Antonín Holub

“One day we went on a trip with our Boy Scout troop, hiking through Studeněves, Řisuty, and Malíkovice. After we walked through Malíkovice, we reached a beautiful meadow with a small brook; the Křivoklát forests were spreading beyond. We liked the place so much. There were about twelve of us Boy Scouts, each of us had a quarter of a tent canvas (at that time it was customary for each camper to carry a triangle-shaped part of the tent, and four of these triangles were then joined with hooks to make one tent. - ed.’s note). We built four tents, it was no luxury, though. We slept on the ground under the tent canvas. And since we liked the place, we began going there more often. One morning, while it was still dark, we opened our tent, and there was a dog standing out there. We looked up, and we saw a gamekeeper with a rifle standing behind the dog. We got out of the tent, and the gamekeeper said: ´Well, boys, who gave you permission to camp here? Do you realize that this forest is a private property and that I’m the gamekeeper here? I can order you to leave immediately. But I won’t do it, for I can see you here. After you leave I will come back to check the place and the state you leave it in. And when you return next time, just stop by in my lodge in Malíkovice.´ I still remember his name, Mr. Staněk. At the beginning, we were going to this place near Malíkovice on Fridays, but later we began going on Saturdays, because some of us had to work Saturdays, too. We would always call on the gamekeeper in his lodge, and he was content with our conduct in the forest, he always said that we enjoyed great reputation with him. The troop was growing in numbers, then there were about twenty of us now, and when we were passing through villages, local boys were following us. In the evenings we would sit around the campfire and sing and roast sausages. Since we lit the campfires lit after dark, parents would often come to accompany their children there. Scouting was on the rise in the region of Slaný. Eight boys founded their own troop in Řisuty, under the leader ship of Karel Král, a bagmaker from Slaný.”

“Since our troops already had more members, we began building clubhouses. They were located where the open-air cinema is now in Slaný. There was a nice place with spruce trees in the corner, and we constructed two lodges there by ourselves. Our troops had more members than the local Sokol organization, and boys from Prague were coming here, too. Richard Jindra, the director of health insurance company in Slaný, served as the regional chief. I was the leader’s deputy. Later, more young boys with interest in Scouting began coming, and so I was appointed the leader of a Cub Scout pack. There were some fourteen boys in my troop. I recall Tonda Bosák, Honza Zmatlík, Petr Dražan, Miloš Matějka… The Matějka family lived on the town square, and they owned a soap-maker’s shop. Little Miloš was their only child, a little on the podgy side, and he would come from home equipped with a rucksack full of sausages for friends. Mr. Matějka would always come to me and say: ´I hope Milošek behaves properly.´ At the beginning of June 1940, the Gestapo from Kladno searched our clubhouses Na Hájích, and the activities of Junák (name used for the Boy Scout organization in Czechoslovakia - transl.’s note) became banned as of that day by the Gestapo’s order. The Boy Scouts decided to work illegally. They formed an illegal group called Blue Circle led by Antonín Rosenkranz. In 1942, while I was doing forced labour in Germany, I kept in touch with Standa Červený through letter-writing. Only after the war I learnt that he had been a member of this illegal organization. In his letters, he was asking me what I was doing and where, and I was answering him in my letters, and thus providing information for the Blue Circle. (Note: the Boy Scout troop Roveři from Slaný worked under the leadership of Antonín Rosenkranz for the organization Blue Circle from 1940 till the end of the war. This organization was linked to the Intelligence Brigade, which was sending reports about the situation in Germany to England. Its members were decorated with the Junák Cross “For the Homeland 1939-45” after the war). After our country became occupied by the Germans, our Protectorate government, in order to help bear the burden for the Germans, gave the entire population born in 1920 at their disposal to be sent for conscripted work to Germany.”