Always with considerable delay, in order to improve the deficient legislation on assistance to refugees, the Italian government issued a series of legislative provisions. Law no. 137/1952, which also provided for the allocation of council houses to refugees, was followed in July 1952 by Law no. 1010 ("Provisions in favour of refugees from Venezia Giulia who already owned warehouses and shops selling monopoly goods"), the purpose of which was to offer a series of benefits to encourage the continuation of the activity carried out in the territories of origin. In 1956 there was a new decree, no. 1117, which in order to resolve the scourge of unemployment granted refugees benefits in public competitions; this was followed in 1958 by Law no. 130 («Rules for the compulsory employment of refugees from the territories ceded to the Yugoslav State with the Peace Treaty and those of Zone B of Trieste and other categories of refugees») which encouraged the employment of refugees in the state and parastatal sphere. This law was extended with law no. 60/1961 and also in 1961 the establishment of free places in the “Fabio Filzi” boarding schools in Gorizia and “Nazario Sauro” in Trieste managed directly by the Opera profughi was decreed.

In terms of compensation for abandoned property, only in 1949 and then in 1950 did Italy stipulate two agreements with Yugoslavia, which had confiscated the refugees' property as payment for the war damage debt, amounting to about 125 million dollars, imposed on Italy by the Peace Treaty. The Italians' property was valued at around 130 billion lire in 1947, but in 1954 the compensation was reduced to a lump sum of just 45 billion. The 1954 agreement was an act of an economic but also political nature. The Italian government, accepting a transaction that brought the initial 130 billion to the sum of 45 billion, obtained in return the free availability of Trieste and the final settlement of war reparations.

However, the assets of the exiles eligible for compensation were assessed with inadequate coefficients and therefore paid out with paltry amounts. The latest law on the matter, no. 137/2001, improved the coefficients, but the final balance has yet to be paid to those entitled.

Two other legislative provisions were also enacted, very late: one for the protection of the heritage and cultural traditions of the Julian-Dalmatian exiles – this is Law No. 72/2001 and its subsequent amendments «Interventions to protect the cultural, linguistic and historical traditions of the exiles» – and the other, Law No. 92/2004, which establishes the Day of Remembrance of the Julian-Dalmatian exodus and the foibe; with this last provision, two cultural institutions are also protected, the Historical Archive-Museum of Fiume of the Society of Fiume Studies with headquarters in Rome and the Regional Institute of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Culture with headquarters in Trieste, whose Museum of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Culture was inaugurated in 2009.

The Law of Remembrance also provided for the delivery of an award to the relatives of those killed in the sinkholes and those who disappeared, whom the Presidents of the Italian Republic have wanted to honor with a solemn ceremony at the Quirinale since 2006.

by Marino Micich

Based on Amleto Ballarini – Giovanni Stelli – Marino Micich – Emiliano Loria, The Foibe, the Exodus, Memory. Venezia Giulia Fiume Dalmatia , Association for the Culture of Fiume Istrian Dalmatian Culture in Lazio, Rome 2015.