Did Fico forget the likes of Josef Bonk?
Which will crash first? The stuttering Russian war machine or Western politicians?
In recent months Slovakia has sent its collection of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, its S-300 air defence system, its helicopters, armoured vehicles and mine ‘sweeping’ equipment.
And it has opened its metaphorical doors to more than 100,000 Ukrainian fleeing the scorched earth of their lives.
That’s more than Poland, the Czech Republic and the whole of the Baltic States.
Then Robert Fico took victory in the new election and smashed a hole in the resolve of the West as he turned Slovakia's support for Ukraine on its head.
“People in Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,” he told the world knowing full-well, his victory will have set off alarm bells in Washington and Brussels.
He knows that Slovakia will now be seen as the new anti-Ukraine voice in the EU alongside Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán.
Orban, who has also wanted to disrupt EU support for Ukraine, twittered on X, 'Guess who's back! Congratulations to Robert Fico... Always good to work together with a patriot.'
The Ukraine has said it respected the 'choice of the Slovak people'.
But it is not just Slovakia that worries the European Union. Germany, France, and Spain have populist parties sceptical of intervention in Ukraine and many of these have national or regional elections coming up.
Poland, goes to the polls on October 15, has announced it would no longer agree to new arms going to Ukraine and would begin to rebuild its own armaments.
And it extended its ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
JOZEF BONK, 19, WAS SHOT AND THEN DEMONISED IN HIS GRAVE – NOW HE IS A SYMBOL OF TRUTH AND FREEDOM
Here we look at the horror in Europe and focus on a young victim of previous Russian invasion
On August 21st 1968 Jozef Bonk was murdered on the streets of Poprad … in 2018 journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiance Martina Kušnírová were shot dead at their home in Veľká Mača in the Galanta district. Jozef’s monument in Poprad’s square has also become a tribute to Jan and Martina, a symbol of freedom in a world too often so dark …
One dark day in 1968 Jozef Bonk stepped off a train in Poprad ready to make a surprise visit to his family.
Instead his liver was splattered by a bullet.
Jozef was a student at the Apprenticeship School in Veľká, Slovakia when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia.
He had been repairing machinery somewhere near Kosice and had decided to come home early.
But he got caught up in a crowd of protesters in Dukla Heroes Square. He was ten minutes from his home.
Jozef was 19 and the invasion of the small down-trodden city of Poprad was a shock.
But it beat looking down at your boots to avoid the eyes of the secret police and the tenement snitches. 3000 people in the square at that moment had a sense of pride for the first time in their lives.
Jozef too was proud. But he was far from being a revolutionary, an anarchist.
And he was certainly no freedom fighter.
Memories of Central and Eastern Europe
Like so many back then, he didn’t really understand the politics behind the fact that troops from five socialist countries had invaded Czechoslovakia because they feared the likes of Alexander Dubček, a major reformist.
Now the invaders were all over his community.
But Jozef was just drawn by the monstrousness of the invading armies and their war machines.
***
It was noon when he arrived at the square.
Minutes later Soviet shots rang out, boomed across the roof tops and echoed round the High Tatras.
Fifteen people were injured.
But Jozef was the one who died.
And nobody bothered to tell his family he had been shot.
“He was on a week-long furlough repairing machines, we didn’t know he was home,” his sister Anna Malá Krajňák said.
It was only when a porter at Spišská Sobota hospital found his ID card in his blood-stained jacket that somebody ran to tell them.
Jozef’s body was lying in the basement of the hospital. His liver had been ruptured.
He was quickly buried in the family home-town of Hôrka less than 10km, away.
Anna Mala said: “A lot of people came to the funeral, but it was terrible because a helicopter was flying over us. The whole thing went very quickly, because everyone was afraid.”
Anna Malá eulogised her brother as a passionate football player who lived with his parents and was helping his brother build a new home.
But after his death Jozef became, in the eyes of the authorities, became something he simply wasn’t … he was officially condemned as a dissident and a counter-revolutionary.
The authorities had blamed him for his own death and his family were ordered not to talk about him or tell how he died.
For decades Anna Malá tried to put flowers on his grave but State Security stopped her.
She was even threatened with prison.
***
Now the square where he died is named after St Egidius and there is a small memorial and plaque to Josef Bonk and others on a shelf in a wall. There are plastic religious figures and a few cheap candle lights. Sometimes there is a picture of Jozef. Sometimes there isn’t.
But every year now people gather to remember him.
František Bednár from the World Association of former Czechoslovak political prisoners, who curates the small commemoration says: “It is sad that this is the only monument in Slovakia with the names of the victims of the crimes of the time.
We also regret that August 21 is not even a memorial day in Slovakia.” .
The monument has also become a tribute to journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiance Martina Kušnírová. They were shot dead in 2018 at their home in Veľká Mača in the Galanta district.
So, after 50 years Josef has actually become the thing he never was in his life … a figurehead against corruption, suppression and dishonesty.
For there is no such thing as political murder or collateral loss, there is only murder.
Jozef Bonk was the victim of murder just as Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová were.
Each of them are heroes because they were painted as villains by those who held power.
And now their names will not be forgotten.
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