Ing. Jan Rabiňák

"Those boys probably saw it mainly as holiday fun, an adventure they experienced freely even under the communists. Of course, for us leaders and their parents, it was also about them experiencing a group of believing friends, a Christian environment even in a time when that was not officially possible. The purpose was mainly to strengthen the boys' faith and in Christianity. It was to be their own decision, not something their parents decided for them. It was to be something the boys wanted for themselves. Like discussing things that they might not be able to talk about in their usual environment. And for them to be able to address God naturally where they were, like in the woods, in the wild. The idea was to bring the faith to the boys in their environment. I guess that was the main point. Of course, for us as leaders, that purpose was clear, but it was also something that we enjoyed, that we liked - also because the environment was nice, it was a lot of fun. It wasn't just some kind of 'doing good' - it was also our fun, and we were grateful for that. This way, looking back, people speak about no freedom under the communists. But if you weren't afraid, you could live freely even then. Especially if you didn't ask them too many questions about what you could or couldn't do, and did what you saw fit. Such as meeting Christian youth. So it was actually a gift for us, the organizers."

"That was done secretly of course. The basic point right from the get go was safety: what you can do, what you can't do. If we were walking around somewhere close to or within any settlement, we couldn't go all at once. You had to walk in twos or threes so nobody would notice a big gang. It was quite hilarious. I was told later that a priest gathered a group like that at the rectory, about fifteen of them. The rectory was right in the town square, so when they walked out, they would go in twos or threes. Then the neighbor said, 'You must have an awful lot of of people in there.' She didn't count but she thought there were forty or fifty people. There were less than twenty, but it gave that impression with twos and threes walking out every time. So it didn't always have the right effect. But security had to be taken care of. There was also an instruction on how people should speak if the StB came upon them. What you could say and especially what you couldn't say. There were these rules that were always said: you should never mention these holidays to your friends or classmates. I never talked about it. Not only that - don't even mention it to friends in the house or in the neighborhood. Should the StB crack down on somebody, sniffed somebody out, we were supposed to say there was no praying and nothing Christian was going on. And if a priest was present, to pretend you never knew he was a priest and no mass had been held. And it worked. I was never interrogated like that, but some of the guys were."