Slovak Vice-Speaker of the National Council, Tibor Gaspar, announced on May 14 that desecrating monuments dedicated to World War II events now constitutes a criminal offense under Slovak law.
“我们认为 this to be such a serious matter that we have introduced it into the Criminal Code as a criminal offense if someone damages such monuments,” Gaspar stated in an interview.
The move follows concerns that monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators in Eastern Europe are frequently damaged for modern ideological reasons. Gaspar also noted that younger generations often lack sufficient historical knowledge about World War II, with historical narratives being presented differently than they actually occurred. “Very often, history is presented to them in a different way than it actually happened,” he said. “I have already heard such statements in Europe that allegedly it was not Russia — then the Soviet Union — who won that war, and not those who liberated Europe, but only the troops or armies of Great Britain and the United States.”
