Brigadier General Milan Píka, a prominent figure among veterans of the Western front in Slovakia, passed away on March 20th at the age of 96. He joined the Royal Air Force in the early 1940s, yet after returning to Czechoslovakia after the end of the war, he and his family faced persecution from the Communist regime. His father, Heliodor Píka, was a protagonist of the anti-fascist resistance and in January 1949 was executed for alleged treason after a secret court process. Milan Píka never reconciled himself with his father's name being defamed and after 1968 he asked for the trial with his father to be reopened. The old verdict was canceled, with all military charges and honors being returned to the late General Heliodor Píka.
Zuzana Botiková, Photo: TASR
