Professor, Ing., CSc. Otakar Kurka

“That was when I was attempting to pass the ´Beaver (Scout Badge) of Courage.´ Our task was to leave the camp at midnight and walk for about a kilometer along the Kamenice River and reach the Valley Mill – which was still a working mill – and to pull a handle and start the mill-wheel at night, and leave it turning for several minutes and then pull again in order to stop it: the noise could be heard as far as in the camp, and it was a signal for them that the badge candidate had come all the way to the mill. But it was a horror. When you got there and started the water wheel, bats and rats and owls and what not flew out of there, and it was a horror, really.”