Lubomír Vávra

* 1935

  • “We didn’t do particularly well during the war. We had all sorts of, there were extras, coupons, well, we had coupons for which we could get salami, or, all the goods, and those were coupons we would cut with scissors. And our parents went to exchange them for shoes, clothes were rationed too, as were all groceries. That was simply the way it was. And that food was not too good either, because, we had synthetic honey which was so thick that it had to be cut up. We had synthetic jams which had to be cut in slices as well. And everything was sort of bad, because I had, I grew ulcers on my back due to malnutrition. But, I survived and I’m here even now.”

  • “And then I had this experience, a stupid one, but it was good too. I had a camera, and that camera, you probably wouldn’t know it, it was a Fokaflex, a bakelite potato, you can imagine the quality. So I took it along with me so that I could make some pics, and my bike, and as I arrived at night, because that car would go for fifty kilometres, not more, it used a hundred litres for hundred kilometres so it was awful. So, I arrived there, parked it at a designated place at the barracks and went to bed. Our commander was a Russian, a Russian colonel who was assigned to our unit and he was curious so in the morning, he went there and saw my bicycle and the camera there and he thought straight away that I was a spy. Thank god there was a corporal with him who did some photography and who explained that with that sort of camera, I cannot do any espionage at all.”

  • “My first trip, for the first time I went there on my own, at the beginning, I made the first two or three trips on my own so I had studied a map of Berlin. At the borders, it was all the same, all the checks. On the way there, it was okay, just on paper, but on the border with Berlin, I mean, between East Germany and West Berlin, it was much worse, there were person searches, even when I went there, I don’t even mention the way back. And at our borders, it was the same. But the stuff we brought, thank God that we could go by car after some time. Sister helped a lot in all the things, she was aware that I organised my dad’s burial and so on and so on. So we would always bring goods not available here and to be frank, what was available? Almost nothing. So we would bring all sorts of things and later when we had children, even more so, the car would be quite overloaded.”

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Scouting was my life

Lubomír Vávra at the time of his army service (1954-1956)
Lubomír Vávra at the time of his army service (1954-1956)
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Lubomír Vávra was born on the 12th of September in 1935 in Prague but he spent all his life in Přelouč. His early childhood was under strong influence of his growing up in the Protectorate. His father worked in the army truck factory and communicated with Germans. After the war, it was seen as questionable and as a punishment, he had to work on the memorial to the Soviet army. Lubomír was very active scout between 1945 – 1950 and he participated in several summer camps. He taught his children and grandchildren to enjoy scouting and nature. After the Velvet Revolution, he was among the first to renew the Junák/scout organisation and went on to organise scouts’ summer camps.