Czech PM to mark 75th anniversary of Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) will attend a ceremony in the Slovak town of Banská Bystrica on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of anti-fascist military action that came to be known as the Slovak National Uprising.

In its simplest telling, the uprising was the culmination of years of planning by Slovak partisans, 18,000 of whom fought alongside 60,000 Czechoslovak soldiers against the Nazi Germany and the puppet state of Slovakia led by the priest Jozef Tiso.

Under communism, the role played by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, the Allies, and non-communist partisans was discounted, and the uprising glorified as a unified action by the Slovak people against fascism in favour of socialism.