The offices are located, appropriately, on Námestie SNP, the site of peaceful protests against the Nazis in 1944 and the Communists in 1989.
The plaque and wreath to the left are in memory of Jan Langos, the first director of the Institute, who died in a car accident in 2004. Czech radio has a biographical tribute to him and his long fight against the Communists and his campaign to open up these records. http://www.radio.cz/en/article/80156
Rules for access are rather strict. Slovak citizens can look at records collected about themselves by the Nazis and the Communist State Security (ŠŠtB). As an American citizen, however, I would not be allowed to scavage through them. The Institute has an impressive web site in English that I highly recommend. Under "links" you can find comparable institutes at the other states of the former Communist bloc.
Anyone can search the on-line database of Jewish enterprises liquidated between 1941-42. The link is toward the bottom of the opening page of the web site. Some 60,000 Slovak Jews died in the Holocaust.
The recent film The Lives of Others (which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2004) told a chilling tale of the secret police (Stassi) in East Germany and the opening of their files after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Slovaks tell me that the Stassi had a reputation as by far the worst of the various secret police forces at the time, but all of these countries had something comparable and are now going through the process of examining their files. I highly recommend the film, especially the English-language commentary by the director. http://www.sonyclassics.com/thelivesofothers/
NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.
1 comment:
Wow, this blog is great! I just caught up on all of it (procrastinating on editing tomorrow's sermon), and I feel like I've learned so much about history and Slovakian culture. Thanks for sharing!
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