75th anniversary of Battle of Dukla Pass remembered

On Sunday, top politicians, foreign officials, war veterans and hundreds of other people gathered at a memorial to the Battle of the Dukla Pass, Prešov region to commemorate the 75th anniversary of one of the most hard-fought battles of WWII in Central Europe. Five war veterans from Slovakia and four from the Czech Republic received commemorative medals and one medal was awarded to a veteran in memoriam. The battle, which began on September 8, 1944 and was expected to last only a couple of days, did not see the Soviet forces reach the other side of the pass until October 6. The operation took a total of 80 days in the end and claimed over 70,000 casualties. Subsequently, one of the valleys in the pass became known as the Valley of Death.