1944–1945 The Uprising, the winter, and the frontPovstanie, zima a front

The Slovak National Uprising began on 29 August 1944 and was directed from Banská Bystrica; Orava lay on its northern edge. German units moved into the valley that autumn, the open insurgent territory was crushed at the end of October, and what went on here through the winter was partisan war in the forests, with reprisals against villages thought to be feeding it. The front reached the upper Orava at the end of March 1945: at Trstená, up this same railway, German soldiers burned 75 houses as they pulled back. Podbiel keeps no separate written record of its own dead or its own partisans, which is itself worth saying — a village can be inside a war for six months and leave almost nothing on paper.Slovenské národné povstanie sa začalo 29. augusta 1944 a riadilo sa z Banskej Bystrice; Orava ležala na jeho severnom okraji. Nemecké jednotky vstúpili do doliny na jeseň, koncom októbra padlo súvislé povstalecké územie a to, čo tu pokračovalo cez zimu, bola partizánska vojna v lesoch spolu s odvetnými akciami proti dedinám, o ktorých sa predpokladalo, že ju živia. Front dorazil na hornú Oravu koncom marca 1945: v Trstenej, na tej istej trati, nemeckí vojaci pri ústupe vypálili 75 domov. Podbiel si nevedie vlastný písomný záznam o svojich mŕtvych ani o svojich partizánoch, čo samo osebe stojí za zmienku — dedina môže byť pol roka vnútri vojny a nezanechať po nej takmer nič na papieri.