A History of Central Eastern Europe

offensive commenced with the 1 st Ukranian and 1 st Czecho-Slovak Army Corps to penetrate
Slovakia by crossing the Eastern Carpathian Mountains. 19 20 By the 19 th of September the
first trains full of German voluntary evacuees left eastern Slovakia. This voluntary
evacuation became mandatory on 27 October under orders from Berlin; more than
100,000 Germans fled in 6 months. Members of the 1 st Czecho-Slovak Army Corps entered
Slovakia through the Dukla Pass in Eastern Slovakia on October 6 th . Ultimately
unsuccessful after 2 months of fighting, 4,000 of the Corps were killed and 15,000 sent to
concentration camps. The majority of the POWs were released in November 1944.
Spišská Stará Ves
A few notes on the village before
moving on to its houses of worship and then
to other towns. Most of the customs,
traditions, celebrations and even clothing
styles have already been discussed in the
family biography you got a few years back –
it’s intermingled in the KUTARÑA family
biographies. Today the town consists of 2, or
in some places 3, streets that run parallel to
the main highway (Route 542). Most of the
buildings standing have been built within the last 70 to 100 years however a few older homes
remain. The Hotel Cyprian is considered to be nice, having 33 rooms, a restaurant and a bar
on the top floor. It serves tourists in the summer and those interested in snow sports in the
winter. The hotel is named after the
18 th c flying Monk Cyprian. A recent
visitor reports that the town …
… maintains its Old World
charm. Early in the morning,
you can hear the church bells
ringing and after they stop,
you hear the cowbells ringing
as the farmers walk their
herds past the hotel to take
them to pasture. It seems that
about every third cow has a
bell around its neck.
From our cousin Kathleen who visited SPIŠSKÁ STARÁ VES in 2000:
The next day I drove to SSV. It was an interesting drive, because, as you know, the
area is mountainous, so one drives up or down the river valleys, rather than as the crow
flies. The mountain villages look like open-air museums, but are living, working places
still. Spišská SV is another of the same. On entering, I found the graveyard, AND
there were three (or more?) tombstones with Kutarna or Kutarnova names. 21
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