My message to the Scouts is: Stay Clean!
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Ing. Lumír Čermák, by his Scout nickname Kanár (Canary), was born on August 24, 1923, in Orlová. His father worked as a bureaucrat in the black-coal mines in Orlová-Lazy. Lumír Čermák had two brothers. His brother Květoň became a professor at the University of Technology in Brno and became occupied with forestry. Lumír Čermák originates in a Sokol family but in 1934, he also joined the Scouts in Orlová. He gradually became fully consumed by Scouting. In 1937, he became a mentor of the chamois troop. Before Munich, Kanár joined the civil air defense. After the annexation of Těšínsko by the Poles in October 1938, Mr. Čermák’s family was spared the usual fate of forced deportation, because his father was indispensable to the Poles as he knew perfectly the map archives of all the coal mines of Orlová-Lazy. During the Polish occupation of Těšínsko, Kanár refused to attend the Polish grammar school and was posted to the OPL - Obrona przeciwlotnicza. After the occupation of Těšínsko by the Germans, Lumír Čermák studied at a grammar school for refugees in Ostrava-Přívoz and for a short time became a member of an illegal scout troop operating under the umbrella of the Czech Tourist Club (KČT). After his graduation in 1943, he was called to service in the anti-aircraft police unit in Ostrava and the paramedics. He witnessed the liberation of Orlová in which he actively participated himself. After the liberation, he briefly served in the national security guard. After the war, he founded a Scout Center in Orlová and his future wife Jiřina helped him by leading the girl troops. He began his studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (ČVUT) with a focus on water management. In 1947, he joined the Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1970. After the third renewal of the Scout, Kanár became the secretary of the ORJ Ostrava. His research is dedicated to the Silesian revolt and the story of Ivančena. In 1999, he was finally admitted to the honorary Svojsík troop, the Silesian entourage of Petr Bezruč.
