Milan Poul

* 1931

  • “The older boys went dancing and they drank a beer or two there. As they were returning they were purposely speaking to each other in German when they were close to the camp and knew that the boys on watch would hear them: They said: ´Franz, gib mir Panzerfaust.´ - Franta, hand me a bazooka.´ The camp watch whistled alarm immediately: ´Germans are here!´ At Folmava there was some shooting almost every night, because Germans were coming there for their things.”

  • “We came for the Scout meeting, but the clubroom was closed. We thus went to the town square instead and played a game there. A policeman caught us. One of us got slapped on his face and the other one got kicked by a local watchman... Or one day we came for the meeting, and our leader arrived there on a motorbike. His father was a policeman, and he thus owned a motorbike which had been taken from the Germans. And one boy, a little rascal, started the engine during our meeting. The stench from the petrol filled the clubroom and the leader scolded him for that. Or on another day, the same boy fired a shot from a revolver during a meeting!”

  • “Americans were terribly disorderly, and they threw away everything, including ammunition. There was so much of ammo! We, little Scouts, were going to search for it. We would be wading through mud up to our thighs and from time to time we would step on gun magazines. Or sometimes even a hand grenade. In that case, we would rather walk a bit further away.”

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    Praha, 29.07.2012

    (audio)
    duration: 01:15:10
    media recorded in project A Century of Boy Scouts
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I have always been saying to young people: Do not want any revolution!

Milan Poul in a tankist's helmet
Milan Poul in a tankist's helmet
photo: Marie Novotná

Milan Poul was born October 11, 1931. After the war he joined the Scout troop in Domažlice, which had been a target for criticism even before the general ban on Scouting in 1948 and disbanded by the district committee. Milan Poul learnt the bookseller’s trade and worked in a grocery shop. After his military service he studied the Institute for Local Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and then he worked for the district administration office. In 1968 he participated on the restoration of Junák.