Among those posthumously decorated was also the last Italian chief of police of the central coastal city of Zadar, Vincenzo Serrentino, who was shot by the Partisans in 1947 and whom the then Yugoslav authorities had put on a list of 26 Italians wanted for war crimes.
Presenting the decorations in his office, Napolitano said the drama of the Giulian-Dalmatian people had been caused by the "Slavic bloodthirsty hatred and rage and the Slavic annexationist claims, which tipped the scales especially in the 1947 Peace Treaty and which acquired the ominous outlines of ethnic cleansing".
Napolitano described the drama of the foibe as the "barbarism of the century" and called for finding out the truth.
He said that Europe was born on "the rejection of aggressive and oppressive nationalism, from the one expressed in the fascist war to the one seen in the wave of Yugoslav terror in Venezia-Giulia".
"Europe rules out, of course, every revanchism," said Napolitano.
A renovated memorial site was inaugurated today in Basovizza near Trieste, the location of the biggest foiba, karst pits into which, according to Italian media, many innocents were thrown towards the end of World War Two by Tito's Partisans.
A total of 350 presidential decorations and medals were presented today to the families of foibe victims, which number 10-15 thousand Italians, the Italian press said.
Repubblica daily carried a statement by Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, who called the Italians who left the then Yugoslavia at the end of WWII "optants", and wrote that 350,000 Italians had been expelled from the then Yugoslavia.
Italy must start dealing with the crimes it committed in the past, the newspaper quoted Mesic as saying, adding that the Croatian president said that Rome had not paid war damages.
The Italian Senate's foreign affairs committee requested the government to take an official position on Mesic's statement that the foibe crimes had been a reaction to fascist crimes.
La Repubblica also wrote that during a recent visit to Ljubljana Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema proposed reviewing the Rome agreements from 1983 under which the then Yugoslavia agreed to pay USD110 million in damages for the property of Italian refugees. Slovenia paid 75 million into a Luxembourg account, while Croatia still has not paid the 35 million it should have, the daily said.
A minute of silence was observed in the Italian parliament for the foibe victims.