Over 600 Czechoslovak soldiers killed in the Battle of the Dukla Pass have no memorial
This October marks 80 years since the Battle of the Dukla Pass, a fierce World War II clash on the Polish-Slovak border, where Nazi Germany and Soviet forces fought for control of the Dukla Pass. Nearly 2,000 Czechoslovak soldiers, fighting alongside the Soviets, died in the battle, but over 600 of them remain unlisted on any memorial.
The Carpatho-Dukla Operation began on September 8, 1944, with a goal to break through German lines to support the Slovak National Uprising. However, instead of a swift operation, it became one of the bloodiest battles on the Eastern Front, stretching over nearly two months and resulting in thousands of casualties.
The 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps fought alongside the Red Army under General Ludvík Svoboda. One of the soldiers who took part in the battle was Bohuslav Anděl, who described his experience to the Memory of Nations project:
“We walked from below, and it was foggy. Then the fog suddenly lifted, and we were at their mercy. When they opened fire, I peeked out and saw horses and people falling just like when you cut with a scythe. It was terrible.”
Another soldier who survived the bloody battle was Josef Valenta:
“Many of the young men who fought there turned grey. Imagine—when they started hitting us, they were shooting everywhere, and there was just this narrow road through Dukla. We had to go that way; there was no other option.”
Recently, historians from the Czech Ministry of Defence discovered that 617 of the nearly 2,000 Czechoslovak soldiers who died at Dukla are missing from any war memorials. One of the people who has been conducting the search is historian Pavel Kugler:
“We reached out to the Red Cross, which handled exhumations at the Dukla site after World War II. But even back then, reports noted confusion, with Czechoslovak soldiers buried in Soviet graves and vice versa.”
In response to these findings, the Ministry of Defence now plans to build a new memorial in Poland to honour the missing soldiers:
“We have decided to establish a separate war grave with the 617 names. We are in contact with Dukla city officials, and we’ve received approval from some Polish institutions.”
Although the Carpatho-Dukla Operation ultimately failed to provide the intended support for the Slovak National Uprising, it marked the first entry of Ludvík Svoboda’s army into Czechoslovakia on October 6, 1944—a date later celebrated during the Communist regime as Czechoslovak People’s Army Day.
Mr. Kugler explains why, despite the importance of that day, so many names are still missing:
“For one thing, keeping records about fallen soldiers during battle was challenging. The Soviet approach that emphasized collective effort over individual lives may also have played a role.”
Czech historians began investigating archives in 2016 to identify the Czechoslovak soldiers who fell on the Polish side of the Dukla Pass.
