Ústav pamäti národa

The Nation's Memory Institute (Ústav pamäti národa) is a public-law institution founded by the Act of the National Council of the Slovak Republic No. 553/2002 Coll. on Disclosure of Documents Regarding the Activity of State Security Authorities from 1939 to 1989 and on founding the Nation's Memory Institute and on Amending Certain Acts. The Nation´s Memory Institute has set about to fulfil following main tasks: • perform complete and unbiased evaluations of the period marked with oppression, primarily analyze the causes and means of loss of freedom, manifestations of fascist and communist regimes, their ideology and involvement of native and foreign persons, • disclose documents on persecution to the persecuted individuals, • publicize information on the persecutors and their activities, • prompt criminal prosecution of crimes and criminal offences, cooperate with General Prosecutors Office in the Slovak Republic, • provide relevant information to public authorities, • systematically accumulate, expertly, scholarly and documentarly process all types of information, records and documents pertaining to the period of oppression, • work with similar institutions in the Slovak Republic and abroad, mainly with archives, museums, libraries, survivors of the resistance, survivors of concentration and labor camps, provide them with information, present them with research options, render methodical counsel and promote their activities, • present the public with the results of its activities, primarily publicize information and other records between 1939 and 1989, individual actions and life stories, publish and promote publications and audiovisual works including own documentary movies, organize educational and cultural events, seminars, conferences, discussion forums, • promote ideas of freedom and defence of democracy against such regimes as Nazism and Communism, • grant official status of anti-communism resistance participant and anti-communist resistance veteran.  

The Nation's Memory Institute Archive represents public archives of special purpose of the Slovak Republic pursuant to Act No. 395/2002 Coll. on archives and registries. Its archival funds contain archival riches of the Slovak Republic and national cultural heritage. Archival funds and documents on repressive authorities from the period of the Slovak Republic between 1939 and 1945 and unitary, later federal Czechoslovakia constitute master archival funds, which the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and the Slovak Information Service, pursuant to Act No. 553/2002 Coll. § 27 on Nation's Memory, rendered to the Institute. Pursuant to the decision of the Ministry of the Interior in 2004, the archive was conferred legal archival status. As a legal archive instituted by law, it collects, registers, protects, processes, discloses, and manages archival documents and funds on the activities of the security authorities in former totalitarian regimes on the territory of the present-day Slovak Republic between 1939 and 1989. Delimitation of archival documents and funds started in 2003. NMI Archive successively took over archival material from state bodies and natural persons corresponding to 1.800 metres. The most coherent extensive file, which was acquired, contained agency, operative files, and investigation files of the communist State Security amounting to 62.000 items. Besides paper documents, the archive stores 70.961 microfiches, equivalent to approximately 2 million pages of documents as well as 466 promotional and educational films. Conclusively, the archive manages documents of nearly 12.5 million pages. The archive currently administers 638 archival funds and collections. The Archive also administers the library fund of the former Marxism and Leninism Institute, which based on original acquisition lists, contained over 44.000 titles. It comprises a collection of bibliographies, prohibited materials, periodicals, and unclassified titles The archive's research premises are used by historians, archivists, journalists and the general public from Slovakia and from abroad.  

The Nation´s Memory Institute is based in Bratislava. It has no territorial branches.