“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.”
Otakar Kurka, Oťas by his Boy Scout nickname, was born February 17, 1931 in Stodůlky and he became a Cub Scout in the local troop when he was six year old. In 1945 the family moved to Děčín, where Oťas and his brother joined the 2nd Děčín troop shortly after. They participated in several summer camps with this troop. Otakar’s activity in Scouting came to an end after the second ban on the Boy Scout movement, but his ideals and friends have remained. He is a professor at the University of Defence in Brno.
