Two Italian soldiers stand next to the barbed wire that encircles Ljubljana, Slovenia, after the Italian invasion of Yugoslavia during WWII (1941).
From website “Crimini di guerra italiani perpetrati contro gli sloveni” (Italian war crimes committed against Slovenes):
Italian officers take a photo near the barbed wire with which occupying Italian forces circled Ljubljana, Slovenia’s Capital City, turning it into a huge prison camp.
Thousand were deported in the many Italian concentration camps: Rab and Gonars, Visco or Monigo, Renicci, and others. Thousand of civilians, Slovene and Croatian, especially children, women and elderly died there: their only crime was that they were not Italians. In Rab alone, on average, the death rate surpassed that of the Nazi’s Buchenwald.
***
VITTORIO EMANUELE III
FOR GOD’S GRACE AND WILL OF THE NATION
KING OF ITALY AND ALBANIA
EMPEROR OF ETHIOPIA
In sight of Article 18 of law No. 129 of January 19th, 1939-XVII;
Considering an action urgent and necessary;
Heard the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo (Great Council of Fascism);
Hear the Council of Ministers;
Upon request of the DUCE del Fascismo, Head of the Government;
We decree and declare:
§
Art. 1.
The Slovene territories, whose borders are marked as in the annexed map, signed by the DUCE , Head of the Government, upon Our order, constitute an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy and constitute the Provincia di Lubiana.
§
Art. 2.
With Royal Decrees, upon request of the DUCE del Fascismo, Head of the Government, Minister of Internal Affairs, the regulation of the Provincia di Lubiana shall be established since, as that area has a completely Slovene population, it will have an autonomous regulation in regard to the ethnic characteristics of the population, the geographic position of that territory and to the special local needs.
§
Art. 3.
Government functions shall be exercized by an Alto Commissario (High Commissioner), appointed with a Royal Decree upon proposal of the DUCE del Fascismo, Head of the Government, Minister of Internal Affairs.
§
Art. 4.
The Alto Commissario shall be assisted by a Consulta (Council) consisting in 14 representatives chosen between the producing categories of the Slovenian population.
§
Art. 5.
Military service won’t be mandatory for the Slovene population of the Provincia di Lubiana
§
Art. 6.
The Slovene language shall be part of Elementary education. The Italian language shall be optional in Middle and High School.
All official acts shall be written in both languages.
§
Art. 7.
The Government of the King is allowed to publish in the Territory of the Provincia di Lubiana the statute and the other laws of the Kingdom and to issue the regulation needed to rule it with the laws which are in force there as well as with the regulations that shall be established under Article 2.
§
Art. 8.
This decree comes int force on the day it is published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno and it shall be presented to the Assemblee legislative (Legislative Assemblies) to be converted in law.
The DUCE del Fascismo, Head of the Government, is authorized to present the pertinent draft of the law.
We order that this Decree, upon receiving the seal of the State, is collected in the Raccolta ufficiale delle leggi e dei decreti del Regno d’Italia (Official Collection of the laws and decrees of the Kingdom of Italy), sent to whoever has the duty to observe and enforce it.
Dated Rome, today May 3rd, 1941‐XIX.
VITTORIO EMANUELE
MUSSOLINI
Source: Royal Decree No. 291. The Kingdom of Italy’s Official Gazette No. 105.
Converted into law with: Italian Law No. 385 of 27 April 1943.
Translation care of the Free Trieste Movement, for historical purposes only.
***
With this Decree, Italy annexed Ljubljana. And all of southern Slovenia with it. This happened on May 3rd, 1941, after the assault of the Axis Powers which, in 12 days, occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In the new “Provincia di Lubiana” the Italian military occupation was very tough. Indeed, Italian troops committed atrocious war crimes against the Slovene population. The whole of Ljubljana became an open air concentration camp.
The very cruelty of the occupants played a role in pushing many to join the Partisan’s liberation struggle against the hated fascists. Made of shootings and mass deportations, the two and one half years of Italian occupation are one of the darkest chapters in the Slovene folk’s history.
It was a nightmare, and it only ended with the war itself, when the Axis Powers were finally defeated. WWII costed to the small Slovenia 60,000 casualties on a total population of 1,600,000 people.
Slovenia did finally gain the longed independence in 1991, about 50 years later, and only at the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslava. However, Italy claimed Ljubljana as its “Provincia di Lubiana” until 2009, when the annexation Law No. 385 of 1943 was finally repelled.
Italy really is unique thanks to such “specialization” in breaching international treaties.
Indeed, the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy rules, among other things, the end of the Italian Province of Ljubljana and that of the Italian Province of Trieste. While Ljubljana returned to Slovenia (then one of Yugoslavia’s Republics), Trieste became the capital city of a new independent State: the Free Territory of Trieste.
***
As for the primates of anti-fascist resistance in Europe, Slovenes have also the temporal one. Because, in facts, they had to start resisting as early as in the 1920s and 1930s.
They lived in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire’s border regions that were ethnically Slovene, Croatian or mixed (about 850,000 people) and annexed by Kingdom of Italy after World War I, as it gained territories in the East. The Karst, Istria, Fiume-Rijeka and Dalmatia: here, Italy oppressed these the aforementioned ethnic groups.
Furthermore, in 1938 it extended the persecution to the Jews: this lead to racial genocides and to increasing violence, the so-called “bonifica etnica” against those regarded as “razze inferiori” (literaly ethnic “clean-up” against alleged inferior races).
Author: Paolo G. Parovel, in his book “1400 ANNI DI CONTRIBUTI STORICI DEL POPOLO SLOVENO ALLA STABILITA’, PACE E SICUREZZA D’EUROPA” – “1400: THE SLOVENE FOLK’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO EUROPE’S STABILITY, PEACE, AND SECURITY”. Unofficial translation: care of S.V.
Translated from blog “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante