At the end of World War I, the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) awarded Italy some territories that had previously belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy. These included the coastal region [Slovenian: Avstrijsko primorje, Croatian: Austrijsko primorje, Italian: Litorale], which was given the name Julian Venetia.
The Area
Julian Venetia comprised the imperial city of Trieste [Slovene: Trst, Italian: Trieste] with its surrounding territory, the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca [Italian: Contea principesca di Gorizia e Gradisca] with the Margravate of Istria [Italian: Margraviato d’Istria], as well as Idria, Adelsberg [Slovene: Postojna, Italian: Postumia], Feistritz [Italian: Villa del Nevoso, today Bisterza, Slovenian: Ilirska Bistrica], which belonged to Carniola [Italian: Carniola, Slovenian: Kranjska], some villages in the Tarvisio region, and most of the Canal Valley [Italian: Val Canale, Slovenian: Kanalska dolina], which belonged to Carinthia.
The city of Fiume [Croatian: Rijeka] was the focus of intense diplomatic activity between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1924 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). The tense negotiations ended in favour of Italy and to the detriment of the city’s aspirations for autonomy. With the Treaty of Rome of 27 January 1924, the city of Fiume was finally awarded to Italy and became the capital of the province of the same name. This was a much reduced area, as the north-eastern suburbs of the city, including Porto Baross, were awarded to Yugoslavia.
Sinti and Roma in Julian Venetia
There were several groups of Roma and Sinti living in Julian Venetia: the Krasaria Sinti of the Karst plateau, the Kranárja Sinti of Carnia, the Slovenian-Croatian Roma (who called themselves H[e]rvansko Roma and Slovénsko Roma), who moved between Gorizia, Udine and Trieste, and the Istrian Roma [Istrijansko Roma] from the peninsula of the same name.
The Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye also settled the issue of citizenship for the population of these territories, who now belonged to a different state with effect from 1919. In the former Habsburg territories, everyone was automatically granted Italian citizenship, provided they were born in the jurisdictions transferred to Italy and could prove their right of origin [Italian: diritto di pertinenza] on 24 May 1915, i.e. the date on which Italy joined World War I. Preferential criteria according to Italian case law were also descent from a father who himself had the right of origin, and also official residence in one of the ceded territories.
These provisions were disadvantageous for the Roma and Sinti of the Julian Venetia, as they had only rarely lived in a single community their entire lives or over several generations. This was considered sufficient reason to deny them Italian citizenship. In the 1920s and 1930s, they were repeatedly deported illegally by the Italian authorities, provoking complaints from the consulates of the Republic of Austria and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Orders for Arrest and Banishment
By circular decree of 6 December 1937, the Chief of Police Arturo Bocchini (1880–1940) ordered the arrest of all ‘Gypsies’ located in the provinces of Bolzano, Trento, Trieste, Gorizia, Pola, Fiume and Zara.1Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS) [Central State Archives], Ministero degli Interni (MI) [Ministry of the Interior], Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza (DGPS) [Directorate General of Public Security], Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati (DAGER) [General and Secret Affairs Division], cat. A4bis, b. 159, Da Capo della polizia a prefetti di Trieste, Gorizia, Pola, Fiume, Zara, Bolzano e Trento, 6 dicembre 1937 circolare telegrafica n. 459416. Once their number had been determined, it was decided by circular decree of 17 January 1938 to send anyone ‘suspicious’ to central and southern Italy, where they were obliged to take up permanent residence and regular work. Those who were categorised as ‘dangerous’ were sentenced instead to police banishment.
As of 2024, it is known that 33 Roma and Sinti were sent to central and southern Italy from the province of Trieste, 14 from the province of Gorizia and five from the province of Fiume. 24 Roma and Sinti and Roma from the province of Trieste, 106 from the province of Pola, one person from the province of Gorizia and five from the province of Fiume were subjected to police banishment.
