“The first time I went to Slovakia was in 1953. Me and another friend had shipped four packages of stuff over and had a month-long summer camp in Látaná valley in Roháče. Back then, not even a single person would pass through the valley the whole month long. Today, the Tatra Mountains are flooded with people. We were camping there and then a windstorm torn up our tent, so we moved to an old shepherd’s hut. It was a sort of an old school, almost American expedition. That was in 1953, there was the monetary reform going on during that time. Communists have robbed the people with exchange rate one to fifty. So we needed to dry the food before. We dried crusts on the stove, so that we could bring them with us later and put them in the soup we made. That’s where I learned not to be picky with food. Later, we would spread mustard on our bread. That was a delicacy. The guys would even put toothpaste on bread when things got worse. So it taught us a lesson. Roháče in 1953.”
“Due to the fact that I was a natural scientist I was asked to become the district voluntary nature conservationist. It was a function given by the Commies. I did not have any powers. When someone wanted to cut don a tree, they needed to ask the district coordinator. But if they had cut it down without asking, then I had no chance of influencing it. I was for example also tasked to mark all nature reservations in the Jizera Mountains. I had to chop the poles, put them in the ground and paint them. I did that either alone or I got help from some young boys; they might be sixty years old grandpas today. But in the part belonging to Liberec – because that was the district I was responsible for, as opposed to Jablonec – I usually had to get it done alone.”
“The first time I started disliking the communists was in 1948 already. My father was a CEO of the export department of Czechoslovak Ceramics into which wall tiles factory from Horní Bříza had transformed. He had a number of business partners so he arranged with someone in Norway, who was roaming the fjords in a motor boat, to invite me to come there, stay for a month, ride with him and catch codfish. I was looking forward to that, studying English and reading books about Norway. Well, and the communists did not let me go and so it was over between me and them ever since.”
“Once someone rang the bell and there was a Jewish family. It turned out they were family members of Mr. Votický. That was the husband of aunt Votická, who raised my father. He was a Jew. He died in 1936 already but apparently he had family. And back then, the way I understood it, they came to ask my father to hide some of their valuables because they were about to be sent to the concentration camp. I remember that my mum – panicking – started pushing me and my sister in the kitchen so that we would not see anything. It was no joke back then. You were risking death penalty for hiding some Jewish jewellery or money. They were obliged to hand them over and were risking their lives if they hadn’t done so. I don’t know the exact content [of what they came to hide] because I was obviously absent. But they left at our place a construction set – Merkur – which they brought for me. And my mum forbid me to play with it.“
Miroslav Nevrlý (nickname „The Chief”) is a Czech zoologist, writer, scout and nature-lover. He was born on 29 October 1933 in Prague. He grew up during the WWII and joined the scouts and the Sokol movement immediately after its end. In the aftermath of WWII, his father was fired from a ceramics factory in Horní Bříza due to his refusal to join the ranks of the Communist Party. Luckily, young Miroslav was not affected by this incident. He was admitted to the Faculty of Sciences, Charles University, where he studied at the Department of Systematic Zoology. What drew his interest in this particular field of study was mainly his passion for catching and ringing birds. Shortly after finishing his studies in 1957, he started working in a museum in Liberec. Here, he also assisted Miloš Zapletal in leading a scout club, which was following the ban on scouting registered as the Young Hikers Association. He organized a range of hiking excursions into mountains in Czechoslovakia and abroad both on his own and with other members of the club. He wrote and published both academic and non-academic articles ever since his student years. Over time, he developed a specific writing style and published a range of books, most of them inspired by his love for nature. Among the most well known are the Book about the Jizera Mountains, Carpathian Games and the Lost Taste of Cloudberries. In 1989, he was briefly active in the Civic Forum.
