Zdeněk Streubel

“I remember a famous sentence of the education minister Zdeněk Nejedlý: ‘I cannot imagine the Czechoslovak youth without Scouts.’ And two months later they banned Scouting.”

“They didn’t want to let him go to the camp, they were afraid that he might be an undesirable influence. They also thought that he might escape over the borders. In their youthful naivety they decided to go see the party secretary in Broumov. They persuaded him and he used his influence to make sure Roger was allowed to go with them.”

“What would I tell them? That they should go into it with the same enthusiasm we did, with that Scout kind of purity, upholding all the Scouting principles and laws, and that they should get to know nature and to enjoy it as we did, because the moments at the Scout camps were the most beautiful we ever experienced. I personally also think fondly of the times with the Young Herald Club, during the war while everything was going bad, we were sitting in our club room and living that wonderful Scouting life. The most beautiful thing is to uphold those Scouting principles, because in this world were people lie to each other so much and do not behave nicely, those Scout ideals are something that should be renewed, that should be upheld.”