Best of Slovakia

We visited Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, for two days from August 5, 2014 and enjoyed this peaceful city bordered by the Danube River, the second longest river in Europe. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a democratic revolution spread through Eastern Europe and led to the end of communism in Czechoslovakia. In 1993, Slovakia declared independence with the separation of Czechoslovakia. Like other countries in the region, Slovakia suffered for many decades under the Soviet Union control. We visited a memorial for the victims of communism right at the border of Slovakia and Austria in the Danube River. In this place, many Slovakians tried to escape the regime and were assassinated in their attempt to freedom. It has been estimated than more than 80,000 people were jailed for trying to escape the communist regime, 20,000 people were taken by force into labor camps, 2.2 million were deported, and 180,000 were able to escape Slovakia during
the Soviet Union times.