The main 12 tasks entrusted to the Institute by the State, stipulated in § 8 Section 1 of the Nation’s Memory Act, are as follows:

1. To perform a complete and unbiased evaluation of the period of non-freedom, mainly analysing the causes and manner of loss of freedom, symptoms of the Fascist and Communist regimes and of their ideologies, and participation of domestic and foreign persons in them;
2. To disclose to persecuted persons documents regarding their persecution;
3. To publish data on executors of the persecution and their activity;
4. To make motions for criminal prosecution of crimes and criminal offences in cooperation with the General Prosecution of the Slovak Republic;
5. To provide necessary information to the public authorities;
6. To systematically collect and professionally document all types of information, evidence and documents relating to the period of non-freedom;
7. To cooperate with similar institutions in the Slovak Republic as well as abroad, especially with archives, museums, libraries, resistance memorials, memorials of concentration and labour camps; provide them with information, research possibilities and methodical aid and promote their activity;
8. To promote the ideas of freedom and defence of democracy from regimes similar to Nazism and Communism;
9. To decide on recognition of the status of an anti-Communist resistance participant;
10. To decide on recognition of the status of an anti-Communist resistance veteran, that of an anti-Communist resistance veteran in memoriam, and issue a card of an anti-Communist resistance veteran and that of an anti-Communist resistance veteran in memoriam;
11. To keep records of persons who performed service and issue certificates on the period of their service;
12. To provide the public with results of its activity, in particular, to publish and disclose information and other documents on the period of non-freedom 1939–1989 and on the acts and destiny of individuals, publish and disseminate publications, organise exhibitions, seminars, professional conferences and discussion forums.

Basic tasks of the Historical Archives

Archive of the Nation’s Memory Institute:

• Ensures operation of the specialised public archive;Ensures acquisition activities and the hand-over of documents on former security authorities and documents related to the repression of citizens in the period from 18th April 1939 to 31st December 1989;
• Keeps records of acquisitions, decreases and deposited archival documents;
• Processes and provides access to archival funds and collections; creates archiving tools;
• Manages applications of the state institutions and keeps records of documents, which the appointed committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic excluded from disclosure;
• Ensures operation of the research room of the Archive of the Nation’s Memory Institute, according to the research rules as well as library and lending policy;
• Keeps records of researchers and researching visitors;
• Bears the responsibility for archiving tools management;
• Provides expert presentations for participants of excursions in the Archive of the Nation’s Memory Institute;
• Ensures digitalisation of documents;
• Ensures database creation and database system management;
• Participates in cooperation within archiving and auxiliary historical sciences with archives of the Slovak Republic and foreign archives and institutions in charge of the archives of former security forces;
• Participates in educational and publishing activities of the Nation’s Memory Institute.