We received this from the Communications Office of the Mayor of Gorizia, Rodolfo Ziberna, and are happy to publish it.

ZIBERNA ON VIA A NORMA COSSETTO BLOCKING: “ITALIANS OFFENDED”

“I am horrified at the thought that there could be someone who, after so many years, would question the massacres and deportation of thousands of defenseless citizens, on the eastern border, after the war, to defend the fury of Tito’s communists and their sick ideology. Unacceptable.”

The mayor of Gorizia, Rodolfo Ziberna, declared himself deeply shocked by the news that the toponymy commission of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia has blocked the naming of a street after Norma Cossetto because "there is a lack of certain and verified information on the capture and killing of the girl".

“Once again there is a part of the left that, in addition to demonstrating that it does not know fundamental feelings for human beings, such as pity and modesty, makes it clear how much it continues to remain a prisoner of the true enemy of all freedom, including that of thought: ideology. For this reason, even today we find ourselves faced with people who live in a world of their own, made up of claims and social hatred, incapable of critical thinking and light years away from the citizens who, in order to survive, commit scandalous acts such as the denial or justification of massacres like that of Norma Cossetto, the Istrian student, tortured, raped and thrown alive into a sinkhole by Tito's partisans. It is the theory of these "surviving" communists, that is, that people like Norma Cossetto were asking for it because they were relatives, rather than friends, simple acquaintances or even complete strangers, to the fascists. Therefore, Tito's "comrades" would not be guilty but should be understood and justified. And they even go so far as to question the decision, in 2005, of the then President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, to award Norma Cossetto the gold medal. Terrible. Really. It reminds me of the madman who recently, in Gorizia, defiled the bench against feminicides by writing that the women killed “were asking for it”. The fact remains that those who said no to naming the street after Norma Cossetto, unfortunately hold a public role and have the power to make choices and decisions that affect the lives of citizens and the lack of serenity of judgment in these people is deeply disturbing. In recent years there have been authoritative representatives of the left who have recognized, after decades, the horror of the foibe and the exodus, thus arriving, in a sort of national pacification, at the institution of the Day of Remembrance for all the victims of Tito's fury. It is shocking that now deniers and justifiers are back on the attack while in Slovenia and Croatia pits continue to resurface where Italian and Slovenian civilians were thrown after the war. What happened in Reggio Emilia is truly a bad sign because it highlights a cultural backwardness that still draws nourishment from that social hatred that we hoped had been overcome. But they will not be able to distort history once again”.