In the fall of 1944, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II raged for 50 days, destroying entire villages and killing tens of thousands of young soldiers.
Yet many Americans have never heard of the Battle for Dukla Pass, a strategic area on the border between Slovakia and Poland.
"All kinds of people in Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia know about it because their sons and daughters were killed in that battle," said Bill Tarkulich, who gave a lecture on Dukla on Saturday at the Pittsburgh chapter of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society in Munhall. "But no Western soldiers at all were there. So we don't know about it."
Tarkulich is not a military analyst or even a historian. "I'm a program manager for Hewlett Packard (in Massachusetts)," he said.
He came across Dukla several years ago while researching his family's background. Tarkulich is Rusyn -- one of the many ethnic groups of Slovakia -- and his family lived in a small village in the northeast section of the country in an area devastated by the long battle.
"Dukla has become my passion," he said.
Tarkulich explained that advancing Russian troops expected to breeze through the pass, storm through a Nazi-occupied Slovakia and advance quickly to Vienna.
They did not know that Germany had brought in reinforcements. They were unaware that the Nazis had disarmed and imprisoned the entire Slovak army corps after learning that its 32,000 soldiers were planning to revolt and aid the Russians.
When the smoke cleared nearly two months later, more than 45,000 people were dead, 918 homes had been razed, and 11 villages were destroyed, Tarkulich said.
"I can't imagine what it was like," he said.
The area is marked by the devastating battle.
One valley near the Slovak town of Svidnik was renamed Dolina smrti, or Valley of Death, and old tanks still dot the countryside. At the pass, several monuments -- including a statue of an elderly woman crying on a soldier's shoulder -- honor those who died.
A statue of two hands handling a disc celebrates the work of mine removers. Tens of thousands of explosives were buried in the region, and to this day livestock step on undetonated mines and are killed, Tarkulich said.
Yesterday marked Tarkulich's third lecture on Dukla, with the first two in New Jersey and Connecticut.
"My motivation was to find out what was really going on in these towns," Tarkulich said. "For example, I talked to a woman who said, 'We dug a hole in the woods and hid for two weeks.'"
He interviewed a soldier who fought in the battle. He told Tarkulich: "Every time I am asked to talk about it, I can't. Because even now it makes me cry."
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