Jaroslav Čvančara

“Back then I didn’t even know if Foglar was still alive or not. I thought he was either in prison or had emigrated because every decent person seemed to be either in prison or out of the country, not to mention a person whom I had idolized - as a seven foot tall Rikitan, someone simply the best. My daddy somehow managed to get me Foglar’s address. This was in 1960. For several months I went there two or three times a week just wishfully thinking I might encounter Foglar himself. I knew he lived on the third floor but no one ever answered the door bell. One day – after the summer holiday - someone finally opened the door. It was his mother, Mrs. Foglar. She was very kind to me and told me to come back in two weeks. So I came back after two weeks and this time it was Foglar himself who opened the door. He was only a little bit taller than me, not exactly the seven foot tall Rikitan I imagined him to be. So I finally saw Foglar, around fifty years old at that time, basically an old man for me. But he was nice, he took me inside, showed me his room, signed a book I had brought with me and we naturally started to talk right away. In the end, he completely shocked me when he told me that the tourist troop Dvojka did actually exist and he even invited me to visit their clubroom. In a month, he wrote me a letter with instructions how to get there. Since I had to wait in Radlice for one of the members to pick me up, it really felt like I was going to some secret hideout. It sounded of conspiracy which I liked immensely”

“In March 1939, my parents’ rental shop was raided by the Germans with the help of the Gestapo. They moved in for about three days and confiscated most of my parents’ hard work. The films ended up in their archives in Germany and to this day no one has returned an inch of the tape. It happened again after 1948 when the Communists destroyed everything my father had managed to put together after the war. The Communists were even worse because they constantly harassed my parents, interrogating my father all the time and arresting him for a day or two every now and then. My brother was in prison for two years.”