President of the Slovak Republic on a Working Visit in the Republic of Poland

President of the Slovak Republic Ivan Gašparovič attended the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the insurrection which has become known in the history as the Poznan June 1956.

The celebration was attended also by other presidents of the V4 countries, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Hungarian President Lászlóo Sólyom, and Czech President Václav Klaus, as well as by German Federal President Horst Köhler.

In the morning, the Slovak President held a bilateral talk with the Polish President. Then all the present heads of state signed their names in the memorial book of the Town Hall of Poznan and left for the official part of the celebration of the event which was the first anti-communistic revolt behind the Iron Curtain.

In his address to hundreds of trade unionists and participants of the tragic events of June 1956, the Slovak President emphasized the responsibility of the generations to come to maintain historical awareness of important and objective historical facts. “We are obliged to instil this piety and respect into the current generation of citizens of our post-totalitarian countries so that its future would have a chance to be much clearer, happier, safer and securer than ours.”

In addition, the President of the Slovak Republic underlined in his speech the courage of Poznan workers to fight the totalitarian regime, even at the price of their lives

President Gašparovič pointed out that “those who rose against the oppression of communism lighted a fire of freedom. We need to forgive, but we may not forget,” said Ivan Gašparovič to conclude his speech.

Following the end of the official celebrations, President Ivan Gašparovič laid a bunch of flowers at the memorial of the youngest, 13-year old victim of the 1956 events, Romek Strzalkowski. At the end of the working day in the Republic of Poland, Ivan Gašparovič visited also the honorary consulate of the Slovak Republic in Poznan.