Slovakia bids last farewell to WW2 hero Brig Gen Milan Píka
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- Date: 28.03.2019
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Slovakia bade last farewell to the WW2 hero Brig Gen (Rtd) Milan Píka who was accorded a full military funeral with honours today (28 March 2019) in Bratislava. Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš attended the funeral service at the Bratislava Crematorium and said his last good-bye to the member of the WW2 Western Resistance and the Royal Air Force (RAF). Brig Gen (Rtd) Píka passed away at the age of 96 on 20 March 2019.
Paying respects to the memory of Brig Gen (Rtd) Píka on the merit of his service during WW2 and his subsequent struggle for restoring the reputation of his father Gen Heliodor Píka, Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš said: “Gen Píka told me some beautiful words about Slovaks just last year. That they have, besides common sense, a heart they speak and act with. Although he was born in Czechia, I know that in his heart he was exactly one of those Slovaks he spoke about. A warrior for freedom, justice and honour.”
During WW2 he was posted to the air staffs of the Czechoslovak Air Force squadrons RAF. With the end of WW2 he returned to Czechoslovakia where he continued his active duty service. No sooner had his father Div Gen Heliodor Píka, hero of the Czechoslovak Legion in WW1 and a prominent representative of the Eastern and Western Resistance in WW2, been arrested than the persecution of then Capt Milan Píka began. Milan’s farther Heliodor Píka was executed in 1949 and Milan was dismissed from the Czechoslovak Army, stripped of his military rank, and banned from staying in Prague.
He found refuge in Bratislava from where he fought to rehabilitate the reputation of his father. The ‘guilty’ verdict for Heliodor Píka was overturned in its entirety in December 1968 and his reputation was fully rehabilitated in the public after November 1989. Milan certainly lived up to the promise he had given to his father in his father’s prison cell on the night before his execution. Milan Píka was fully rehabilitated too – for his operational service in WW2 and his personal life and opinions after 1948 he was promoted to the most junior general officer rank, Brigadier General (Rtd), both in Slovakia and Czechia.
We honour his memory!
Paying respects to the memory of Brig Gen (Rtd) Píka on the merit of his service during WW2 and his subsequent struggle for restoring the reputation of his father Gen Heliodor Píka, Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš said: “Gen Píka told me some beautiful words about Slovaks just last year. That they have, besides common sense, a heart they speak and act with. Although he was born in Czechia, I know that in his heart he was exactly one of those Slovaks he spoke about. A warrior for freedom, justice and honour.”
During WW2 he was posted to the air staffs of the Czechoslovak Air Force squadrons RAF. With the end of WW2 he returned to Czechoslovakia where he continued his active duty service. No sooner had his father Div Gen Heliodor Píka, hero of the Czechoslovak Legion in WW1 and a prominent representative of the Eastern and Western Resistance in WW2, been arrested than the persecution of then Capt Milan Píka began. Milan’s farther Heliodor Píka was executed in 1949 and Milan was dismissed from the Czechoslovak Army, stripped of his military rank, and banned from staying in Prague.
He found refuge in Bratislava from where he fought to rehabilitate the reputation of his father. The ‘guilty’ verdict for Heliodor Píka was overturned in its entirety in December 1968 and his reputation was fully rehabilitated in the public after November 1989. Milan certainly lived up to the promise he had given to his father in his father’s prison cell on the night before his execution. Milan Píka was fully rehabilitated too – for his operational service in WW2 and his personal life and opinions after 1948 he was promoted to the most junior general officer rank, Brigadier General (Rtd), both in Slovakia and Czechia.
We honour his memory!
