Ludvík Rapan

Ludvík Rapan was born in 1921 in the Slovak village of Dlhé Pole near Žilina. He was serving his apprenticeship as a locksmith in East Bohemia, when he learned the news about the breakup of Czechoslovakia. After a short stay in Slovakia, he worked in Germany and later in Austria. In 1942, he was conscripted to the Slovak army. He went through training for a telegraph operator and in 1943 he was sent to the Eastern Front. He ended up in Soviet captivity, where he contracted typhus fever. After he completed parachute training, he served in the 2nd Czechoslovak Parachute Brigade. As a member of the brigade, he shortly engaged in fighting in the Carpathian Mountains. After the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising, he joined the 1st Czechoslovak Air-Force Division and served as a flight gunner mainly in North Moravia. After the war, Mr. Rapan left the army and worked as a telegraph operator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior.

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