Adolf Socher

* 1933

  • “I got [in touch with] Jirka Fiala who said that the illegal 46th troop existed. Mirek Pergler, aka Dany, oversaw it back then. It was such a great troop which had... We were at a camp in Jeseníky already in 1950 and I was the leader of cub scouts who were mainly brothers of those older boys or some recommended boys. We lived in Idahita, it was such a wonderful camp!”

  • “When our camp leaders were at the camp on 21 August 1952, some men came to check it and they were cordial. They turned out to be the State Security officers because one of the leaders was a student of Medicine and was in the troop, and that is why his mother made him report that they were scouts (because) otherwise they would expel him from the studies etc. So, he, when we were in the mountains in winter, it was the four of us - Dany, by his name engineer Miroslav Pergler, was there as the leader of the troop and he was there as a student, and he played the guitar beautifully every night. He kept on playing: ‘Life is just a coincidence, once you're down, once you're up,’ and we did not realize that he had already reported us. They imprisoned Dany, he was sentenced to five years for scouting, and he spent two and a half years in prison. I will have some photos later, so I can continue. And because he had a German Parabellum-Pistol which he used to bring with him to the camps in case something happened, Gaučík [the student who reported them] knew about it and he said that it was hidden somewhere. When they tortured Dany, they had no choice but to believe that someone had hidden it, so he reported it. They came to see me in the hospital, thanks to the doctor - she did not allow them to take me away, so my mom would always go there, and they would run through the park to get there before her. I had three or four interrogations.”

  • “Alois was in the French bank in 1939 when it started to be dangerous and when the Germans came, he tried to escape through Poland. Our Polish brothers caught and arrested him. He spent some time in prison over there and they were deciding whether to let him enter France or whether to return him to Czechoslovakia. Of course, they chose Czechoslovakia, so he was in Pankrac prison from 1939 and then in several concentration camps and then he ended up in Dachau. In 1942, my aunt got a telegram saying that he had died of pneumonia. Gestapo came to our house within two days. They chased me out of bed and searched the whole flat. When they went away my dad rubbed his hands and said: ‘You do not look for dead people.‘ We got to know after the war that he and another person worked in a quarry and that both escaped. His leg was hurt and that is all. We do not know if they shot him dead when escaping or if he just died, we do not know.”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 06.12.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:41:09
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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    Praha, 20.12.2022

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    délka: 01:07:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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Scouting gives a person morals, a sense of security in life and friends

Adolf Socher in 1956
Adolf Socher in 1956
zdroj: witness´s archive

Adolf Socher was born on 15 March 1933 in Prague where he spent the Second World War. He experienced the Prague uprising during which he helped to build barricades as a twelve-year-old. After the war, he became a member of the 16th Water Junak troop. He soon transferred to the 33rd boy troop under the Scout Centre Dvojka Prague. After 1948, when the communists suppressed Junak and incorporated it into the Czechoslovak Socialist Youth Union, he began to participate in the secret 46th Troop, whose members scouted despite the ban of the state authorities. He was interrogated by State Security because of a denunciation in 1952. His friend and troop leader Miroslav Pergler aka Dany got imprisoned. Adolf Socher found a refuge in the canoeing club of the Spoje Prague Sports Union, where he educated his charges in the scout spirit. He worked at Plastimat company in the 1950s, he later found a job in gasworks in the supply department where he worked until his retirement. He got married to Milada Kopecká in 1964. He participated in the restoration of Junak in 1968. Under Psohlavci Centre, he helped to prepare the Svojsik race in 1969. He got back to the canoeing club after Junak was suppressed again. When the communist regime fell in 1989, he took part in the third restoration of Junak. In 2022 he was still meeting with his friends from the 46th Old Scouts Club at the Dvojka Centre in Prague. He lived in Prague in 2022.