“How did it all begin? Was it fate, circumstance or predestination? It is hard to remember the details after sixty years but I can still recall the dark and gloomy atmosphere. It was a time when our state was in danger, a threat and insecurity for us all. We felt loyal to the state and answered some call of duty, something that is hardly understandable for today’s generation, and it lead us to the establishment of Zbojník. It was also due to the Boy Scout principles, the oath and the law to protect the weak against the strong and good against evil. All this provided a little spark that started a fire. Our first steps were quite informal and without any heroism – I thought to myself: ‘I have to call Ada. We’ll meet and figure out what to do.’ And Ada told me: ‘I was just going to call you, we’ll meet at our place, we can’t talk about it on the phone.’ And so we met at Ada’s in Smíchov – he lived next to the Smíchov theatre.” – “Ada was a Boy Scout nickname?” – “No, his real name was Adolf Karlovský, lately he became an army general. He was a soldier and they promoted him later. He was a soldier in his mind, after the war, he graduated at the military academy, then he served in Romania for a short period of time. In the fifties, he was imprisoned for a long time. He was first sentenced to death, then to life but he eventually managed to escape. He fled to Switzerland where he lived until the end of his days... So Ada was a member of our group. And when the Junák Organization was banned we were just about to swear the Boy Scout oath, so we decided to put together a few boys from our group and Ada’s task was to find someone to train and lead us. And when we met, Ada’s answer was pretty obvious. ‘That’s just what I wanted to suggest,´ he said. Maybe it happened differently, maybe Ada was the first one to say that. But it is a fact that the Zbojník was established. It was lead by Jan Lašťovka, a sergeant-major back then. It seemed to be simple but it wasn’t so easy. We sealed our conspiracy in Fall 1940 with a meeting at professor Klika’s cottage in Jevany. That was a real conspirative and subversive meeting. It was in a cottage with closed shutters and dimmed lights by the fireplace when the Zbojník was established and its basic principles were outlined. We swore a military oath over the flag. Until then we were all non-soldiers.”
“In the time of confusion just before the Prague Uprising, we got a message that they would drop rifles. It was planned for two or three spots near Černý Kostelec and somewhere behind Smíchov. So we organized the whole operation. My task was to gather all the weapons in a depot in Nusle. Anytime I pass by I remember that there was a large agricultural depot at the corner facing the junction of Nuselská and Na Jezerce.” – “There is a dairy there.” – “Yes something like that. We got an order to wait there that they would bring us the weapons. And as you probably know, the rifles weren’t dropped in the end and they came back empty-handed and we were all really annoyed.” – “So you didn’t set up the landing spots?” – “No, my task was to find a place in the depot so that we could have stored the weapons. I was there with other guys from the 4th company and I was the one in charge.”
“So you didn’t do any intelligence activities, but you rather trained your military skills?” – “First we trained our military skills, second, in the time of Steiner Veselý, we weren’t allowed to get involved into any destructive operations like shooting etc. We had to be cautious to be able to gather all the strategic information and hand them over to Veselý and transmit them abroad. Even this was complicated because we had problems with the transmitters and we had to cancel it several times. You might be interested in the fact that the London intelligence headquarters, the abbreviation was VRU, received approximately 75 thousand messages during the war. About seven or eight thousand out of those were from the Prague Intelligence Brigade. I learnt just recently that the news of the Brigade, for example those for air force (RAF), didn’t have to be verified and they were directly handed out to them and considered to be accurate. So we were the only ones whose messages were classified this way. In September 1941, when Heydrich became the protector, Eliáš was arrested. We were extremely cautious in those times. At a certain point we even stopped some of our activities until the situation got better again.”
“During the repression after Heydrich’s assassination, Karel Rohlíček from the Intelligence Brigade had a father who had printing works in Vysočany and Karel used to print flyers. They had printed schedules that informed about the times and frequencies of the London broadcast we would leave in phone booths. We had to do everything in gloves, so that they could not identify us and the flyers had to be pressed in the fourth print because then the copy became so bleached that they could not trace the machine it was printed with. So Rohlíček provided us with this. Or we printed warnings against collaborators which we placed on their doors. And old Rohlíček knew Gabčík and Kubiš (who later assassinated Heydrich). Karel used to ride a bike with them around Prague because they didn’t know the city. So he was teaching them what Prague looked like. Their parachutes were buried. Old Rohlíček knew a priest in Vysočany, so they staged a fake funeral and buried a coffin with the parachutes of the group. Karel Rohlíček carried the cross before the coffin. So the parachutes are buried somewhere there. This is a curiosity people may not even know.”
“General Eliáš? Yes, during the protectorate, he met my father. But I don’t really remember, I just knew there was something going on but I didn’t ask because of the rules we had to follow in those times.” – “And you also met Mrs. Eliáš?” – “Yes, later I did, but only a few times. She didn’t visit so often. They were meeting practically only with my dad. Mrs. Eliáš was his patient and gen. Eliáš also started visiting his practice and my father sent him to x-ray and various examinations so that there was a diagnose and they could encounter without any suspicion. And when Eliáš wanted to meet with somebody, my father would write into his record that he was at an examination at a certain hour and on a certain date. It was a kind of an alibi. Sometimes it got really tough. I had complete and detailed plans of the Prague defense system in my desk at home. It was hidden between the planks, positions of searchlights, cannons etc. information that the Intelligence Brigade sent to the West. I also had a copy in case anyone would have found it. And then Kriminal polizei came to interrogate my father. Can you imagine how I felt?” – “And your father was arrested?” – “My father was interrogated. He wasn’t arrested but he was interrogated several times in the Gestapo building. And he also described it.”
Jaromír Klika was born in Prague on 25th February 1919. His father was a renown urologist, hygienist, he was a member of the Prague council and an official in the newly established Boy Scout movement. Jaromír joined the Boy Scouts at the age of 14. He was a member of the 5th group known as the Five. His nickname was Bob. He finished grammar school in 1938 and he was accepted to the Medical Faculty at the Charles University. After the Boy Scouts were banned in 1939, he established an illegal group Zbojník. The group was preparing for underground resistance and printed leaflets with lists of collaborators. Members of Zbojník later merged with the group of Veleslav Wahl to create the Intelligence Brigade (Zpravodajská brigáda) which concentrated on mapping the Prague defense system. They monitored the position of anti-aircraft spotlights, cannons etc.) and they transmitted the data to the Military radio headquarters (VRU) in London.
In May 1945, Jaromír Klika participated in the Prague uprising. He commanded the 4th company of the 1st battalion. After the war, he finished his studies at the medical faculty (spring 1948). He worked in Jindřichův Hradec and as a surgeon in České Budějovice. Same as his father, he finally specialized in urology. He worked in Prague at the Bulovka hospital then he became the head of a hospital in Příbram. He was arrested, imprisoned for a few months and interrogated in connection with the emigration of general Antonín Hasal.
Presently, Jaromír Klika is a member of the Intelligence brigade veteran club, a captain at the 5th marine Boy Scouts veteran club in Prague and a honorary member of A. B. Svojsík club and a vice chairman of the Parnas club. He was decorated for saving a drowning boy at the Nežárka river in 1953 and for assisting at the emergency operation during a mining accident on the 39th floor of the Anna mine in Příbram.
Activities of the Intelligence Brigade were downplayed by the communist propaganda, its members were fully recognized only after 1989. Jaromír Klika was decorated with The Czechoslovak War Cross and with the first grade of The Medal of Merit, with Boy Scout decorations the Cross of Junák 1939-1945 and a Honorable Order of the Trefoil Lilies and a first grade honorary badge of the Czech philatelist union.
