Eva Šteklová

“The coup d’état took place in February and the festival was right after the end of the school year in early July, I think. So it was all fine already. But I remember and will never forget how it started raining about half-way through our exercise. But we finished it in the rain anyway. There was a huge applause: ‘Do-over, do-over!’ Our chief, sister Provázníková, asked us: ‘Sisters, do want to do a do-over?’ – ‘Yes, yes!’ So we did the whole thing from the start again. That’s a memory I have to this day. Beautiful. But that was also the end of it. Back then I had already been placed in the instructors’ group but after that, when there was the parade I didn’t attend because I had to wear a beautiful national costume, but I know how the parade ended. And Sokol was abolished.” – “How did the parade end?” – “When people reached the grandstand, they turned their heads to the side. I don’t know if it was to the right or to the left. They turned their heads to the side and kept marching.” – “And what were the consequences?” – “The consequences were that Sokol was abolished because the adherents to Sokol were patriots and Masaryk followers. Everyone could join. We were nobodies after all. Father was a house painter, self-employed, nobody. But it was a patriotic organization, that I know, that I remember. And we had it inside of us too. Josef Suk, Fučík the composer – they composed songs for us. So I was done with it and it was really the end of it for me because the Spartakiad, that didn’t exist for me. That was something strange. Not that.”

“So that’s where we started with exercising. Then the Sokols started building a new Sokol gymnasium. A beautiful building down below Bohdalec by the Botič river. And for the opening, everyone from younger juniors to the team, women, everyone gathered at the summer exercise area in Bohdalec. My father played the helicon. He liked Sokol. He didn’t exercise himself but liked to play the helicon, in winter too, when there were masquerade balls at the ‘U Jaurisů’ pub. Dad played the viola. There was always a show. There was a stage there and we would go watch from the balcony with my mother. Dad wrote the marching music, both words and music, for the new Sokol gymnasium opening. I can sing it to this day. It was a simple, yet beautiful song.” – “Would you maybe want to sing it to us? At least a part of it?” – “I’ll sing it, yes, I can sing it to you. There’s a beautiful new Sokol gymnasium below Bohdalec, nothing compares to our brothers from Michle. They have strength in their arms and Czech resistance in their hearts, brother Pechman is their role model. Fearless, they guard their homeland. Stand guard, stand guard, stand guard, stand guard, stand guard is what our battalion calls.”