Architecture

Foibe massacres

The foibe massacres (Italian: massacri delle foibe; Slovene: poboji v fojbah; Croatian: masakri fojbe), or simply the foibe, refers to ethnic cleansing, mass killings and deportations during and immediately after World War II, mainly committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA in the then-Italian territories of Julian March (Karst Region and Istria), Kvarner and Dalmatia, primarily against local Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), indiscriminately targeting both fascist and anti-fascist forces, as well as civilians. As a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, the new Yugoslav authorities also targeted Italian, German, Croat and Slovene anti-communists, falsely accused of collaboration with Axis. Most historians state that these attacks were state terrorism and ethnic cleansing against local Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), including anti-fascist militias and civilians. Others claim that this was not ethnic cleansing, and that instead it needs to be understood in the context of the collapse of power structures of oppression: that of the fascist state in 1943, and the Nazi-fascist one of the Adriatic coast in 1945. Italian and German reports mention members of local fascist militias as the primary victims in 1943. Among documented victims from Trieste in 1945, 80% were members of fascist and collaborationist forces, 97% were males, while of the 3% female victims at least half were Slovene. Victims also included unarmed and uninvolved civilians, killed in a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of Titoism, killed along with native anti-fascist autonomists — including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations, opposed to Yugoslav annexation, and leaders of Fiume's Autonomist Party, Mario Blasich and Nevio Skull, who supported local independence from both Italy and Yugoslavia – resulting in the purge in the city of Fiume, where at least 650 were killed during and after the war by Yugoslav units, tried for war crimes before military courts. The estimated number of foibe victims is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands, according to some sources 11,000 or 20,000.

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See also

• ▸Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula
• ▸Einar Aaron Swan
• ▸Bexar County Courthouse

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