Jaroslav Čvančara

* 1948

  • “Back then I didn’t even know if Foglar was still alive or not. I thought he was either in prison or had emigrated because every decent person seemed to be either in prison or out of the country, not to mention a person whom I had idolized - as a seven foot tall Rikitan, someone simply the best. My daddy somehow managed to get me Foglar’s address. This was in 1960. For several months I went there two or three times a week just wishfully thinking I might encounter Foglar himself. I knew he lived on the third floor but no one ever answered the door bell. One day – after the summer holiday - someone finally opened the door. It was his mother, Mrs. Foglar. She was very kind to me and told me to come back in two weeks. So I came back after two weeks and this time it was Foglar himself who opened the door. He was only a little bit taller than me, not exactly the seven foot tall Rikitan I imagined him to be. So I finally saw Foglar, around fifty years old at that time, basically an old man for me. But he was nice, he took me inside, showed me his room, signed a book I had brought with me and we naturally started to talk right away. In the end, he completely shocked me when he told me that the tourist troop Dvojka did actually exist and he even invited me to visit their clubroom. In a month, he wrote me a letter with instructions how to get there. Since I had to wait in Radlice for one of the members to pick me up, it really felt like I was going to some secret hideout. It sounded of conspiracy which I liked immensely”

  • “In March 1939, my parents’ rental shop was raided by the Germans with the help of the Gestapo. They moved in for about three days and confiscated most of my parents’ hard work. The films ended up in their archives in Germany and to this day no one has returned an inch of the tape. It happened again after 1948 when the Communists destroyed everything my father had managed to put together after the war. The Communists were even worse because they constantly harassed my parents, interrogating my father all the time and arresting him for a day or two every now and then. My brother was in prison for two years.”

  • ”Growing up in Žižkov meant that one of the most frequent topics of home conversation used to be the time of the war and the time of persecution that followed Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination in 1942. Especially since our relatives lived in Biskupcova Street where some of the supporters of the paratroopers had lived during the war. We also had a book called ‘Shadow Behind Heydrich’ written by Andrejs. As I grew older I started to be interested in these things more and more. After reading the book again, many questions emerged. For example, why and how were our three relatives shot during the Heydrich terror. One day I met the author of the book and he warned me that the interest in this subject could be like a drug and that it would never let me go again. Of course he was right. I don’t regret it though. I have met many great people who were arrested or otherwise oppressed during the old regime and I have learnt a lot about their lives. I also got to know several people whom I admired at first but later found them to be dangerous confidents working for the Gestapo or the StB. However, back then I was naive and only had a vague idea about how things worked back then. It all revealed itself to me little by little as I dug deeper and deeper into the matter. I managed to get access to amazing archives, German, British, ours and many others.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 05.03.2012

    (audio)
    duration: 01:32:17
    media recorded in project A Century of Boy Scouts
  • 2

    Praha, 01.04.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 42:27
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Your words can conceal whatever you want but your deeds will reveal you.

Jáček.jpg (historic)
Jaroslav Čvančara
photo: Jaroslav Čvančara

Jaroslav Čvančara was born on November 20, 1948, in Prague. His parents worked in the film industry. They founded a film rental company and later also ran several cinemas. During the Second World War, their films were confiscated by the Germans and after 1948 their business was hampered again by the rise to power of the Communist party. Jaroslav grew up with three siblings. In 1958 he was completely shattered when his brother František was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. At that time, Jaroslav was an avid reader of Foglar’s books and wanted to become a scout.  In 1960 he managed to find out where Foglar lived and met his idolized scout leader. “The Hawk” accepted Jaroslav to his tourist troop. Jaroslav, called Jáček, was a member of the troop until 1967. During adolescence he started to engage in tramping and music. He learned to play the banjo and started a band. As he came from a “problematic” family, he wasn’t allowed to study at a film school and was oblidged to serve two years in the military. In 1970, after he returned from the military service, he put his band back together - they called themselves “The Taxmen”. He finished his studies at the Pedagogical high school and worked at the Technical high school in Prague for 35 years. In 1991, he issued his first publication Operation Assassination. After that he published the trilogy Life for Someone, Death for Another One 1939-1945. His next book was about his band: Taxmen or the Quest for the Country Grail. For several years he has been employed at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and he still performs with the Taxmen.