Nation's Memory Institute, Bratislava

The Act was adopted by the National Council 13 years after the fall of the totalitarian regime, expressing the belief that not knowing one's past means being destined to repeat its errors, and that no unlawful acts of the state should be protected by secrecy, nor should they be forgotten.

The principle task of the Institute in the present time is the disclosure to individual applicants of documents about the persecutions carried out by Nazi or communist security agencies. To meet this challenge, the structure of the Institute has been adjusted appropriately. Various Sections of the Institute work in close co-operation in fulfilment of the tasks of the Institute.

The duty of Archive Section is to preserve the archival documents of the former State Security and other security agencies. The total volume of records taken over by the Archive from the Slovak Intelligence Service by 31 December 2004 amounted to 60,479 files.

Of identical importance to the proper functioning of the Institute is the electronic processing of documents in the IT Section. This work is also necessary to the publication of the register of the files on the Internet. Electronically processed files are treated in accordance with the provisions of the Act No 428/2002 Coll (Data Protection Act) by the Section of Disclosure.

The Section of Legal Analyses and Document Reconstruction researches, processes and evaluates the records and the activity of the security agencies of the state in the period 1939-1989 from the perspective of penal law, focusing on the actual perpetration of crimes against humanity and other severe criminal acts, conflicting with the fundaments of the rule of law. In co-operation with the Public Prosecution Office, it works out and files charges against these crimes. The Section, using the evidence available from the acquired documents, reconstructs the organisational structure of the security agencies, including its development, changes and staffing, and maps their repressive activities.

After the appropriate technical and staff conditions will have been secured, the Research Section has the task of carrying out a thorough, impartial evaluation of the oppression period, analysing the causes and ways of the demise of freedom, and the manifestations of fascist and communist regimes and their ideologies.