crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
2. Fascism
2.1. The Primorska Slovenes under Fascism (1919–43)
In accordance with a secret London treaty (26 April 1915), the Kingdom of Italy occupied the
western part of Slovene national territory after the First World War. First, it was under martial law,
and then from August 1919 it was headed by a civilian commissioner. Although the Italian authorities
promised the Slovenes (and Istrian Croats) all the rights they enjoyed under the Austro-Hungarian
authority, things soon began to change. After the peace treaty signed at Rapallo in November 1920,
when Italy’s border was moved considerably to the east, the large Slovene minority, more than 300,000
inhabitants of Venezia Giulia, a quarter of the Slovene national region, found itself separated from
the central national body. The treaty did not bind Italy to respect Slovene and Croatian minorities, but
ensured protection for Italian minorities in Dalmatia.
The first fascist violence began. In the summer of 1920 fascists burn down the National House
of Trieste, the centre of various Slovene offices and associations, which meant the beginning of rough
policies towards “tujerodec”, foreigners (Italian: alogeni). When the fascists came to power 1922, the
circumstances were aggravated. By this time, the Italian authority in Venezia Giulia had close, burnt
down or destroyed 130 buildings registered as offices of Slovene cultural, educational and religious
institutions.
Despite the difficult circumstances in Venezia Giulia, the Slovene and Croatian representatives,
particularly members of Parliament, decided to remain loyal to Italy even after the arrival of Fascism;
so they did not join the legal Aventin opposition, which in 1924 on account of protests against the
murder of Deputy Matteotti withdrew from Parliament. Despite the formation with deputies of the
German minority in Gornje Poadižje (South Tyrol), they were not successful in the parliamentary battle
for protection of national rights for Slovenes and Croats. On the contrary, the fascists started in-depth
denationalization of all national minorities also by legislative measures. The Slovene and Croatian
minorities no longer existed as political subjects. Their representatives persevered in exile with help of
the Congress for European nations under the presidency of former deputies Josip Vilfan and Engelbert
Besednjak, and with this they helped to formulate general European political points on solving minority
problems. It is true that at that time the majority of European countries were not greatly concerned with
the rights of ethnic minorities in their own regions as long as they did not try to violate them in one
way or another. The fascist policy of “ethnic improvement” was ruthless because national intolerance
from time to time overlapped the real racism that was accompanied by the totalitarian measures of the
regime.
Soon after the occupation the deportation of Slovene officials, teachers and national employees
began, and under the fascist government, this increased even more. Thus from this region approximately
100,000 Slovenes and Croats were deported up to the beginning of the Second World War: the majority
to Yugoslavia, more than 20,000 to South America.
In the desire for immediate assimilation, the fascist authorities interfered with the educational
system, in 1923 adopting the Gentilijeva educational reform, which gradually abolished Slovene and
Croatian schools in Venezia Giulia. Teachers were moved into the interior, were fired or banished to
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the same year, the Italianization of local names began, followed some
years later by surnames and personal names, and in some places even names on tombstones. By the end
of 1927 the fascists had dissolved all “Slav” associations and by the end of 1928 all Slovene and the
Croatian periodicals were banned.
The national government even interfered in local self-government, because elected Slovene mayors
were replaced by authorities called “representatives” (podestà).
At the beginning of the thirties the violence of the fascist authorities against Slovenes and Croats
strengthened in the economic field, by means of various economic pressures and even more by the
systematic confiscation of rural estates. These properties passed into the hands of “The institution for
agricultural rebirth of the three Venetos”, which was established in 1921.
Men and boys from the Primorska region had to join military campaigns (Ethiopia, Spain, Albania)
as Italian national servicemen. At the beginning of the Second World War, they are found in every
battlefield where the Italian army fought. Soon after the beginning of the Second World War, in 1940,
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