Jason Horowitz: Italy Finally Takes Notice of the Massacre of Thousands of Italians by Yugoslav Partisans During WW II

Jason Horowitz, in the NYT (2-13-05):

After decades of willful amnesia, Italy turned its attention this week to the thousands of Italians who were massacred by Yugoslav partisans and dumped into mountain crevices at the end of World War II.

The killings occurred in and around Trieste, in the north, when, in 1943 and 1945, Communist partisans from neighboring Yugoslavia rounded up Italians in anti-Fascist raids and condemned them to execution by firing squads. Between 5,000 and 15,000 people were shot and dropped into the pits of the Carso mountain range. Some were alive when they were forced into the ditches.

''If we look back at the 20th century, we see pages of history that we wish we could forget,'' Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday of the massacre. ''But we cannot forget, and we do not want to forget.''

For 60 years, however, Italy did seem to forget, and whether reviving the subject now is a good idea has been a subject of debate.

Many in the Italian left chose to overlook the massacre, because it was an embarrassing stain on the reputation of Communist partisans whom they cast as heroes, liberating the country from Fascism. Western allies were reluctant to investigate the killings after Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet Union in 1948. Perhaps most significant, Italy wanted to get on with reconstruction and reconciliation after a disastrous war.

''All of Europe at that time was looking ahead and closing their eyes to what was behind them,'' said Gianpaolo Valdevit, a historian at the University of Trieste. ''It's important that the country knows.''

On Thursday, flags flew at half-staff, and Parliament observed a moment of silence for the first ''day of memory,'' commemorating the tragedy, which President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi called ''an integral part of our national consciousness.'' Earlier in the week, a film depicting the atrocities was aired on Italy's RAI government-owned television....