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Ceremony of the Day of Remembrance at the Basovizza Foiba
On Wednesday 10 February, the usual ceremony of the Day of Remembrance at the Foiba National Monument in Basovizza (TS) took place with a limited number of attendees due to the Covid emergency.
The Mayor of Trieste Roberto Dipiazza, the Bishop of the Julian diocese Giampaolo Crepaldi, the President of the Committee for the Martyrs of the Foibe Paolo Sardos Albertini, the President of the autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia Massimiliano Fedriga and the Prefect of Trieste Valerio Valenti spoke.
The President of the Multimedia Documentation Center for Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Culture Renzo Codarin stated that «the speeches of the authorities who attended were of great importance, but I particularly appreciated the speech of President Fedriga. He expressed to the associations of Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian exiles the apologies of the institutions that for too long have ignored or even mocked our requests. He also recognized the role of the acronyms of the Adriatic diaspora in preserving the Memory and history of the tragedies of the Foibe and the Exodus during the long decades of oblivion and indifference on the part of the institutions. As evidence of his desire to collaborate with our associations – continues Codarin – Fedriga stated that he will work with renewed determination to ensure that Parliament changes the procedures that prevent the withdrawal of the honorific of the Italian Republic awarded to Tito»
We therefore report the speech given by the lawyer Paolo Sardos Albertini, President of the Committee for the Martyrs of the Foibe and of the National League.
Last February 10, in my speech at the Basovizza Shrine, I referred to the choice of the Catholic Church to bring to the honour of the altars three young blesseds from these lands, the Italian Francesco Bonifacio, the Slovenian Lojze Grozde and the Croatian Miroslav Bulesic, all three assassinated by Tito's men, all three martyrs, all three witnesses to the criminal barbarity of Communism.
I had hoped that, precisely in the memory of those three martyrs, honour would be given, at the Basovizza Foiba, not only to the Italians, but also to all the others, Slovenes and Croats, who had similarly suffered the ideological violence of the Titoist Revolution.
I concluded verbatim: "If institutional authorities from neighbouring Republics also deem it appropriate to participate in this common memory, then so be it."
Last July 13, the visit to the Basovizza Shrine by two heads of state, the Italian and the Slovenian one, partially fulfilled that wish.
That visit was precisely intended to remember, here at this Shrine, the tragedy experienced by the two peoples, Italian and Slovenian.
A tragedy, moreover, also shared with the Croatian people.
Hence the hope – shared by Mayor Roberto Di Piazza – of a future presence, at this Foiba, also of institutional representatives of the Republic of Croatia.
Because – it must be forcefully reiterated – all the men (and the many women) murdered in that tragic context by the men with the red star, certainly the thousands of Italians, but also those of other nationalities, all (without discrimination of any kind) have an equal right to be remembered with a single feeling of pity, human pity, Christian pity.
And it is precisely the awareness of this common tragedy that will also be the most appropriate response to those historians, or so-called historians, who continue to advance the most varied arguments in order not to recognize the real truth: the responsibility for the tragedy of the foibe and the exodus lies entirely with Communism, that of Josip Broz and his assassins with the red star.
Their victims, hundreds of thousands, were not "enemies of the people", but "martyrs", witnesses to the criminal barbarity of the communist revolution: like the Poles in the Katyn pits, like the Hungarian boys in Budapest in '56, like the young Chinese in Tiananmen Square.
I had hoped that, precisely in the memory of those three martyrs, honour would be given, at the Basovizza Foiba, not only to the Italians, but also to all the others, Slovenes and Croats, who had similarly suffered the ideological violence of the Titoist Revolution.
I concluded verbatim: "If institutional authorities from neighbouring Republics also deem it appropriate to participate in this common memory, then so be it."
Last July 13, the visit to the Basovizza Shrine by two heads of state, the Italian and the Slovenian one, partially fulfilled that wish.
That visit was precisely intended to remember, here at this Shrine, the tragedy experienced by the two peoples, Italian and Slovenian.
A tragedy, moreover, also shared with the Croatian people.