Measures in the Province of Pola
The prefect of Pola, Oreste Cimoroni (1890–1945), was particularly energetic in implementing the circular decrees on the ‘Gypsies’ and attempted to banish all Roma from Istria. On 10 January 1938, all Carabinieri offices in Istria were requested to ‘proceed with the immediate arrest of the Gypsies present in the area, regardless of sex and age, and to send me the relevant protocols with details of their personal data and the prisons to which they will be taken’ with the utmost urgency.2Državni arhiv u Pazinu, Archivio di Stato a Pisino (DAPA/ASP), Questura di Pola, b. 20, fasc. Zingari. Norme (1926–1943), s.f. Zingari: fascicoli vari (1938).
Information on individual Roma, including any previous convictions, was zealously collected, and the Roma were subjected to the judgement of the Provincial Commission for Banishment [Commissione provinciale per il confino] of Pola. The 23 individuals convicted were banished to the provinces of Nuoro and Sassari in Sardinia, together with 83 family members. From Trieste, Sinti and Roma were sent into banishment in various provinces in southern Italy, including Matera.
Five Years of Banishment
The majority of the Roma and Sinti were sentenced to five years’ banishment, the maximum penalty provided for, which was usually applied to people who had committed serious crimes. The Roma and Sinti, by contrast, were banished for trivial offences of the kind for which these preventive measures were not actually intended.
The Fascist regime clearly did not intend to allow Sinti and Roma to return to Julian Venetia, as is apparent from the fact that almost all of them had their banishment extended by a further five years once the initial sentence had elapsed.
Internment in Concentration Camps and Localities
After Italy’s entry into World War II, Roma and Sinti were interned in concentration camps (campi di concentramento) and in localities. According to the data obtained so far, around 23 Roma born in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia were transferred to the Bojano and Agnone concentration camps.3Trevisan, La persecuzione, 273–299. Trieste was the only province in Julian Venetia to designate a locality as a place of internment for six Sinti (in the Longera district).
Since 1941
The Fascist regime’s expansionist ambitions towards south-east Europe received a boost in April 1941 with the campaign to conquer the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. On 6 April 1941, the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Italy annexed the entire south-western part of Slovenia and created the Province of Ljubljana on 3 May 1941. The province of Fiume [Croatian:Rijeka] was expanded to include part of the Croatian Banovina, with Kastav [Italian: Castua], Delnice [Italian: Delnizza], Čabar [Italian: Concanera], Sussak [Croatian: Sušak], Porto Re [Croatian: Kraljevica] and the islands of Arbe [Croatian: Rab] and Veglia [Croatian: Krk], to the detriment of the new Independent State of Croatia. On the island of Arbe, a concentration camp was set up by the Second Army of the Italian Army under the command of General Mario Roatta (1887–1968). Under extremely harsh conditions, mainly Slovenian and Croatian civilians accused of supporting partisans were interned there.
Despite all this, the Italian and Italian-occupied territories offered some Slovene and Croatian Roma families an opportunity to flee from the violence of first the Ustaša and then the National Socialists.
After 8 September 1943
Following the armistice between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies announced on 8 September 1943, the provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pola (Pula), Fiume (Rijeka) and Lubiana (Ljubljana) were combined in the ‘Adriatic Coastal Zone of Operations’ (OZAK) on 10 September and occupied by the German Reich. The civil administration and courts were transferred to the Gauleiter of Carinthia, Friedrich Rainer (1905–1950).
Part of the Italian administration and the Italian security forces (Carabinieri, officers of the ordinary police and the special inspectorate for Julian Venetia, border officials, territorial defence militia) remained active, but were subordinated to the German repressive apparatus (Wehrmacht, SIPO, SS).
Deportations
On 11 September 1943, Odilo Globocnik (1904–1945) was appointed Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) of the ‘Adriatic Coastal Zone of Operations’ and took up his post in Trieste, accompanied by many of his closest associates who had taken part in ‘Aktion Reinhardt’ in Poland. He led a brutal repression against the partisan units active in the coastal area and set up the San Sabba police detention and transit camp in a suburb of Trieste, the only camp in Italy to have a crematorium.
