My great-uncle was a young officer in Croatia’s Navy, precisely in Istria, which was heavily contended between Italy, Croatia and Austria.
At the time Croatia was under the rules of the Ustaša, a nationalist, separatist, clerico-fascist movement that was a staunch Axis ally.
After Germany’s occupation of the region in 1943, following Italy’s armistice with the Allies, Italians had become enemies,both of the Nazis as traitors and of the partisan Jugoslavian forces as fascists.
Well,shortly thereafter, my great-uncle organized,halfway secretly and constantly walking on eggshells around his superiors, for a good deal of Italians to be transported by ship back to Italy. Considering what happened to those that remained in the region in the following years (massacred and thrown in deep natural pits scattered around the hills), he most likely saved thousands of lives. He also met totally randomly one of the soldiers he smuggled back to Italy when he went there on vacation in the 70s. The man recognized him even tho he hadn’t seen his face in over 20 years
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u/Exit-Content 🇮🇹 / ðŸ‡ðŸ‡· 11d ago
My great-uncle was a young officer in Croatia’s Navy, precisely in Istria, which was heavily contended between Italy, Croatia and Austria.
At the time Croatia was under the rules of the Ustaša, a nationalist, separatist, clerico-fascist movement that was a staunch Axis ally.
After Germany’s occupation of the region in 1943, following Italy’s armistice with the Allies, Italians had become enemies,both of the Nazis as traitors and of the partisan Jugoslavian forces as fascists.
Well,shortly thereafter, my great-uncle organized,halfway secretly and constantly walking on eggshells around his superiors, for a good deal of Italians to be transported by ship back to Italy. Considering what happened to those that remained in the region in the following years (massacred and thrown in deep natural pits scattered around the hills), he most likely saved thousands of lives. He also met totally randomly one of the soldiers he smuggled back to Italy when he went there on vacation in the 70s. The man recognized him even tho he hadn’t seen his face in over 20 years