Hence the hope – shared by Mayor Roberto Di Piazza – of a future presence, at this Foiba, also of institutional representatives of the Republic of Croatia.
Because – it must be forcefully reiterated – all the men (and the many women) murdered in that tragic context by the men with the red star, certainly the thousands of Italians, but also those of other nationalities, all (without discrimination of any kind) have an equal right to be remembered with a single feeling of pity, human pity, Christian pity.
And it is precisely the awareness of this common tragedy that will also be the most appropriate response to those historians, or so-called historians, who continue to advance the most varied arguments in order not to recognize the real truth: the responsibility for the tragedy of the foibe and the exodus lies entirely with Communism, that of Josip Broz and his assassins with the red star.
Their victims, hundreds of thousands, were not "enemies of the people", but "martyrs", witnesses to the criminal barbarity of the communist revolution: like the Poles in the Katyn pits, like the Hungarian boys in Budapest in '56, like the young Chinese in Tiananmen Square.
This, instead, is the speech of the Mayor of Trieste Roberto Dipiazza:
Relatives of the victims,
representatives of the Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exile associations; of the Committee for the Martyrs of the Foibe, of the National League, awarded by this municipal administration with the honor of Civic merit, of the GrigioVerde Federation, of the Alpini and of all the combatant and armed forces associations
Prefect of Trieste, Valerio Valenti,
Governor of FVG, Massimiliano Fedriga,
Your Excellency, Archbishop of Trieste, Monsignor Crepaldi,
Political, military and religious authorities,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you for having contributed to the complex realization of this ceremony on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance which, this year, due to the pandemic, forced us to limit the presence of the many people who would have liked to come today to pray at this monument and to pay homage to our martyrs. If the physical presence is limited, it is equally true that participation, attention and closeness to this day increases year after year, because History is no longer allowed to lose the other part of memory.
Bloody pages of 900th century history were written here, here every stone has a lament.
At the hands of Tito's communists, with the connivance of the Italian communists, the holocaust of the foibe, where the corpses are measured in cubic meters, and the tragedy of the exodus of over 350 thousand people from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia forced to become exiles in the world, took place on our lands.
Here the crime was committed, after the war, by those who, with the red star on their cap proclaiming themselves good and just, slaughtered, raped, murdered, humiliated young people, women, men, old people, children, priests, nuns; fueled only by a blind fury towards the defenseless, the helpless, the defeated, those who represented an obstacle to the communist ideology.
The massacre of the Italians of Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia was the most horrible after the unification of Italy. Tito's militias during the Second World War and in the 40 days of terror for Trieste tortured thousands of people throwing them into this and other sinkholes, for the sole guilt of being Italian or servants of the institutions of the State such as the Carabinieri and the financiers.
Since that March 30, 2004, when finally the Italian Parliament with a law proposed by the Hon. Roberto Menia established the Day of Remembrance dedicated to the martyrs of the foibe and the victims of the Julian-Dalmatian exodus from our eastern border, the truth has begun to tear down the wall of complicit silence of States, governments, politicians.
Toni Capuozzo, in the preface to the book “Verità Infoibate” by journalists Fausto Biloslavo and Matteo Carnieletto, asks himself if “it was revenge for the abuses suffered, as someone who always looks for a share of the blame in the victims likes to say” and also gives us the immediate and clear answer: “If it was, it was disproportionate, and carried out against innocent people”.
There are symbolic figures and episodes of this immense tragedy perpetrated against Italians by Tito's communist partisans. The producers of the film "Red Land - Red Land" are making young people, institutions, states, politicians, deniers disguised as "historians" aware of the tragic story, for too many years deliberately forgotten, and today still denied by some, of poor Norma Cossetto, a young woman of 23 years from Santa Domenica di Visinada who on September 25, 43 was taken by Tito's soldiers and then tied to a table where seventeen beasts raped her for hours, to then throw her naked into a sinkhole with her arms tied with wire and her breasts stabbed.
