Stanislav Špinler

"That castle met a horrible fate. They painted the statues in the first courtyard blue and green with enamel paint. The hygienic amenities typically found in this part of the world were totally unknown to them, and so they mined through the floor and just let it all fall into the room underneath. That wall on the rock dampened, rotted, and of course right after fell down the sheer rock side, and so it all had to be cleaned up and they had to start with the hygiene somewhere else. It looks like mere slander, but it was my experience of the time and so I can then say, that it's true."

"Scouting was valued as an instrument for children's upbringing because the movement enjoyed a good reputation among the citizens of our country. The reasons for it being the attitude of the Scouts during the war, their patriotism, and their willingness to do something for their country, even at the cost of their lives, because statistically speaking, the loss of lives among Scouts was higher compared to other organizations."

"In southern Germany we were passing through areas destroyed by bombardment, and the scene we saw from the train's window looked menacing. We only saw some standing wall now and then, which was left from the original buildings, otherwise there was nothing else but ruins and debris. We considered this a terrible consequence of the war, and even we, children, asked the question whether this world, or Europe, really had to come to this."

"It's true that just like in 1948, in 1969 and 1970 the communists ordered the members of the Communist Party to break the Boy Scout movement from the inside. Within the Party ranks, they tasked them with inner disintegrating of the movement. The Party members had to accept this task, and carry it out, and thus bring about this inner disintegration of the scouting movement, which was in line with the Party's objectives. Unfortunately, these Party members not only did as they were commanded, but they adopted this task so seriously that they betrayed their Scouts' ideals, which they spoke about, while in reality they were actually helping the Communist Party far more than the other members of Junák anticipated. They were therefore more inclined to the idea of termination or disbandment of Junák than we, other members, thought. These action groups within the partywent so far that eventually a final agreement was attained, and the scouting movement became incorporated into the Pioneer and Socialist Youth organization, as if it had been done on our own will."