From the new American president who admires Tito to the decoration of the Quirinale still pinned on the chest of the Marshal, to the foibe discovered in Slovenia, the justice denied and the outrages to the martyrs of Tito's violence that punctually resurface every February 10, the Day of Remembrance. On newsstands starting tomorrow with the Giornale we publish some excerpts from Verità infoibate – Le vittime, i perpetratrici, i silenzi della politica, so as not to forget a wound that is still open today.

FOIBE, COLD HOUSES OF HISTORY

Small traces buried by the oblivion of history: fragments of skulls, tibias, ribs. There are thousands of them and they represent the memory of the underground, which persists in not forgetting the war crimes committed by Tito's victorious partisans, after the end of the Second World War. Small and nearby Slovenia is the most impressive hidden cemetery in Europe: a pit or foiba every twenty-seven square kilometers with an average of one hundred and thirty-five victims each. A government commission has identified 750. Tito and his henchmen, to pave the way for socialist Yugoslavia, massacred a quarter of a million people, and not only in Slovenia. All prisoners of war, the vast majority of whom were Slovenians, Croats and Serbs, who fought on the wrong side or civilians, but also thousands of Italians, swept away and hidden forever in the bowels of the earth in the name of a multi-ethnic and political cleansing. In many cases, they try to give a name and surname to the poor bones. "These are the cold cases of history," says Paolo Fattorini, a forensic DNA expert and professor of legal medicine at the University of Trieste. "The scientific interest is great, but I do not deny an emotional involvement. My mother was an Istrian exile. Trying to identify the highest possible number of victims hidden for so long helps to turn the page."

THE US PRESIDENT IS A TITO FAN

The new tenant of the White House is a great admirer of Tito. And he has also put it in writing. In 1979, Joe Biden travels to Ljubljana with an American delegation "for the sad passing of Edvard Kardelj", Tito's right-hand man, one of the main perpetrators of the multi-ethnic massacres and the exodus of Italians from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia after the end of the Second World War. The future American president, in a letter dated March 1979, 19, writes to the Yugoslav dictator, after returning home: "Dear Mr. President, I would like to thank you again for your precious hospitality during my recent visit to Yugoslavia". And he adds that he greatly appreciated "our exchange of opinions". On August 2016, 2007, in Belgrade, during a visit as vice president of the United States, Biden reiterates in his official speech that the meeting with Tito was "one of the most fascinating meetings I have ever had in my life". It is therefore not surprising that, in XNUMX, in his book Promises to Keep, Biden wrote about Yugoslavia: "It took a certain genius to hold together the multi-ethnic federation and that genius, in particular, was Tito." The year before he died, the Marshal sent a letter to Senator Biden, after the meeting at Dalmatia, stressing that he would make his way to the White House.

TITO GREAT FRIEND OF ITALY

The black and white images from the Luce Institute show Tito's arrival in Italy on March 25, 1971. "Ciampino Airport. All the highest officials of the State are waiting for this plane: from Saragat to Colombo to De Martino, Pertini, Fanfani and Moro. – announces the reporter – The plane is a Caravelle decorated with red stars. It comes from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and it brings a guest who, for the first time, comes on an official visit to Italy. The guest, here he is, is Josip Broz, known as Tito () Yugoslavia needs friends, but it prefers, and by a lot, European ones, Italy above all. Tito said, as soon as he arrived: This meeting casts a first stone. It is a stone taken from the pedestal of Moscow. It is a first stone that counts". Only 2 years earlier, in 1969, the Marshal was "decorated as a Knight of the Grand Cross of Merit of the Italian Republic" with the addition of the Grand Cordon, the highest recognition of our country, during Saragat's visit to Belgrade to finalize some economic agreements with Yugoslavia. An honor that still stands out on the Quirinale website. During the trip to Yugoslavia in 1969, during the numerous and affectionate speeches, President Saragat always concluded with a cloying toast addressed to Tito: "I raise my glass, Mr. President, to your well-being and that of the kind Mrs. Broz, to the fortunes of the Yugoslav peoples and to the friendship between our countries". Never any reference, not even remotely, to the foibe.

«TELL ME WHERE MY FATHER IS» 

More than 70 years have passed since that 4th May 1945, but Federico Rufolo, who is now 92, cannot find peace. That day, in fact, Tito's soldiers burst into the house looking for Alberto, his father. "He was the stationmaster in Gorizia," says Federico, who is perhaps the last living witness to the deportations from Gorizia. "It was a pretext to arrest us on the night of 3rd May 45." For Federico, 17, and for his father, the ordeal begins. The two are torn from their family and taken to prison. "Dad was a very normal person," explains the survivor. "A state employee who had never exposed himself to fascism. In fact, he opposed the fascists. It is not clear why they took him away." Tito's soldiers stripped father and son of everything and, after having registered them, separated them forever. From that moment on, Federico would never see his parent again. "The Slovenian government provided me with the available information in 1992. According to the detention records, my father left prison at midnight that very day. But he was taken who knows where." Seventy-five years later, Federico has only one request: "There must be a trace of what happened somewhere. Tell me where my father is."

Fausto Biloslavo – Matteo Carnieletto, Infoibate truths. The victims, the executioners, the silences of politics, Foreword by Toni Capuozzo, Signs Publishing, Milan 2021.