“They left everything behind and left overnight”.

Illegal immigration from Posočje to Italy after the Second World War in the light of oral testimony

Abstract

The article focuses on Posočje in the period after the Second World War, when it experienced mass migration within Slovenian ethnic territory and also across the border. Following the premise that individuals are not only passive observers but also active co-creators of their time, the author gives ear to some “invisible” individuals who belonged to illegal emigration currents towards Italy. With the help of oral testimony from émigrés and their contemporaries from Posočje, she tries to present the situation in contemporary society that stimulated emigration. At the same time, she analyses their decision to emigrate. The testimonies reveal that the decision to emigrate was based on various motives. It is precisely because of this fact, which was based on observation of migration processes at the personal level, that it is necessary to reduce the absolute importance of political and economic denominators as the reasons for emigration. At the same time, this questions the universality of official designations of émigrés.