The highest Slovak political officials are today commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Carpatho-Dukla Operation at the Dukla Pass in the Prešov region by laying wreaths at the Memorial to Czechoslovak soldiers and the Memorial to Red Army troops who fought at the location.
The Battle of the Dukla Pass, officially known as the “Carpathian Operation” was the largest battle (in terms of casualties) ever fought in Slovakia. During this military operation, the Soviet Red Army supported by the Czechoslovak Corps met with the defending German and Hungarian forces in the Carpathian Mountains on the Slovak-Polish border. The battle began in September of 1944 and was planned to be a 5 day operation. Due to various reasons it changed into 5 long weeks of bitter fighting with more than 100,000 casualties on both sides. In 1949 the Czechoslovak government erected a memorial and cemetery southeast of the Dukla border crossing in Vyšný Komárnik, the first liberated village on the territory of (then) Czechoslovakia. It contains the graves of several hundred Russian and Czechoslovak soldiers. During today’s 70th anniversary celebrations, a statue of a saluting Czechoslovak soldier should be reinstalled on the Dukla memorial, after it was replaced because of political tensions during the socialist era.
