Archives for March 22nd, 2004

Fojba 2000: A domobranec (Slovenian fascist) falls into a mass grave.

The fojbas are basins near Trieste and the Adriatic Sea, which served as mass graves during the massacres that followed World War 2. Those accused of collaborating with the fascists, or of opposing the communists, or who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, were killed and then deposed there.

In 2000, the Slovenian magazine Mladina, known for its irreverence, put a Tetris-style game called Fojba 2000 on its site. In the game, you drop the bodies of either partizani (partisans) or domobranci (fascist Slovenes) into a pit, while jolly oompah music plays in the background.

Everything was quiet for a while. Then the Italian government declared February 10 a day to remember the Italian victims of the Second World War. And around the same time, as the Slovenia Times writes:

The Italian Minister for Innovation and Technology, Lucio Stanca, asked the Foreign Ministry to intercede with the Slovenian government to have a game called ‘Fojba 2000’ taken off the website of the Slovenian political magazine Mladina. -snip- Though the game does not involve ethnic Italians, some Italian members of parliament believe that the game offends the memory of those Italian citizens who were killed in the fojbas.

Mladina has not removed the game, nor does the government seem particularly interested in making them do so. You can play the game yourself, to see what the fuss is about, by clicking here.

On the game page, click on the arrow next to the word “Torej” to start. Then choose whether to dump partisans or fascists (or click vse po vrsti for “both”) and begin.

The controls: 7 is left, 9 is right, 8 is rotate and the space bar makes them drop.