Anti Nazis - Slovenes (in Italy and Yugoslavia Occupied By Italy)

Slovenes (in Italy and Yugoslavia Occupied By Italy)

See also: TIGR and Liberation Front of the Slovenian People

In Italy, the first anti-fascist resistance emerged within the Slovene minority in Italy (1920-1947), who the Fascists meant to deprive of their culture, language and ethnicity. The 1920 burning of the National Hall in Trieste, the Slovene center in the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Trieste by the Blackshirts, Benito Mussolini who, at the time, was yet to become Duce, praised as a being a "masterpiece of the Triestine fascism" (capolavoro del fascismo triestino...). Not only in multi-ethnic areas, but also in the areas where the population was exclusively Slovene, the use of Slovene language in public places, including churches, was forbidden. Children, if they spoke Slovene, were punished by Italian teachers who were brought by the Fascist State from South Italy. The Slovene teachers, writers, and clergy was sent on the other side of Italy.

The first anti-fascist organization, called TIGR, was formed in 1927 in order to fight Fascist violence. Its guerrilla fight continued into the late 1920s and 1930s when by the mid 1930s, already 70.000 Slovenes fled Italy mostly to Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) and South America.

The Slovene anti-fascist resistance in Yugoslavia during World War II was led by Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. Province of Ljubljana, occupied by Italian Fascists, saw the deportation of 25.000 people, equaling 7.5% of the total population, filling up Rab concentration camp and Gonars concentration camp and other Italian concentration camps.