They used us wherever they could

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As a member of the joint reconnaissance troop of the Czechoslovak Army, Josef Babák took part in the Carpathian-Dukla operation in 1944. Before the start of the actual fighting, their commander, Kratochvíl, promised them that within a few days the entire army corps would be also supported by the Red Army in Slovakia. "We said to ourselves that we are going to help the Slovak National Uprising and we set out on the battlefield. I heard someone say that the tanks should go first, but the Russians said: 'no, the motorcycles will go first, because if there are any land mines, the tanks are too expensive'. So we had to go before the tanks. They used us whenever they needed to." Josef Babák originally served as a machine gunner on the motorcycle but during this operation, he became the driver. "When we started out, a Soviet tank accidentally hit the hand of my driver and our motorcycle fell into a ditch. Thereafter, I was driving the motorcycle." Given the fact that the Germans were able to suppress the Slovak National Uprising and the insurgents had to resort to guerrilla fighting, Josef Babák and his unit arrived on Slovak territory much later than originally promised by their commander.

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Josef Babák

Josef Babák was born on August 1, 1925, in the Volhynian village of Moldava in former Poland. For seven years he attended elementary school in Moldava, Zdolbunov and Mirohošť respectively and then studied at a Ukrainian grammar school in Dubno. In March 1944, he enlisted in the 1st Czechoslovak army corps in Rovno and joined the combined reconnaissance unit (SPO), where he was assigned to the motorcycles. After training, he fought at Krosno, Machnówka and in the battles of the Carpathian-Dukla operation. In Barwinek, he was wounded in the chest by shrapnel and treated in a field hospital. Later, he served as a tank- crew member. After the war, he settled in Deštnice in Žatec, where he initially worked as a private farmer and later joined the farms collective. In 1953, he moved to Postoloprty and worked in the local farms collective.

Dukla Pass

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The pass (saddle), located in the northern part of the Laborecké Highlands, between the Kýčera hill (579 m above sea level) and the Porubské saddle, through which runs the Slovak-Polish state border, became the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of WWII: the Carpathian-Dukla operation. The offensive of the Soviet and Czechoslovak troops in northeastern Slovakia in the autumn of 1944 was supposed to combine the insurgent forces of the Slovak National Uprising with the Soviet armies. After the suppression of the uprising by German troops and after the insurgents changed to the partisan way of fighting, the operation became redundant and was terminated. The operation was conducted in a ruthless manner by the Soviet command which resulted in extremely heavy losses of Czechoslovak and Soviet troops.