Jozef Tiso meeting Adolf Hitler on March 13, 1939 (source: Archive of TASR)
We should not soften the dark times of history just so that Slovaks do not lose their illusions about the nation’s past.
Systematic murders or the fact that the fascist Slovak state, which emerged on March 14, 1939, paid for the deportation of its own citizens, were not “a way out of a complicated situation” or “the lesser evil”, but crimes against humanity.
Unfortunately, exculpating the regime of Jozef Tiso is often inherited in some families like the aryanised silver.
And we cannot be sure that additional history lessons at schools can put these deviations right.
Additionally, some people who adore Hitler’s ally are sitting in the parliament today.
But if the nation continues to pass on the apologetic interpretations of dark historical events, and call mass graves, deportations, aryanisation, abductions, and murders just “complicated times”, it risks repeating that dark history one day.
©Sme