Mainly Italian, Slovenian and Croatian partisans were imprisoned in San Sabba, and many were tortured and killed there. Political opponents, civilian hostages and Jews were also imprisoned there. In addition to the San Sabba camp, the prison in Trieste, known as Il Coroneo, served as a collection point for all those who were to be deported to the concentration and forced labour camps scattered throughout the areas under Nazi rule. The final destination for most of the Jews deported from Trieste was the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.
The transports departing from Trieste often picked up other prisoners from the prisons in Udine and Gorizia. The names of 21 Sinti and Roma who were deported from Julian Venetia to Nazi camps are known.
After the Liberation
The city of Trieste was liberated from German occupation by Yugoslav partisans who marched into the city on 1 May 1945, shortly before the Allies. The dispute between Yugoslavia and the British and US Allies over the future of Julian Venetia precipitated the first post-war diplomatic crisis.
On 9 June 1945, an agreement was reached according to which the disputed area was to be divided into a Zone A under British-American control and a Zone B under the control of the Yugoslav army until a proper peace conference could be convened. The dividing line between the zones—the so-called Morgan Line—was the subject of intensive diplomatic negotiations, but these were unable to resolve the tensions caused by the division of a multilingual territory. Zone A, including Trieste, was returned to Italy in 1954.
Refugees
With the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947, which confirmed the Morgan Line almost in its entirety, all those living in Dalmatia and in the areas of Julian Venetia that had been transferred to Yugoslavia were given the opportunity to opt for Italian citizenship, and vice versa. Thus began a large influx of people from the disputed territories to Italy, where they were registered as Julian Dalmatian refugees by the International Refugee Organisation(IRO).
The IRO files include 67 family dossiers covering a total of around 300 Roma from the areas of Julian Venetia and Dalmatia that had been granted to the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. In their applications for refugee status, they declared that they had travelled to Italy between 1943 and 1947 to escape the violence and persecution by the National Socialists, Ustaša, Tito partisans and finally the authorities of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. However, they represent only a small part of the Slovenian and Croatian Roma who came to Italy during the war and in the post-war period.
The attitude of the Italian Republic towards ‘Gypsies’, especially those who came from the territories assigned to the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, is clear from the circular decree with which the first Italian government of the post-war period reported on 16 August 1946 about Roma attempting to enter Italy via the Yugoslav border: ‘An influx of suspicious groups of Gypsies allegedly coming from Zone B is reported in the provinces of Veneto. A request is made to investigate and, if the result is positive, to involve the Allied authorities in order to return the groups in question to their place of origin. Prefect Udine in particular is to issue strict instructions to prevent illegal entry from Julian Venetia. Communications awaited.’4ACS, MI, DGPS, Polizia amministrativa e sociale [Administrative and Social Police], b. 865, fasc. Zingari. Statistica, telegraphic dispatch from MI to prefects of Padua, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Udine, no. 443/56585, 16 August 1946.
The Italian government thus denied that Roma who left the territories under Yugoslav control could be equated with Julian-Dalmatian refugees and considered their entry in complete isolation from the context of the dramatic events on the eastern border. The only solution considered was to send them back—a solution that was unimaginable both for the Julian-Dalmatian refugees and for all those who did not want to live in the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. Once again, the right of Sinti and Roma to citizenship was not acknowledged by the Italian authorities, and their legal status remained unresolved until the 1960s and for some even until the 1970s.
Among those who applied for refugee status, there were also Slovenian and Croatian Roma who had been banished or interned during the Fascist era and who remained in Italy after the war. Most of them decided not to return to the territories that now belonged to the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. The Republic of Italy did not grant them any recognition or compensation, and the question of their citizenship also remained unresolved for a long time.
