Pavel Döllinger

“I said that this couldn’t go on and I went to České Budějovice to the Communist Party regional committee. I thought I had nothing to lose, we wanted to have the summer camp – we had camped at the same place the year before, so why was it not possible this year? I went to speak directly with the secretary. I told him about the troubles we had with the chairman of the local committee in Kaplice and that we were surprised that he didn’t want to issue us permission to organize our camp. The man asked me where we were from, what we did, and then he said: ´You know, there are many summer camps in the border regions, and many of them claim they are youth clubs, but we know that they are boy scouts.´ I asked him: ´Who are they?´ I didn’t tell him my year of birth was 1949. ´Well, it’s such an organization, they are causing us trouble here all the time.´”

“They didn’t admit our Martina to kindergarten. They wrote that she did not meet some criteria. Interestingly, we were both employed in the education sector. My wife is a teacher and I was also employed at a school. I wrote a letter to that kindergarten’s principal that if they did not admit my daughter, I would find out – and I had the means to do so – whether all the children had really fulfilled the criteria according to that rule. Adding that we both worked in schooling and that I saw no reason why they should not admit my daughter. I threatened them in a way. They eventually admitted her to this kindergarten.”

“Then they asked me whether Owígo was walking naked in front of the boys. I said that he didn’t. Because there were three things the StB police could use to get you: money, politics, or claiming you were a pedophile. There was no other option for the Secret Police. And if they couldn’t find anything on you, then they were persecuting you by all possible means.”

“These were means of education. I feel sorry that today, activities in troops rely rather on the first impressions. The educational aspect is being lost in some troops. A troop’s primary task was to educate. Be it through a summer camp game, it always had to guide them to something. It was not just for the game’s sake, for the lavish costumes. In some of the camps, the purpose of camp games is getting lost.”