Our compatriots from Istria, Carnaro and Dalmatia were among the first in Italy to experience the logic of the Cold War as a contrast between a free and democratic West, which 70 years ago gave birth to NATO as an instrument of defense, and a totalitarian communist bloc.

After the first signs of the killings in the foibe that occurred the day after September 8, 1943, our compatriots suffered the massacres committed by Tito's Yugoslav communist partisans after the war ended in the Forty Days of May-June 1945. This was followed by a steady stream of killings in the area under Yugoslav military administration, where Belgrade's dictatorship was consolidating (the martyrdom of Don Bonifacio and the elimination of the partisans of the new CLN of Istria, for example). Thus it was that the Western powers represented a possible protection and a bulwark against Yugoslav expansionism, of which we had grasped the denationalizing and liberticidal characteristics. The unconditional surrender signed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1943 had removed any power of intervention from the Italian institutions, while the first cracks in the anti-Nazi coalition meant that the English and Americans became more interested in the fate of the Adriatic. The commercial port of Trieste and the military port of Pola passed under Allied control after the Belgrade Agreement in June 1945, giving the illusion that at least the Istrian capital would be saved from Yugoslavian ambitions, even if the Vergarolla attack showed that even here Titoist emissaries could strike fatally.

The welcome granted to the fugitives from the communist dictatorships that were strengthening in Europe also allowed thousands of Julian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles to find a new settlement in large countries that would be part of the Atlantic alliance or would be partners (United States, Canada, Australia). The love for the homeland and for the freedom that distinguishes the Adriatic Italianity could not survive under Tito's oppression, but it was saved, although forced into exile, thanks to NATO, which guaranteed peace, security and freedom in a Europe that had emerged annihilated from the Second World War and in the "Western" world. In this way, the conditions were created for the Adriatic exiles to begin a new life in free, democratic and safe countries: it is good to remember this at a time when the structure of NATO is being discussed.

Renzo Codarin
President of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia