A gesture of mercy amid the massacres of the foibe
The son of an Istrian exile tells the story of his family. In that tragic event, there was room for mercy
The Day of Remembrance (Feb. 10) was established in Italy in 2004 to “preserve and renew the memory of the tragedy of the Italians and all the victims of the Foibe, of the exodus from their lands of the Istrians, Fiumans and Dalmatians after World War II, and of the more complex story of the eastern border”
As February 10 approaches, the day of remembrance of the tragedy of the Foibe, of the many dead and the many Istrians who had to flee in order not to be killed (including my grandmother, my father and my aunt), sadness assails me.
I see this day as a stage of remembrance that gives dignity to a truth that was untold for decades.
At the same time, however, I am also happy, because in the midst of so much hatred and violence, my family also experienced a story of heroism.
My great-uncle Giordano Paliaga, my grandmother Maria’s brother, who had been a partisan against the Nazi-fascists, learned that his sister and her young children, Arturo (who later became my father) and Pierina, were going to be killed and thrown into the foibe; he managed to warn her in time, and so she managed to escape with the children.
Maria, an Istrian, was married to Italian soldier Ubaldo Rossi; she had to leave her home and her job in her mother Santa’s bakery (which were later confiscated) but she saved her life and that of her children, which was no small feat.
It was a heroic gesture by Giordano who, even though he knew that he was putting his life at risk
to warn his sister with his children, he did not delay a single moment.
Many years passed and Arturo, growing up, started a family by marrying Antonia; with her he had three children, including me, Riccardo, the oldest.
Arturo carried within him all the pain of the memory of having left his birthplace as a child, the suffering of a father who martyred him physically and who had brought him up in a juvenile institution. All this accumulated malaise he then dumped it
on me and on my brother Maurice, second son.
Every day, he would come home late and nervous, break our toys, beat us, curse us, and humiliate us; after 47 years, we found out that he would visit his sister and little cousins before coming home.
Every day was a torment, until the end of adolescence.
Growing up, in his speeches, I sensed so much pain, because he could no longer return to his town, Rovinj of Pula in Istria, because having also been an Italian soldier he was not welcome.
When he read his identification card, which showed that he was born in Pula, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), I could see the bewilderment in his eyes; he called himself Italian and not Yugoslav!
In short, these spiritual wounds of my youth I carried them with me until the age of 55 ( until two years ago), a time when I had the realization of my healing, after my spiritual journey deepened more and more thanks to the reading, “fused in Jesus,” of the book The 24 Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (penned by Luisa Piccarreta) and the moments of prayer with the Little Children of Palermo ( who read and meditate on the writings – 36 volumes – Book of Heaven of the mystic Luisa).
But the even greater thing is said by Jesus in Volume 35 – Book of Heaven- again penned by Luisa Piccarreta: “Do you believe that everything you have suffered, my Will does not take into account? Not at all. It keeps in its Breast of Light all your pains, small and great, your anguished and sorrowful sighs, your privations: indeed. She used them as matter to conceive, birth and grow her life. In every sorrow was growth she made, which she nourished with her holiness, filled them with the eagerness of her love, embellished them with her unparalleled beauty. My son, how you must thank me for everything I have disposed of you and for everything I have made you suffer, because everything has served to form my life in you and to the triumph of my Will.”
How wonderful to have Jesus live in me!
With this great hope, I also returned to Rovigno where I met Giordano’s son Gianfranco, a man in his 80s, with his wife Maria, daughter Maela and granddaughter.
It was good to meet after so many years with Istrian relatives and to weave bridges of friendship, to see the places where my father lived and to pray “merged in Jesus and Mary” continuously for the coming of the Kingdom of God that will put everything in order.
I tried to always be right with my conscience. As a teenager and young man, I was a frontline environmentalist; my family had been in the Navy for generations and I, thanks to a friend who opened my eyes, became a man of peace, unarmed (I was also a conscientious objector).
Now, after years of journalism, I continue to write trying to sow only Truth. For more than twenty-two years I have lived on providence.
For nine years I have been married to Barbara, who has followed me. We are two lay missionaries (now at the Mission of Hope and Charity in Palermo) and together we help so many people. We give our contribution to welcome refugees and migrants.
I try to be more and more united with Jesus and Mary, also because I am so fragile (JV 15.5) that alone I would not be able to do anything!
(Riccardo Rossi)