“The political situation changed for many years in 1948. The conditions for a continuation of the activities of the Scout or Sokol waned. I was in Chodov so I was pretty much out of touch with the political events of that time and being a boy, I wasn’t able to correctly understand the situation. This sort of things was decided in Prague by the authorities in charge and we were subsequently told what had been prohibited. I remember that because I put it down in my notebook. I then used my notes in my lectures which I held at the forest school. For instance utterances of the likes of the minister Nejedlý, who was responsible for culture and education. He resolutely objected to those who suspected and said openly that all youth organizations except for the Pioneer will be abolished soon. He stated that nothing of this kind was being planned. The very next day they issued a decree stating that there will be only one unified organization for youth and all the others will be dissolved.”
“Due to the fact that Plzen was liberated by the Americans, the city always had a slightly different atmosphere. Even during the bad times around the 1950s, there was the Alfa cinema in Plzen that still exists today and is located on the American avenue. The director of the cinema was a certain Kotnauer, a university student who did this as a part-time job. He would usually screen movies that would be unthinkable to show anywhere else. It was American grotesque movies. I saw a lot of beautiful movies there. One of the movies had the title ‘Wings of hatred’. It was about the American flying fortresses, the big bomber planes. We liked that movie so much. It depicted the interior of the airplane and the four crew members sitting inside and turning and pushing the various buttons. We would then sit in our class room and recreate the scene from that movie. Towards the end of the fourth grade, recruiters from various schools came to our school and among them were recruiters from a military school. It was one recruiter and one student of that school. The student was speaking to us and we asked him whether it was possible to study for a pilot. He said that it was well possible and as we were very much influenced by that movie, we enlisted to the army and enrolled at that military school. We desperately wanted to join the air force.”
“At that time, my two boys went to school in Černice, a district of Plzen city. At school, they would talk about the games we played together at home. The teachers took notice of that and became interested. They approached me with the offer to set up a Pioneer troop at the school. They were desperate because they had almost only women teachers and no male role models at the school. I refused. I told them that I had always been a scout and that I couldn’t possibly be the head of a Pioneer troop. It took them quite some time before they managed to persuade me. But it was on the condition that I would have things my way. I’d organize the troop to my liking. They agreed and told me that I could do anything I liked. So I organized a pretty much regular scout troop there. The boys from the third, the fourth and the fifth grade formed one troop and the girls from these grades formed the second troop. The kids from the first and the second grade were in the fireflies’ troop. I was the leader of the boy troop which we named ‘cub scouts’ and I introduced a regular scout program. It was possible to do that at that school because nobody really cared about us in Černice. It was a calm district. This was in 1966 and we continued our activities there till 1968. Then they lifted the ban on Scouting and so we could go legal. We changed the name of the troop to ‘Southern Cross’ and the troop – with the same name – is still around today.”
Jan Kacerovský (Akéla) was born on June 22, 1932, in Přeštice. He grew up together with his cousin Karel who was the co-founder of Scouting in Přeštice. Jan Kacerovský became a scout himself in 1939. After the war, the scouts from Přeštice were distinguished for their support in the resistance against the Nazis. In 1946, there were about 260 000 scouts in Czechoslovakia. After graduation from elementary school, Akéla chose to pursue a career in ceramics manufacture. He initiated his studies at the secondary school of industrial ceramics application in Plzen. When he was in fourth grade, he became influenced by American movies and together with a couple of friends, they decided to join the army and become pilots. However, Jan didn’t pass the health check-up and he was recommended to choose a different field. He chose the field of all-army command and upon graduation he was attached to the air force in Plzen as an officer responsible for the on-ground training. He was in charge of the officer academy and he loved his job. During his time in the army, he did his extra-mural studies at the Faculty of Pedagogy. In 1966, the teachers of the school that was being attended by his two sons managed to persuade him to set up an activities’ circle for children. What started as a Pioneer troop developed into a Scout troop under the leadership of Akéla. The troop existed in this fashion till 1968 when Scouting was made legal again. Then, the troop was made official and named “Southern Cross”. This troop exists until today. Right after the Soviet invasion and the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Jan Kacerovský left the army and became a teacher in the district of Plzen-south. After the breakdown of Communism, Akéla contributed to the reintroduction of Scouting to Czechoslovakia. He helped to renew the troop and became active in the education of adults and the organization of various courses, etc. On March 21, 2011, he was decorated with the Medal of St. George. Akéla is a distinguished personality in the world of Scouting, not just in the region of Western Bohemia. He’s a man who remained true to the ideas and principles of the Scout and who tried to pass on to others the very best that Scouting taught him at every stage of his life.
