[Decimo Paolino]

ETHNIC CLEANSING

During the days following Sept. the 8th 1943, in Cattaro the "Emilia" division fought against the Germans for three days. The Germans entered Ragusa on the 10th after some battles. The partisans preceded the Germans in Spalato and stayed there from the 10th to the 27th. The partisans preceded the Germans also in Sebenico, but they withdrew the next day. The Germans entered Zara on the 10th and the partisans did not set foot in it until Oct. the 31st 1944.

The "titini" (Tito’s partisans) stayed in Spalato for seventeen days. On Sept. the 18th, with posters stuck on the town’s walls they announced that the Military Court had condemned to death and executed twenty-two people. On Sept. 23rd the shooting of seven more people was announced.

The Germans defeated the partisans’ resistance on the 27th, and on Oct. the 1st in Treglia (Trlj) they decimated the officers from the "Bergamo" division because they had dealt with the partisans and had given them weapons and warehouses. Fourty-seven were shot.


On Oct. 9th, Maria Pasquinelli, a teacher in Spalato, was allowed by the German Garrison’s HQ to exhume and identify the bodies of the condemned by the partisan Military Court. In the first grave, that was reported to contain twenty-two corpses, they found thirty-nine bodies. In the second grave, instead of the seven corpses, they exhumed twenty-four. In a third grave, nobody had known of, they found the bodies of fourty-two condemned. There were a hundred and fifteen corpses altogether.

It was not possible to tell the number of those whose bodies were never found. The Private secretary of the Prefect in Spalato, Mr. Scrivano, maintained he had seen people overnight take out of the prison he was detained in, at least two-hundred-fifty people.


An investigation, carried out after the war, identified the names of 53 civilians and 43 policemen killed by the partisans in the Spalato - Traщ area. But even before Sept. the 8th, 6 policemen, 10 "carabinieri" (Italian MP), and 15 Customs officers had died.

In the localities in Dalmatia, other than Zara, Spalato and Traщ, they identified the names of 44 civilians, 18 policemen, 16 Customs officers, and 30 "carabinieri" (Italian MP) killed by the "titini" (Tito’s partisans).

THE DESTRUCTION OF ZARA


So far nobody is aware of the military reasons and motives that led the allies to destroy with 54 bombardments the town of Zara, a slightly over one square km objective, on which they released at least 584 tons of bombs, equal to 54 kilograms of explosives every 100 square metres (10 x 10 metres). Zara was no provision base for the German Divisions operating in Yugoslavia. The town had no railway connection. Its port was mainly a tourist port. The wharves could not bear more than two docked steamships sized not over 2,500 tons at a time. And yet, it was destroyed.

Tito, with the help of the allies, had taken off from the Yugoslavian side that Italian thorn, that had opposed the Croatian advance on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

The number of deaths under the bombing of Zara is uncertain. The first bombardment on the 2nd Nov. 1943 caused about 200 victims and the second on the 28th Nov. caused as many. A large though uncertain number of people were wounded.
A trench


After the second bombardment the people abandoned the town and took refuge in the countryside, in the nearby villages. The registry offices stopped working, deaths were not recorded at the Provincial Hospital any more. The corpses were buried in mass graves. And Head of the Province Vincenzo Serrentino, after the third bombardment (16th Dec. 1943) could only approximately report that there had been about sixty deaths.

Considering that the 54 bombardments lasted up to the 31st Oct. 1944, thinking of the people who were thrown into the sea by the explosions, those who died in the localities around Zara, the machine-gunned boats, the sunk ones, those who were running away from the fire in town and ended up being blown up by incendiaries, we can reasonably believe that around 2,000 people were dead.

The ethnic cleansing in Dalmatia, beginning with the exodus of about ten thousand Dalmatians after the signature of the Rapallo Treaty, had been bloodily completed.

In Zara, among the few thousands of survivors out of about 22,000 inhabitants, after the entrance of Tito’s partisans (31st Oct. 1944) and after the air-bombardments, 180 people were killed "by their names".

Among those killed by Tito’s partisans, there were also two prefects from Zara.

Vezio Orazi, who died on the 26th May 1942 in an ambush near the town. Together with him "Carabinieri" captain Umberto Buonassisi, Artillery lieutenant Giacinto Trupiano, a police warrant-officer and seven Artillery men.

The other prefect, Vincenzo Serrentino, appointed Head of the Province by the authorities of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (R.S.I. Italian Social Republic, the fascist government) on the 2nd Nov. 1943, had to suffer the last thirteen months of Italian Zara. On the orders of the Ministry of the Interior in Salò he abandoned the town on the 30th Oct. 1944, and fled to Trieste. On the 5th May 1945 he was captured by Tito’s partisans who had occupied the Julian town. He was brought to Sebenico and, after two years’ imprisonment, he was put to death. He was executed on the 15th May 1947.


DIASPORA

When the weapons ceased firing, in Zara and Dalmatia sacrifice went on. "Zaratini" and Dalmatians, uprooted from their town took refuge and salvation in Italy. Those who managed to survive, in the torment of hope, waited for the "option" application for the preservation of their Italian citizenship - submitted as their last desperate act of pride - to be approved by Tito’s authorities.

But even those who succeeded in finding refuge in the Peninsula, even though they were Italian-born, combatants, mutilated or decorated, had to apply for keeping their Italian citizenship to the Yugoslavian consular authorities, rather than the Italian ones.

During those years, Italy was in the position to offer its overseas children, exiles in their own Country, the mere support of the refugee camps. Exiles took no offence. They did, instead, and rebelled, when the Ministry of the Interior filed them into the police records and fingerprinted them. In any way and as early as possible, even doing the humblest jobs, they tried to be integrated in the reconstruction process of Italy.


Many managed by displaying adaptability, will-power and capability. Others chose to go to Australia and America, far-off lands where being Italian or Dalmatian was no crime. The history of the Istrians who accompanied them in this diaspora will be dealt with later. They made a name for themselves wherever they stopped, preserving in their Country and abroad their faith, devotion and creed.

Thus on the 5th Nov. 1953 the G.M.A. (Allied Military Government) Police in Trieste shot Pierino Addobbati, the sixteen-year-old son of a doctor in Zara, during a demonstration for the handing back over of the town to Italy.

On the 13th July 1972, terrorists killed in Rome "Carabinieri" lieutenant colonel Antonio Varisco, from Zara. The Government awarded his memory the golden medal for Civil Bravery.

In the same year, Captain Enrico Barisone, son of a "zaratina" and born in Zara, was seriously wounded around Nuoro in the struggle against banditry. He was decorated with the Golden medal for Military Valour.