Fico Marks Liberation of Bratislava by Red Army, Rejects Historical Revisionism

Bratislava, April 4 (TASR) - Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) laid a wreath at the Slavin Military Memorial on Thursday to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Bratislava by the Red Army, stressing that there's a need to know the truth about WWII and not engage in historical revisionism, TASR learnt on the same day. "The truth about WWII forms the foundation of our existence. If anyone has a tendency to distort WWII and claim that it was a different story, that it wasn't nations of the Soviet Union that played a decisive role in it, then they're simply lying. I reject that," said Fico. The Slovak prime minister also thanked ambassadors from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, who attended the wreath-laying in person, for their participation. He voiced regret that none of the ambassadors of EU-member states attended the ceremony. Also present at the Slavin Memorial, which Fico called "our Statue of Liberty", were government ministers and House Vice-chair Andrej Danko (SNS). "It's dangerous that many cast doubt over the results of WWII and many re-interpret what we've been taught at schools differently now. We need to commemorate this every year, we need to do a lot more in the school curriculum, we need to talk more about the atrocities," said Danko. Thursday marked 79 years since the liberation of Bratislava from Nazi rule. A total of 742 Soviet and 470 German and Hungarian soldiers and 121 civilians were killed during the fighting. The Slavin Memorial is the burial site for 6,846 of the 63,517 soldiers of the Red Army who were killed in the struggle to liberate Slovakia and Europe from fascism. mf/df