Premier: We Must Apologise to Holocaust Victims for What They Can See from Above

Bratislava, 9 September (TASR) - We must apologise to the victims of the Holocaust and racial violence for what they can see from above, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) posted on social media on Wednesday to mark the related remembrance day. "If the victims of the Holocaust and racial violence are looking down on us today, they must be very, very sad," remarked the premier, pointing to current armed conflicts and the situation in certain countries. "Instead of the clinking of glasses and cutlery at high-level diplomatic talks, they can hear the clang of weapons. They must be saddened to see politicians who, unable to govern and tackle the greatest challenges, resort to warmongering and fuelling various conflicts. They must be dismayed to see that in some countries, shopping centres and industrial parks are being built on the sites of former concentration camps. They must also be dissatisfied because, in some countries, the concept of national memory is being shaped in such a way that people who were demonstrably criminals and who perpetrated the Holocaust are being brought to the fore," wrote Fico. Slovakia commemorates 9 September as a national memorial day - the Day of the Victims of the Holocaust and Racial Violence. On this day in 1941, the wartime Slovak government adopted a Jewish Code that introduced a separate legal system for citizens of Jewish origin and faith, significantly restricting their civil, religious, social and basic human rights on the territory of the wartime Slovak republic. The decree consolidated legal regulations enforcing the social, economic, and civil degradation of Jews, which ultimately led to their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. am/df