by InTrieste
On May 4, a conference at the Museo Sartorio in Trieste will revisit a largely overlooked chapter of the final days of World War II: the role of New Zealand troops in the race to liberate the Adriatic city in 1945.
Organized by the Istituto regionale per la storia della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea nel Friuli Venezia Giulia (Irsrec FVG), the event, titled “1945: The Kiwis from New Zealand to Trieste,” brings together historians and scholars to examine the contribution of New Zealand forces—often overshadowed in public memory by those of the United States and Britain.
The conference opens with institutional remarks from Trieste’s mayor, Roberto Dipiazza, followed by Giorgio Rossi, the city’s councillor for culture and tourism, and Giulia Caccamo, president of Irsrec FVG. A series of speakers will then provide historical context and present research findings, including Arrigo Bonifacio, Jennifer Mallinson, Roberto Spazzali, Aaron Fox, Lorenzo Ielen and Roberto Rabel of Victoria University of Wellington.
At the heart of the discussion is the little-known role of the New Zealand Division, part of the British Eighth Army, which was tasked in late April 1945 with advancing rapidly toward Trieste. As Nazi forces collapsed, Allied troops and Yugoslav partisans raced to secure strategic territory in northeastern Italy. For the Allies, control of Trieste’s port and its rail connections to Austria was essential to supply forces moving toward Vienna.
New Zealand troops, advancing from the area between Padua and Venice, were ordered to push toward the city ahead of Yugoslav forces. They ultimately arrived on May 2, 1945, one day after Yugoslav troops had entered Trieste. Although the Yugoslav army reached the city first, Allied forces were able to secure the surrender of remaining German units, establishing a presence that would prove politically significant.
The overlapping arrival of Yugoslav and Anglo-American forces set the stage for the so-called Trieste Crisis, one of the earliest diplomatic tensions of the postwar period, marked by competing claims and a complex division of authority in the region.
Despite their role in these decisive moments, New Zealand soldiers—often referred to as “Kiwis”—remain largely absent from broader historical narratives of Italy’s liberation. Historians point to several factors behind this gap, including the tendency to subsume New Zealand forces under the broader British command and the relative inaccessibility of archival sources held in New Zealand. The multicultural composition of these units, which included both European and Māori soldiers, has also received limited attention.
The conference will also feature the presentation of a board game, “La corsa per Trieste” (“The Race for Trieste”), introduced by Mirco Carrattieri, Mirco Zanoni and Raoul Pupo, as an innovative way to engage the public with this complex historical episode.
The event will be held at 5 p.m. in the Sala Costantinides of the Museo Sartorio and will also be streamed online.
