National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe facts for kids

National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe (in Italian: "Giorno del Ricordo") is Italian celebration in memory of ethnic cleansing's victims in massacres of Foibe and exiles from Dalmatia, Istria and "Venezia Giulia".

Official comment

Italian president Giorgio Napolitano took an official speech in which he stated:

...Already in the unleashing of the first wave of blind and extreme violence in those lands, in the autumn of 1943, summary and tumultuous justicialism, nationalist paroxysm, social retaliation and a plan to eradicate Italian presence intertwined in what was, and ceased to be, the Julian March.

There was therefore a movement of hate and bloodthirsty fury, and a Slavic annexationist design, which prevailed above all in the peace treaty of 1947, and assumed the sinister shape of "ethnic cleansing".

What we can say for sure is that what was consumed - in the most evident way trough the inhuman ferocity of the foibe - was one of the barbarities of the past century.

—Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, Rome, 10 February 2007

Cause of step

Step for this celebration was allowed by the end of communist totalitarian regimes in Balkan nations because culpability of these crimes is of old politicians. Celebration was instituted in 2004 and first Memorial Day was held in 2005.

Related pages

• Dalmatian Italians
• Italian cultural and historic presence in Dalmatia
• Venice and Dalmatia
• Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Images for kids

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  The President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano during his speech for the National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in 2007

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  Concert at the Quirinal Palace in the presence of the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella on the occasion of the National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in 2015

See also

In Spanish: Día del Recuerdo (Italia) para niños