Jaroslav Kacálek

* 1931

  • "We kept night watches in the camp. One night I kept the watch and there was a thunderstorm with lightning. There was a wooden post there, and with the lightning coming from all directions, that post suddenly started moving. I was fourteen at that time! I went to wake up our leader Panenka, Láďa Teplý. Together we went to see what it was, and we found that there was no strange person standing there, but a mere fencepost!!!"

  • "Our friendship lived on, we continued to go on the trips anyway, just like Scouts. The boys from the next generation of Scouts had a lodge, called Golden Arrow, in Spělkov, eighteen kilometres from here [from Polička], which they built themselves. We used to go to this lodge. The friendship has survived with a handful of people. Later I married there."

  • "In 1945 we went to a harvest camp in Badín. After the Germans had left, there was nobody to work on the farm at harvest time. The entire troop from Polička was sent there. We set up our tents and stayed there and helped the farmers with field work during the harvest."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Polička, 04.10.2011

    (audio)
    délka: 01:01:18
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu A Century of Boy Scouts
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Take the apples from the tree, but don’t break its branches

Jaroslav Kacálek
Jaroslav Kacálek

Jaroslav Kacálek, nicknamed Ká, was one of the people who helped to revive the scouting movement in Polička after WWII. From 1945-1948 he participated in three Boy Scout camps, one of which was held on the estate of Count Belcredi in Jimramov. As a Scout official and troop leader, he had to surrender the Scouts´ property to the Socialist Youth Union after the ban of the scouting movement in 1948. He worked as a car mechanic. In 1968 and 1989 he was not directly involved in the restoration of scouting, but he has kept in touch with his scouting friends and followed their camps and other activities.