autumn 1944 – late January 1945 The uprising, the Germans and the frontPovstanie, Nemci a front

The Slovak National Uprising began on 29 August 1944 and German troops occupied the country to crush it; the fighting in the Spiš was a matter of partisan groups in the hills rather than a front line. The Carpathian Germans of the Spiš, settled here since the thirteenth century, were evacuated by the German authorities ahead of the Red Army in the winter of 1944–45, and those who came back were expelled under the post-war decrees. The front itself came up the Hornád from Košice, which fell on 19 January 1945, and reached the towns of this valley in the last days of that month. Seven hundred years of German Spiš ended in a few weeks.Slovenské národné povstanie sa začalo 29. augusta 1944 a nemecké vojská obsadili krajinu, aby ho potlačili; boje na Spiši boli skôr vecou partizánskych skupín v horách než súvislého frontu. Karpatských Nemcov zo Spiša, usadených tu od 13. storočia, evakuovali nemecké úrady pred Červenou armádou v zime 1944 – 1945 a tí, čo sa vrátili, boli odsunutí podľa povojnových dekrétov. Samotný front postupoval Hornádom od Košíc, ktoré padli 19. januára 1945, a k mestám tejto doliny dorazil v posledných dňoch toho mesiaca. Sedemsto rokov nemeckého Spiša sa skončilo za pár týždňov.