Major (ret.) Václav Rubeš

photo: http://www.kpv-praha15.wz.cz/soubory_PDF/Vaclav_Rubes%20.pdf
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Václav Rubeš, by his Scout name Akela, was born on January 29, 1930. He became a Scout in 1938 in Lomnice nad Popelkou and remained a Scout until the forceful dissolution of the organization. At the end of WWII, he became actively engaged in the antifascist resistance movement with the guerilla group “Kozlov”. In June 1945, he completed the mentoring course. He became a Cub-Scout troop leader and later was elected deputy-leader of the Scout organization in Lomnice nad Popelkou. In 1948, he was elected leader of the organization. He held this position until the ban on Scouting. Because he kept entertaining contacts with a group of faithful Scouts even after Scouting had been banned, he was investigated by the secret state police (StB) for suspected subversive activities. He was subjected to a number of interrogations and the police agents also searched his home and confiscated many of his Scout items and most importantly, the books from his Scout library. In the end of the 1950s, he was repeatedly investigated and subsequently dismissed from service as an officer of the Czechoslovak Socialist Peoples’ Army. In March 1968, he began to organize the reconstitution of the Scout in Ružomberok and was elected district Scout leader. On March 11, 1968, he was elected regional Scout leader of the Podtatranská region. However, for holding this position he had to leave his job. Moreover, persecutions for the whole family were to become their daily reality until 1989, when he again stood at the forefront of the reconstitution of the Scout in Ružomberok, Liptovský Mikuláš and Slovakia in general. He was elected district leader and instructor of the forest school. At the 4th assembly of Slovak Scouts on 22 February 1997, he was elected leader of the SLSK and the delegates of the 5th assembly chose him as the leader of the Slovak Scout organization. On February 22, 1997, after many years of preparations, he inaugurated a museum of Scouting in Ružomberok and became its curator. In 2003, he initiated the creation of the Scout University which has been since offering systematic education to Rover and Old-Scout students (the text has been taken over and edited from the publication Václav Rubeš: “They were there”, published by the Scout Museum in Ružomberok, 2008, page 7).