Mafalda Codan's story is horrifying: "On May 7, 45, I find myself in front of three partisans with machine guns drawn, they rejoice at the horrible death of my loved ones and then they order me to follow them. With wire - Mafalda recounts - they tie my hands behind my back and make me get into a car. In Santa Domenica they take me in front of Norma Cossetto's house, they call her mother to have her witness my tortures so as to remind her of her daughter's martyrdom".
The anti-religious propaganda supported by Tito had no mercy even for Don Bonifacio, killed because he represented an obstacle to the spread of the communist ideology, while the Bishop Monsignor Santin was attacked in Capodistra in '47. Tito's partisans also had their hands stained with the blood of the one hundred dead, including many children, torn to pieces with TNT in the massacre on the beach of Vergarolla where a swimming competition had been organized that the daily newspaper l'Arena di Pola described as a demonstration of Italianness.
I would like to remind myself first of all of the words of the prayer of Monsignor Antonio Santin: “This Calvary, with its summit sunk into the bowels of the earth, constitutes a great chair, which indicates in justice and love the paths of peace”.
The road to pacification, especially in these lands, is full of obstacles, but even if it will be impossible to have a shared memory, it is still worth continuing this path of love started for the recognition of this suffering by those who, representing States, today different and European, know how to condemn and dissociate themselves from what the Titoites did. It is not a question of asking for forgiveness, which is an intimate and very personal process that only the victim can carry out. It is, instead, a question of recognizing what happened, asking for forgiveness and with a prayer paying homage to our martyrs.
The sacrifices and tenacity with which we are sowing are starting to bear fruit. After the concert in 2010 of the three Presidents of the Republic of Italy, Slovenia and Croatia: Napolitano, Josipevic and Turk in Piazza Unità in Trieste; for the first time a leader of the former Yugoslavia came here in July last year. In front of this national monument of the Basovizza Foiba, the President of the Slovenian Republic Borut Pahor, whom I thank, hand in hand with our President Sergio Mattarella honored these Italian martyrs of ours.
The Slovenian government commission investigating Tito's crimes has denounced to the world the discovery, last August, of the Foiba dei Ragazzi with the remains of 250 people and has already identified 750 graves and exhumed thousands of victims shot by Tito's elimination squads. According to the president of the commission, it is at least one hundred thousand people including Italians, Slovenians, Croats, Serbs eliminated in the name of a multi-ethnic and political cleansing. Slovenia's desire to shed light on these crimes is a significant episode in this process of truth.
On September 19, 2019, an important resolution of the European Parliament “On the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe” shed further and necessary light on the history of the 900th century, equating the crimes of communist regimes to those of Nazism, while since last year, in our Trieste we have established June 12 as the day to celebrate the liberation from Tito's communism.
The world is finally recognizing the tragedy of the foibe and the drama of the exodus. In this objective context, while respecting the age and the dramatic and unjust suffering experienced, I do not believe it is appropriate to set up as an example of the tragedies of the 900th century, as many still want to do, the writer Boris Pahor who, referring to the Day of Remembrance still states: "It's all a lie, nothing was true".
This path undertaken to recognize the suffering and the truth, as far as I am concerned, is not yet finished and with the help of many I hope that we can remedy one of the shames of the Italian State, which in 1969 awarded the executioner Tito with the honor of Knight of the Grand Cross.
Fortunately, there are fewer and fewer of them, but unfortunately there are still too many of them, as alleged historians, politicians and others, who deny these facts and still try to name streets and squares after the executioner or erect red stars in cities, as happened in Fiume, which will never be Italian again, but whose history and culture are steeped in Italianness.
I remind all these beings that removing the memory of a crime means committing it again, because denial is the supreme stage of genocide.
On these stones soaked in blood and tears, in front of this Basovizza shrine, symbol of the tragedies that affected the eastern border during the Second World War, which in my previous mandate in 2007 found its deserved honor by becoming a national monument, I plan to accompany in the near future also a representative of the Republic of Croatia to pay homage to these innocent victims.
Only in this direction will it be possible to complete the process of justice indicated by Monsignor Santin.
Honor to the Martyrs of the Foibe,
long live Italy,
long live Trieste.
