Alfréd Schubert

“One day Jack hinted mysteriously that he had something very interesting for me. I had to promise him I wouldn’t tell a word to anyone. When I promised that and we shook hands, he told me to come to Peace Square on Thursday, that he’d take me somewhere. We went to the number sixteen [tram] terminus at Zlíchov, where they still have a shipyard to this day. Back then the sign still read Sokol Shipyard, but soon afterwards it was renamed to SU [sports union] Stalingrad. We crossed over a small bridge and entered a wooden building. There were all sorts of boats on the ground floor and club rooms on the first floor. I suddenly found myself at the meeting of a Scout troop, which something amazing to me, I couldn’t imagine that there were still some Scout troops in existence. I had read about them in books, but I hadn’t dared dream that I myself could belong to a Scout troop. Jack introduced me, saying I was his good friend. It was a water troop, and so he presented me to the captain, who was nicknamed Windy. His name was Karel Vinecký. I don’t remember how Windy [used to] start the meeting, he would usually recall the anniversary of some interesting event. Then we played various Scout games, we learnt the Scout Law, and prepared for expeditions. When it was said there’d be an expedition, say he’d only signal by Morse code where we’d meet up. It was somehow understood as a matter of course that we mustn’t speak about it anywhere. It was taken for granted, that’s how much Windy trusted us. I think he didn’t even emphasise much that the activity was illegal.”

“All four of us arrived by bus to the Black Sea, to Burgas, which was crowded with tourists. We didn’t like there one bit. We decided to have a look further south, we found on the map that there aren’t any summer resorts there, but mountains instead. We hitched a ride to a village which was still quite a long way from the Turkish border. We met up and went to the local shop to buy some food before setting off into the mountains. We did our shopping, but there was no going outside. The door was locked, and the locals had already called the police that there were suspicious foreigners there. I guess the border guards there had their informers just like our ones did. They started asking us what we were looking for, why weren’t we on the beaches by the sea like all the other tourists, why were we headed in the direction of Turkey - and they insinuated that we had wanted to cross the border. They took us back to Burgas, where they kept us at the police station and gradually took for questioning one by one. We each had to say separately where we’d come from, who we’d come with, why we’d been going to the mountains by the Turkish border, if we hadn’t wanted to go to Turkey, and so on. We sat in an inhospitable room for a long time, with various Communist posters around us. Perhaps we had some food to eat, but we certainly didn’t feel comfortable there. In the end they told us we would be deported from Bulgaria.”