Poste Italiane has dedicated a stamp to Italo Foschi, who was prefect in Trento from 1939 to 1943 and founder of As Roma. But the Trentino Anpi (National Partisans Association) rises up: in a note it defines Italo Foschi as «organizer of fascist squads in Rome». Enrico Bacchetti (Historical Institute of Belluno Isbrec) had already spoken on the matter: «Foschi was a man of the harshest and most violent fascism. Is he the figure to be commemorated with a stamp?”.
Outrage and accusations
Outrage and accusations of revisionism continue following the stamp issue. «To even celebrate it with a stamp is shameful – urges the Anpi of Trento in the press release – he was Roberto Farinacci’s man, secretary of the Fascist Party who appointed him federal of Rome, but the following year Foschi was even expelled from the party (and then readmitted) after the Matteotti murder, for having exaggerated with violent squadrism”. Mario Cossali, president of the Anpi of Trento, says: «This government remains deeply polluted by one nostalgic culture of fascism in its many and most serious aspects. A character who remained in the memory as a fascist who was more fascist than the fascists.”
Block distribution
Mussolini’s dismissal of Farinacci in 1926 also dragged Foschi with him, who returned from squads to sport. The Anpi of Trentino, on the centenary of the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, killed by fascist squadristi, recalls in the note an episode that links Foschi to that dramatic crime. «It is horrifying to see that the Italian state dedicates a stamp to Foschi who congratulated Matteotti’s murderer, writing to Amerigo Dumini that he was a hero. We condemn this serious, shameful provocation: an offense to the memory of Matteotti and all anti-fascists who gave their lives for the freedom and democracy of our country.” The ANPI adds in the written note: «We ask that the distribution of the stamp be immediately blocked».
«A tragic figure»
The partisans also point out that «during the Trentino period in 1941 Foschi denounced Don Modesto Lunelli parish priest of Ziano di Fiemme and Don Giuseppe Lona, professor at the archbishopric high school of Trento, guilty of having signed two parish bulletins and in ’42 in Cles he had seven people arrested for defeatist tendencies”. They reiterate in the statement: «A tragic figure and very unworthy of Italian history, one of the creators of the tensions with the Slavic world which resulted in the drama of the Foibe and a protagonist under the Nazi occupation: Italo Foschi was put on trialbut was later pardoned.”
