It Ali an Crimes in Yugoslavia
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I ITALI AN CRIMES IN YUGOSLAVIA Thi is the first of a s ries of urveys of War . rimes in Vugoslm.•ia. Furth r instalmenls will deal with German, l/1111garia11, IJ11lgarit111 and Q ui ling crimes. SL I FORM 'flU F1"I 'E LO D rg,~5 ITALI .AN CRIMES IN YUGOSLAVIA '/'his i the _first of a eries of sur'l:ey s of War Crimes in l'ugo lm•ia. Furth r instalments will deal with Ger111a11, J/ungarian , Rulgarian and Quisling crimes. Y GOSL I FORM TlO OFFICE LO DO 19,~5 I I I ITALI AN CRIMES i IN YUGOSLAVIA This is Jhe fir l of a series of survey s of ll'ar Crimes in } ugoslat•ia. Fur/her instalmenl will dPal wilh Gen11a11, llu11garia11 , /1ulgnria11 a11d Q uisling crimes. l Y GOSL I TFORMATlOI OFFI E LO DO 19,~5 I I I I C ~T E ~T ~ page 1. Fore:\\ ord 2. 'haptcr l - I ntroductor · 2 3. hapter ll -- Act· of ,'p radi and Organised \ 'iolencc 191-' - 19.p - 7 ...... +· Chapter 11 I - Thc Preliminary '· Pre-war" \\'ork of ltalo ·auro :>· 'hapter l \. - The War Pcriod- ./ (a) cneral bscrrntions - 52 (h) The ): rthcrn ..\rea 5 (r) ·'Judicial·· 'rimes 66 (d) ~rimes in :\lontcnc ro and DJlmatia - (e) ·onclusion (. _\ ppendix on Forcible 'hange of Pcr·onal :'\ a mes -.., I I ,\ :\lap h,l\\·ing the ..\r ·a affect ·d by Italian crimes page iii with a key on page i,· . .'- otc : .\part from the frontispiece anti entl-p1ccc, the illustration. to the · _ nuin tc:1.t "ill he fou nd in the ccmre of the book together "irh other photographs illust~ti, •of lt.tlian crimes in ·ui.:o~la,ia anti photogrnphs of th · document$ tlc~cribctl in Appendix B. Figure I (paae I2) Fascism in the Julian Region from the Origins to the March on Rome." 111 KETCH HOWi G ENEMY PARTITIO OF AUSTR IA YUGO LAVIA cale: one hundred mila - I inch. KEY I ~ .5 9 ~ 6 [IIO 10 ~ 3 ~• 7 g II ~ []I I2 4 ■ □ )> I. Detached f rom Austria and annexed to Italy after 191-1--191 toar 2. A nnexed by I taly i11 I 41 3. Occupied by l ta/-y 19.;r-1943 4. Annexed by Gumany 5. A nnexed by ll11ngary 6. Anne.-.:ed by B ulgaria 7. Occupied by Bulgaria 8. ltalian Protectorate of .\1onll'~!fro 9. r1nne.ud to ltalum Protectoralt' of Albania 10. German .\filitary Administration 1 I. .\"ed1tch erbia rz. Ustasha roatia The area m.:l'Tprinted in Red is tlte area of Italian criml's. 2 F R E WORD Cl-1.APTER I I TRODUCTORY The present tatement concerning Italian War rimes against Thi is an ac ount of crimes committed over a Ion ran°e of } ·u oslm.:ia based almost entirely on Italian official documents, year by the Italian tate again t the South lav people and does not purport to b a complete account of all that has happened. tate. The victim has been the Yu oslav tate in two en es. It is rather a 0 eneral un:ey of the purpose, scope, and methods The crimes have been committed against thou ands of Yugo- of Italian crimes, planned and executed by a11d for the Italian Lav people, men, women and children, not only as part of the late against Yugoslavia and the buth Slav peoples, both Yu oslav national organi m, but also as individuals, becau e duri11 the recent war and throuohout tlze fore oing oeneration they have persisted in their right, if they so choose, to think and durino u:hic/1 these war crimes were planned and rehearsed. The act as Yu oslav and to reject pressure brought on them to be Italian . late ommission for the Im:estiuation of the n·me.; of the The crime have been committed by the Italians in one sen e b n.Jad rs and their A w.slants has to date published 16 Reports only- to increase the physical area of the Italian State, even containin ,, et:id nee u:hich, thorouol,/y examined and appro ed though thi demanded the destruction of another people. by le al experts, makes it po sibl to illustrate Italian document It i a long record of crime, which as the years went by rew captured by units of the } ·uooslav f orces, and to present the teaclily more open and ruthle s. It is a record of crime which pr sent story of u·hat has happ ned in the kn.'ene lands, in parts ha brought some of the most prominent names of the Italian of roatia (the Littoral) and .Honteneoro, /em:ino Italian crim s tate, and hundred of their accomplice on to the Yu o lav committed in other parts of roatia and in Bos11ia-Tler~eoo1.:ina list of War Criminal . to be record d later. It