The founding of the Boy Scout brigade after the war

“It was taken for granted that we joined in 1945 as the founding members of the pre-war Boy Scout. A lot of people came together in Nová Paka because there was a huge boom of Scouting here. Thanks to the pre-war Scouts we also had a solid material background, for example six chalets that previously belonged to the Germans. We took them apart and assembled them again at our camp underneath the cliffs. That was a very nice base for our Scouting activities. We spent a lot of time there. Our brigade was called ‘Sopka’ (Volcano – note by the translator). The name was derived from the nearby Volcano and also from the vigor which was omnipresent after 1945.”

• A political prisoner born on 12 April, 1932, in Heřmanice near Nová Paka.
• Formed an illegal Boy Scout brigade with his friends during the war.
• After the war, the Scouts in Nová Paka had to confront a leftist youth group close to the Communists.
• Got involved in illegal activities of the Scouts in Nová Paka after February 1948.
• Arrested by the secret state police on 5 June, 1954, while he was on his compulsory military training.
• Was part of a ten-member group tried for espionage, sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
• Served most of his term in Mírov and Leopoldov, where he witnessed a notorious hunger strike.
• Released after the so-called ‘May amnesty’ in 1960.
• Worked as a construction worker thereafter.
• Became a member of the K 231 and helped with the re-establishment of the Boy Scout in 1968.
• Kept manuscripts and other material for Škvorecký’s publishing house ‘68 Publishers’ at his place during the so-called ‘Normalisation’.
• Became active in the Nová Paka KPV and the Boy Scout organization there after 1989.
• In 2008 his son discovered archival material of the K 231 in Nová Paka that had been hidden for decades.
• Is one of the founders of the brigade of honor of Velen Fanderlík.