Pavel Döllinger

“Then they asked me whether Owígo was walking naked in front of the boys. I said that he didn’t. Because there were three things the StB police could use to get you: money, politics, or claiming you were a pedophile. There was no other option for the Secret Police. And if they couldn’t find anything on you, then they were persecuting you by all possible means.”

“They didn’t admit our Martina to kindergarten. They wrote that she did not meet some criteria. Interestingly, we were both employed in the education sector. My wife is a teacher and I was also employed at a school. I wrote a letter to that kindergarten’s principal that if they did not admit my daughter, I would find out – and I had the means to do so – whether all the children had really fulfilled the criteria according to that rule. Adding that we both worked in schooling and that I saw no reason why they should not admit my daughter. I threatened them in a way. They eventually admitted her to this kindergarten.”

“These were means of education. I feel sorry that today, activities in troops rely rather on the first impressions. The educational aspect is being lost in some troops. A troop’s primary task was to educate. Be it through a summer camp game, it always had to guide them to something. It was not just for the game’s sake, for the lavish costumes. In some of the camps, the purpose of camp games is getting lost.”

“If you look at the ČIN magazines, the content reflects upon the period of 1970 through 1989. Then there was a pamphlet called Fleur-de-lis Behind Barbed Wire, dealing with stories of individuals who had been political prisoners, those who had experience with communist prisons. We were distributing it to leaders in order to show them what scouting should be, what its objectives were. It was intended for these new young leaders, to explain to them what it was about. Because in 1989 many of them came from Pionýr (communist organization for youth – transl.’s note), from the sports union, or from Svazarm (army sports union). And during this period of the past twenty years every troop did what they wanted and they thought nobody was doing it better.”