Štefan Šteflovič

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Štefan Šteflovič was born on 12 November 1921 in Kochanovce, now part of Adamovské Kochanovce, Slovakia. Trained as a machinist, he was called into the Slovak Army in April 1942. Serving with the Rapid Division, he worked as a military driver on the Eastern Front, including at Rostov-on-Don and in the Caucasus.

While stationed in Odesa, he began cooperating with the local underground resistance at Christmas 1943, gathering information about military units and their equipment. Arrested after hiding to avoid his unit’s withdrawal to Romania, he escaped from confinement and remained concealed until the city’s liberation in April 1944.

Šteflovič subsequently joined the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union, serving with the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade and later the 3rd Independent Brigade. During the Carpathian–Dukla Offensive in 1944, he took command of 2nd Company, 5th Battalion, 3rd Brigade after its commander was wounded. He subsequently suffered a serious leg wound himself. Following hospital treatment, he served with a unit collecting captured military equipment in Dobšiná until the war’s end.

After the war, he studied mechanical engineering and became a technical-school teacher in Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Slovakia. On his 100th birthday in 2021, he received the Order of Ľudovít Štúr, Second Class, military division. He died on 9 July 2023, aged 101.