It's official: the comic “Foiba Rossa – Norma Cossetto story of an Italian woman” is in all middle schools in the Veneto region.

The initiative, funded with €15 by the Regional Council, is part of a memorandum of understanding between the Veneto Region, the Ministry of Education, and the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Rijeka, and Dalmatian Exiles. "This," the Region states, "is intended to promote information and educational initiatives in schools and to raise awareness, including through meetings with witnesses, of the tragedy of the foibe and forced emigration from Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia."

A migration that approximately 350 thousand Italians had to endure, from the end of the Second World War and in the years that followed. And so for the Day of Remembrance, which is celebrated throughout Italy on February 10 and was established only in 2004, in all middle schools in Veneto the comic book of Norma Cossetto will be distributed, published by Ferrogallico by Emanuele Merlino and Beniamino Delvecchio. Two thousand five hundred copies will be distributed. In addition to this, an information booklet will also be given, edited by the historian Guido Rumici, to frame the historical events of the eastern border. The comic book tells the story of Norma, a university student enrolled at the University of Padua, who was thrown into a sinkhole, raped, raped and killed by Tito's partisans in 1943. It was October 5.

"Norma Cossetto," says Regional Councilor for Education Elena Donazzan, "is the symbol of a tragedy belatedly recognized by the Italian Republic, and we have a duty to educate young students in the Veneto region. Not because a law requires it, but because that page of history, culpably silenced , is still absent from textbooks and school curricula. The Veneto Region, which through history, culture, and tradition is strongly linked to the lands of Istria and Dalmatia, and whose University of Padua, at the suggestion of then-Rector Concetto Marchesi, granted Norma an honorary degree posthumously, has the duty, more than any other, to raise awareness of the horrific tragedy of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Tito's Partisans against those populations, guilty only of being Italian."

"Thanks to the initiative of the Veneto Region and the sensitivity of school principals and teachers in Veneto - says Alessandro Cuk, national vice president of the Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia association - it will be possible to bring eighth-grade students closer to a painful and controversial page, on which a sort of collective amnesia has descended for decades. We are working to update the historical booklet which, with in-depth analysis and bibliographical references, will stimulate a better understanding of the reasons for the exodus and its developments, as well as the deep bond that unites the populations of the two shores of the Adriatic and which have always had their cultural reference in Venice".