Jaroslav Šebek

* 1955

  • “We may have been in tears from all the anger. We were young, full of optimism, wanted to do it. So we carried on. Junák was dissolved and our division came to an agreement at the Christmas meeting that it would cease activities which it did. We shared our things, some documents were made. We split up. But even before we weren’t able to get to our clubhouse. They didn’t want to get it open for us because it was in the Boleslav distillery. There was a gatehouse through which we had to pass. And probably the director of the factory gave an instruction not to let us in because they were already handing the possessions to the Pionýr. We were angry about it and so a couple of us decided to carry on scouting. We even published the magazine Junáček. We didn’t have too many ideas, it was all inside us. We even called our club Psohlavci [Dogheads] and as an enblem used part of what Svojsík had Mikoláš Aleš draw for him. So we edited it to get an emblem. And we ran the scout on our own.”

  • “Obviously, to show some loyalty, we took part in the 1 May march. This is where it begun. It was 1 May 1985 and we marched in our uniforms. On top of it we wore green scarves. And we walked with the march through what was called the Heroes of Socialist Work Square. Amazing name. There was a platform there with all those comrades. This is where the march stopped. We also stopped, around thirty of us. We all looked alike and there was no one else like us there except for the nurses-to-be. Suddenly a guy ran in from the sidewalk. He burst into us and began shouting: ‘Scouts, hooray, scouts!’ Immediately, two policemen dragged him back into the crowd so we don’t know what followed. I said: ‘This will be trouble.’”

  • “My newspaper activities in the scout brought me to the secret police – we publish the magazine Kim. It has been published for thirty-four years without a break, it is our division’s chronicle. Back then, I was spending time with Foglar so I had plenty of materials. Today they are known to the public but back then we included excerpts from chronicles, his remarks, photos, etc., and people were interested. What is more, I had the written series, stories. I compiled the story book Jestřábe, vypravuj. I have to humbly say that I made up this title. And so I put various things from Foglar into the Kim magazine. The boys brought it home and perhaps their parents read it even more than the kids. The opportunities for copying were lousy back then. Someone brought it to the prison in Boleslav - a warden. There they had a copy machine. And he photocopied Foglar’s stories, and they spread around until it got into the hands of certain Mr. Černý, the head of the prison. He found it weird so he brought it to the secret police.”

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A couple of us scouts made a pledge never to join the Pionýr

Jaroslav Šebek, 2016
Jaroslav Šebek, 2016
zdroj: autoři natáčení

Jaroslav Šebek was born on 11 March 1955 in Vejprty. He grew up in Lomnice nad Popelkou and later in Mladá Boleslav. When in 1968 the scout organization Junák resumed activities, he joined its water unit and ever since goes by the nickname Bubla. In 1970 Junák was banned but that didn‘t preventing him from joining his friends at summer camps. They published the Junáček magazine and secretly continued to follow scout thoughts. In 1983 he was one of the founders of the Young Environmentalists which officially operated under the patronage of the Pionýr organization in Mladá Boleslav but functioned according to scout principles. Because of hit he faced problems and was interrogated by the secret police. He became a colleague of Jaroslav Foglar, whose books he transcribed, secretly spread around and also helped ensure their official publication. He worked in Škoda Mladá Boleslav as the head of the company firemen and later in the automation department.