Fiala said before the screening of the film “The Waves” that 1968 was a brave time. Czech Republic

President Peter Pavel also attended the screening, which capped the 56th anniversary of the occupation of Slovakia by the armies of the Treaty of Walavsk and the Soviet Union.

The feature film “The Waves” directed by Jijo Mder is based on the true story of a group of journalists from the international editorial department of Slovak Radio, whose determination to fight at a turning point in history does not depend on the beginning.

Pavel and Fiala spoke at the traditional memorial service at the Czech Radio building in Vinoracsk or Prague on Wednesday morning. Pavel responded that history has an unfortunate tendency to repeat itself with various variations, and humans have a painful ability to ignore historical experience.

He believes that people should remember the events of August 1968, among other things, as a way of honoring the sacrifices made and out of respect for the fact that people at that time had a clear moral compass and did not turn away from evil, even though they knew it would cause them extraordinary pain and could even endanger their lives.

The screening was attended by several ministers, the Chairman of Senta Milo Vystril (ODS), the Chairman of the House of Representatives Markta Pekarov Adamov (TOP 09), and speeches were given to politicians. Among the guests were, for example, the Mayor of Prague Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS) or Karel Ehka, a member of the Czech Army General Staff.

Even during the crackdown on demonstrations in 1969, people were fighting for their lives.

The invasion began on the night of August 21, 1968, and on the first day of the occupation of the country, a small number of Slovak residents were killed by the occupiers’ soldiers or in traffic accidents.

In 1968, the 500th Pact of Wales occupied Slovakia to violently suppress the Communist liberals’ attempts to reform the system. On the first day of the occupation of Slovakia in 1968, 58 people were killed or seriously injured, and by the end of 1968, the death toll had risen to 108.

Another casualty was the anti-occupation demonstrations that the regime harshly suppressed in 1969. Then came the so-called era of normalization, which brought political purges, censorship and restrictions on freedoms.