"General Svoboda shook our hands and said: 'Girls, I am proud of you all.'”
Eva Kočanová, born Markovičová, was born in 1922 in a Ukrainian family in Transcarpathian Ruthenia. After the Hungarian occupation she emigrated to the USSR, where she was arrested and sentenced to three years for crossing the border illegally. She worked in a forest in Vorkuta and in a labour camp in Moldavia. After the establishment of the 1st Czechoslovak Field Battalion she was released as a Czechoslovak citizen into the army. She served in the anti-aircraft artillery, made the journey from Buzuluk to Slovakia, and participated in the shooting down of 9 planes. At the end of the war she became pregnant, and in the seventh month of her pregnancy she abandoned her fighting unit. After the war she married the father of her child and along with her husband she stayed in Czechoslovakia. The husband served in the army, they moved house often. She did a number of jobs including being a housewife. She keeps contacts with the other veterans until the present day. She holds several decorations.
