) had thrown some bombs from that building to the Italians crowded for a manifestation, an action that caused the following attack.
And Fascism, at first, before the idiotic idea of assimilating Slovenes made in 1927 and thanks to its strong anti-communist ideal (communism wasn't liked by many Slovenes, except for the workers of Trieste), the relations between Fascism and that people were not always so ugly (for example the Slovene member elected in the Italians Parlament Virgil Scek congratulated with Mussolini the day of the March on Rome, 28 Oct. 1922), and also after that date there were some sincere examples of cohoperations (the two Slovene and Croat Blackshirts legions in the Ethiopian and Spanish Civil wars).
On the other hand some inter-ethnic fightings, also with some murders, had happened already during the Austrian rule, with the Slovenes, this time, on the stronger side (a couple of examples: 10-12 July 1868: attack, with 3 victims, to Italians and Jews by the Territorial Guard, made of Slovenes of the hinterland; 24 May 1915: attacks to Italians, with plunder of houses and shops because of the Italian declaration of war on Austria).

The fact that Italians were expelled by their land because of Tito's own plans is not a guilt of Slovene or Croat peoples (and certainly not of the present ones!), and I wish to underline that this is what is thought by 99% of Italians (I do hope, but I'm pretty sure).
All this outrage for a movie that, AFAIK, nobody in this thread has seen, looks just like a pretext. Like, Oberst, your opinion that a possible future Italian offer of excuses will be just propaganda: it hasn't happened yet, and you are already ready to criticize it! It's incredible.

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#28

Post by Bodul » 14 Feb 2005, 14:04

michael mills wrote:Oberst Mihael wrote:
michael mills: would it surprise you that Trieste was the biggest SLOVENE city (meaning, the majority of the populace was Slovene, and it was viewed by just about everyone as a Slovene city, and indeed the heart of Slovene culture at the time) until it was captured by Italy in WW1? So someone might say it wasn't really occupied in 1945, but liberated.
It certainly would surprise me, just as it would surprise me to hear that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

I would accept that Italians were a minority in the whole of Istria.

But every source that I have read about the city of Trieste confrims that it had been ethnically Italian since the Middle Ages.

It never became slavonised as the other Italian cities on the eastern Adriatic coast, such as Ragusa and Spalato, eventually did.


Hey Mr.Mills,
you have seriously confused some things here.
You are saying that Ragusa and Spalato were once Italian cities.That is serious amount of ignorance in one place.
Split was once in Roman Empire and emperor Dioklecijan(243-316)had his palace build there.But saying that it was italian city is like saying that France and England are italian too because Roman Empire conquered that lands too. :roll: And about Ragusa....your ignorance goes even further here... :lol:
It was Croatian settlement from the 6th century and later it evolved in famous CROATIAN City State of Dubrovnik(Ragusa) and it wasnt an italian city!Connection with italy was only thru trading and diplomatics.Italian City Stata Venezia tried thru centuries in many ways(thru blackmails and economic embargoes) to disable and destroy Dubrovniks economy but it never succeded.Dubrovniks diplomatic and trading skills were more then a match for them.Only in 1808 Napoleon destroyed this famous republic.

Next time try googling.It is really easy to do.

Cheerz/

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#29

Post by DrG » 14 Feb 2005, 14:24

Bodul, in Ragusa (Dubrovnik was officially used only since the end of WW1) Croats have lived along with Italians and a good amount of Serbs/Montenegrinians for centuries. The ruling families and the upper class were mostly Italian. The Slav population had increased mostly in the XVII century, after the disastrous heartquake of 1667. The official language of that city-state was Latin until 1472 and Italian after that date.

As for Spalato/Split (formerly known as Palatium, because it was the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletianus, that was then re-populated by the Romance population of Salona that had fled to the islands at the arrival of the Croat hordes, and then returned, led by Severus Magnus, to the continent after the end of the pillages and, since their city had been destoyed, settled in the former palace), it was inhabited by Romans and then Italians, with an increasing share of Croat population since the Middle Age.

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#30

Post by Oberst Mihael » 14 Feb 2005, 15:21

DrG wrote: All this outrage for a movie that, AFAIK, nobody in this thread has seen, looks just like a pretext. Like, Oberst, your opinion that a possible future Italian offer of excuses will be just propaganda: it hasn't happened yet, and you are already ready to criticize it! It's incredible.
Read my post again please. I was saying that the meeting of all THREE presidents will be nothing more than a political gesture from all sides, which will probably not do much in the terms of bringing people across the borders closer. For example, we had something like that in 1990, when the communists and Domobranci collaborators shook hands and tried to come to terms with their wartime roles. It didn't do a single thing to unite the nation whose people still often judge each other based on which side their grandfathers were in WW2.

Okay anyway, I wasn't talking about the Italians only. I also know that our politicians are saying one thing, and thinking something completely different. And I'm fed up with this whole foibe story taking up to three pages in the newspapers each day. The media is (intentionally?) blowing things out of proportion.

Oh, I just thought you might like to know that the biggest commercial TV station here has in it's news yesterday bluntly called Italy a fascist country. :lol: Propaganda on both sides is working like a charm... :?

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