Below is the report given by Professor Giuseppe Parlato (University of International Studies of Rome) at the institutional ceremony of the Day of Remembrance 2019 held at the Quirinale on Saturday 9 February.

 

The celebration of the Day of Remembrance is not only a ritual event: in fact it has had several positive aspects. The most important of all is a first knowledge of the drama of the foibe and the exodus in schools and universities. If this happens, the credit goes entirely to the institutional role that the Day of Remembrance has had for fifteen years, which has nothing – despite what its detractors say – of vindictive, nostalgic, or spitefully divisive.

Seen in its proper light and in the rationale that saw the favorable vote of the vast majority of political forces converge at the time, it qualifies as an event founded on two moments.

The first is the memory, the consideration of the victims and the exiles, of those who chose to remain Italian; an event even heavier in the memory of each and everyone because it was denied for well over half a century and therefore an open and painful wound in the history of the national community.

The second moment is that of history and therefore the need for knowledge, for deepening, for the search for truth at all levels.

For a long time, the foibe and the exodus, at best, were confined to local history, dramatic, perhaps, but still borderline and, as such, confined among the sad events but not so relevant to national or European history.

Instead, it is necessary to explain to young people that this is a story that has caused a serious wound to the entire national fabric, to a community already suffering from the war, that had several thousand deaths when Italy had already emerged from the conflict, casting a long shadow on the aftermath that was actually called exodus. And the exodus, demonstrating that it was an Italian and not a local story, extended, in its consequences, to all of Italy, and even overseas. Evidence of this is the over one hundred refugee camps scattered from Turin to Alghero, from Taranto to Trieste, from Latina and Rome to Sicily. And in all the regions, other Italians met Italian families of refugees. And often, these refugees, who had fled the Yugoslav dictatorship pursued by the epithet of "fascists", in Italy were sometimes pointed out as "Slavs", as foreigners, more often as fascists.

An Italian story, therefore, made of human solidarity – there are many stories that testify to this – but also of political hatred, and in this case too there are many pages to remind us of this, on the part of those who could not tolerate that someone had fled from the supposed paradise of the people.

But this is also a long-term story. It is customary to contextualize the events that occurred in the Eastern Adriatic by placing their origins in the period following the end of the First World War. Of course, the clash between nationalisms on the one hand and the ideology and practice of Tito's communism on the other have determined this tragedy.

But to understand it well, it is necessary to remember that these events have their roots in the nineteenth century, in the clash between nationalities that a multinational empire favored. Not only that. The centuries-old Italian presence in Istria, Dalmatia, Fiume and Venezia Giulia testifies to how Italian nationality was present even without the need for a State. For centuries, the inhabitants of those lands, as well as those who inhabited the Peninsula, felt Italian well before Italy existed.

For them, Italy meant being able to speak the language of the fathers, being able to recognize their roots in faith, in culture, in monuments. Italy, in other words, meant cultural autonomy, identity and belonging that did not transform into nationalism but represented the right to express oneself in a language that from Dante onwards had characterized this part of the world.

This is why this story is paradigmatic for understanding the nature of the Italian cultural identity, formed in the Mazzinian Risorgimento, in respect of the identities of others, without failing one's own but without thinking that one's own should crush others.

History must become the protagonist of this tragedy to help shed light on the many torn pages. The Vergarolla massacre was mentioned earlier. It is the summer of 1946, Italy has been a Republic for two months and this beach near Pola was still, formally, Italian territory. The confirmed victims of this tragedy within the tragedy are “only” 64 or 65. But it seems that due to the torn and unrecognizable bodies the number could reach one hundred. Maybe more. There are hypotheses on the causes of the massacre but the truth is that until we take a good look at the papers of the former Yugoslavia we will not know much more. Up to now the event has been handed down by the survivors and their children who have spoken about it in books, documents, testimonies. But history needs more. It needs the archives to open abroad, for the documents to tell, for the tools of historical research methodology to be made available to this enormous tragedy that must become history also thanks to the institutions of the State, which can facilitate the consultation of the documents at an international level. So that these events find space in school textbooks, are the subject of scientific debates, without ideological prejudices, without barriers and without demonization.

I believe that this is what we owe to the victims. When, in a hundred years, the descendants of the exiles will also have disappeared and with them that pathos that they have fortunately passed down to us, what will remain of the memory if history has not played its part?