Bratislava, Jan 9 (CTK) – Czech musician Michael Kocab and film director Juraj Herz are among 20 personalities who were awarded by Slovak President Andrej Kiska on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of establishment of independent Slovakia at Bratislava Castle on Monday.
Kocab was awarded with the Order of the White Double Cross, 2nd class, which can be imposed on foreigners in Slovakia, for his contribution to the development of relations between the Czech and Slovak republics.
Former politician Kocab headed the parliamentary commission which supervised the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation troops from Czechoslovakia after the fall of the communist regime in the early 1990s.
Kiska bestowed the same order on film director, screenwriter and actor Herz, who is a representative of the Czechoslovak film new wave of the 1960s, for his achievement in the field of culture.
Herz was born in Kezmarok, east Slovakia, in 1934. His film The Cremator (1968) was an Oscar nominee.
Kiska also awarded lawyers, historians and scientists.
Jan Langos, former post-communist Czechoslovak interior minister and founder of the Slovak National Memory Institute, was awarded in memoriam.