ha become commonly reco nised that to suppre the people of occupied territo·ry by acts of eneral terrori ation of civilian , i criminal in time of war. It is criminal to burn down their public buildin s, to attempt to ruin them economically, to ubject them to unbearably drastic repressiv law , in themselve infrin ments of a commonly recognised J 4 human code. It i criminal to nten e them to incarceration country at the head of the Adriatic in which these pre-war in on entration camps and to death in order to conquer their preparations for the Italian war crimes took place, that must territory. If it is criminal to do thi in time of war it is urely all th more criminal in time of peace. first attract our attention. This area, though outside the Yugoslav ta,te, in this matter of mass terrorisation by aliens The pre ent tory of crime begin in 191 , when the Julian Region (I tria, Trieste with th . lovene Littoral and the and of crimes authorised by the Italian State, forms an un interrupted whole with the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia, from i rmrr ustrian ounty of Gori a) was first occupied by .the Jtalian tatc, and end with the liberation of this territory by usak (Fiume) in the north, to the Gulf of Kotor in the south, together with the deep hinterland of that coast, and was in the the Yugo lav and Allied Armie on May 1 1945. course of this war so treated by the Italian State. The area covered by the record thus varies. Part of the It was in the South Slav lands at the ' head of the country touched by these Italian crimes- Montenegro, Adriatic that the liberation of Yugoslavia from foreign rule in Dalmatia and the Croat Littoral, all but Zadar, Fiume, !stria, this recent war was concluded. Similarly it is here that the lovenia and ome of the islands, came under the s.overeignty story of Italian crime began. of the 'i'. ugoslav tate in 1918. T his was a natural achieve ment, if incomplete, which the Italian tate tried to reverse It may, therefore, be convenient to give a few brief historical note· on this disputed area, the Julian Region. Who inhabits comp! tely by annexation to Italy after 1941 of still further this territory ? Since when, and under what conditions ? Yu lav national territory. The inhabitants of all this newly 1. The " Juiian Region " consists of Trieste, !stria, and annexed area are al o outh lavs, quite indistinguishable from the former Austrian County of Gorica, also known in Austrian the other outh lavs of the interior of the Balkan Peninsula. administration as the Kustenland. The modern Yugoslav Th e newly annexed districts suffered from criminal acts term is " !stria, Trieste and the Slovene Littoral." only from April, 1941 after the enemy had over-run Yugoslavia, to final liberation on May 1, 194-5 . 2. This region, ainly unfertile limestone upland, was settled by lav peasants from the 6th Century A.O. Con In tho e four years occurred a cries of crimes equal in horror stituting a narrow link between the Italian Peninsula and the and extent to any the. Germans have committed anywhere. Balkan Peninsula, and at the same time a gate into Central Th e crimes of the Italian invaders threw fre h new light on Europe from the Mediterranean, it had become depopulated . I what ince 191 had been oing on in other Yugo lav territory under Italian occupation. by the passage of barbarian and other armies of the ancient world. A will be een, what happened in occupied areas of Yugo 3. This peasantry lived in comparative peace for many lavia . t11te t rritory after pril, 1941, wa merely the con-' centuries, before nationality became a decisi_ve factor in tinuation and culmination of what had f r a eneration b en international life. Much as the Romans in their invasion of happ nin in the Yu lav national territory at the head of the Britain stopped short at the line of Hadrian's Wall, and driati . Even had there been any ucc from Italian preferred not to penetrate into the highlands, Latin civilisation terr r there prior to April, 19.p , the event ub equent to 194- 1 annulled that · uc e fo r ev r. had left these Slavs at the head of the Adriatic alone. 4-. They received a vernacular bible from the Salonica Italian war crime , in other word , have a long l\Ionk , Cyril and Methodius, who invented the first pre-war pr amble.