A few months ago I watched an interesting RAI documentary on the Istrian crisis and the abuses in ex-Yugoslavia and the lack of protection by the Italian government, and the rejection the exiles received in the Camps when arrived in the Trieste area..!!
We actually have a day to remember this,
La Giornata del Ricordo on February 11th, but it is SO CLOSE and with a name SO SIMILAR to the one for Holocaust
La giornata della memoria; January 29th, that it is barely covered even on national television. Also, that bit of history is often not studied at school (usually for lack of time, we stop at WWII and just talk about it like "regular war stuff, lose a territory here, trade another there").
Exiles and their families strongly opposed against Croatia entering the UE, but nobody cared (as usual). Even until recently Italians were NOT allowed to have properties in Croatia (such as a summer home), but UE is no longer a Rotary Club.
My family went first to Trieste, then some moved to Turin, and then to Genoa (also on the sea). My close family stayed in Pavia, near Milan. They slept in the gymnasium of a public school until they were given a council house without heating. My grandparents spent their whole life talking about their city, how it was advanced, modern, progressive, multicultural, etc. so in 2000 I went to finally see it. Forget about it, it has sunk so low, totally ruined and sacked by years of rampant communism. It was such a delusion! The thriving city my parents talked about for 50 years was just on faded postcards in their drawers.
Later, in 2010, I travelled 10 days throughout Croatia, and I was appalled to see how they totally de-Italianized churches, historic buildings, entire towns! I am not talking about the name (Fiume/Rijeka, Spalato/Split, Dubrovnik/Ragusa, Sibenico/Sibenik, Lesina/Hvar, etc.) but also about the name of Saints carved in stones (Sveti
Blaž instead of San Biagio). They are parading this cleansing like they DID the city themselves just today. But here and there, looking VERY closely, there was maybe a drain cover with still the words in Italian.
Needless to say, Croatians don't sit very high in my list of nice people.
