DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FOIBE, EXODUS OF ITALIANS FROM ISTRIA, RIJEKA, DALMATIA SCREENED

ROME, April 1 (Hina) - A documentary about the history of the foibe, Karst pits in which many innocent Italians ended at the end of World War Two, and the exodus of Italians from the Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia regions, was screened in Rome on Wednesday.#L# "Exodus - Negated Feeling" was directed by Nicolo Bongiorno for Veniceproduction, with funding provided by the Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia National Association (ANVGD). Some footage, until now kept in a private archive in Trieste, was reportedly shown for the first time. As WWII ended, when the Trieste area was under Allied administration, the exhumation of the remains from the foibe began but the operation was stopped. Footage made on that occasion shows the exhumation of corpses. Italy's minister in charge of relations with parliament, Carlo Giovanardi, who was present at the screening, said the foibe issue had been neglected for many years, only recently receiving greater attention. The Italian parliament recently passed a law declaring a day of remembrance for the foibe victims. ANVGD president Lucio Toth said Italians started leaving the Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia in the First World War, with about 350,000 leaving between 1943 and the early 1950s. They "had to leave those regions because of the ethnic cleansing done by Tito's partisans which began with the foibe and the joint graves". A representative of the opposition Democratic Left, Umberto Ranieri, said the Italian Communist Party had been responsible for repressing the memory of those events. "What happened was real ethnic cleansing" that was not talked about, he said. National Alliance MP Roberto Menia, who moved the law on foibe victims remembrance day, said "Croatia and Slovenia are to this day carrying out ethnic cleansing by removing tombstone inscriptions with Italian names". (Hina) ha