Věra Janovská

* 1929

  • “That was quite brave of us, because in 1948 and 1949 there was a lot of people crossing the borders illegally, and the borderline was thus closely watched. We were four girls, and I wonder that our parents even allowed us to go on this trip. We experienced something there: we were picking blueberries at a place where we were not allowed to go, but there were the biggest blueberries. One day we met some guy there and he said: ‘You are picking blueberries here? I know a better place that I could show you.’ We said: ‘Yeah? And where is it?’ ‘I will come for you at five o’clock in the morning and I take you there.’ We agreed. During the night we thought about it and at four o’clock in the morning, I and another girl got up and went to the village of Srní, where the financial guards were. We told them that one man wanted to take us to a place with big blueberries. One of the officer exclaimed: ‘Jesus, don’t go anywhere with him, wait a minute, I will go with you.’ And he came with us to our cabin which was about one and a half kilometers from Srní. They caught the guy, but he would have probably really taken us over to Austria.”

  • “Bandits were illegal scouts who had military training during the war. These boys were incredibly brave and later they became the intelligence brigade. During the revolution in 1945 the intelligence brigade proved very useful, because they were helping on barricades and delivering messages. Brother Mob – doctor Klika, or brother Karel Rohlíček, who emigrated and who now lives in Canada, would know the most about it. There are about ten original Bandits who are still alive.”

  • “I took my first Scout pledge there and I also passed the Three Eagle Feathers test. The test consists of three tasks: no eating for 24 hours, which was not so difficult, no speaking for 24 hours, which was harder. I spoke after 22 hours of silence. It was in the morning and my test was about to end. We had a flagpole in the middle of our camp and there was a ram from the nearby gamekeeper’s lodge which would sometimes wander into the camp. We called it Mauša. The ram suddenly desecrated the flagpole. I yelled at it and all the girls started laughing: ‘She talked!’ But I said to myself: ‘Never mind, I will try again!’”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha, 24.07.2013

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    délka: 01:12:13
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu A Century of Boy Scouts
  • 2

    V Praze, 03.06.2020

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    délka: 45:00
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Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The world lies wide open in front of me and I will be happy as a king in it

Věra Janovská
Věra Janovská
zdroj: Eva Škvorová

  Věra Janovská was born on July 20, 1929 in Choltice in the Pardubice region. As a child she lived in Neveklov, but in 1942 her family was forced to move to Černošice because the village was taken over by Germans and turned into an artillery training ground for SS troops. Fourteen-year-old Věra started to work in Janečkárna in the same year. In 1945 she began to study a trade academy in Prague. In 1945 she also got acquainted with Scouting for the first time when her brother-in-law established the first Scout troop in Horní Černošice. Věra took her Scout pledge during her first Scout camp a year later, and shortly after she became one of the leaders of the 1st Girl Scout troop in Horní Černošice. Their troop was forced to quit their activities when Scouting became banned. In the same year Věra began to do forced labour in Prague-Nusle and on February 14, 1945 she also experienced the massive air raid on Prague. In 1951 she married an army pilot and they moved to Brno. In 1954 Věra gave birth to their first son and later they also had a baby girl, but unfortunately she died four months after being born. Their second son was born in 1961. From 1970 Věra worked in the National Assembly (later renamed Federal Assembly). After retiring she worked as a secretary at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. She took up Scouting again and in 1992 she worked in the Junák headquarters. Later she also participated in the Woodcraft School for Old Scouts, where she met Mirko Vosátko. In 1995 she was awarded the Silver Fleur-de-lis in a trefoil. In 2001 she joined the Prague Svojsík Group. She still attends Old Scout camps and two times she took part in Old Scout Jamborees.