Jana Vojáčková

* 1931

  • “Once, when the ‘světlušky’ (fireflies) held guard, they came to wake us up at night, saying that somebody moved around the camp. It was a hedgehog. So we covered him with a bucket and showed it to them in the morning. It was a hedgehog.”

  • “We had already booked the bus. I would call the operator to make sure it had been booked and was ready for us and the guy told me that the bus had been cancelled. I asked him who had cancelled it and he told me the name of a guy who was in the Communist Youth Union. We had no idea it had been cancelled and that they’d prevent us from going there. The unionists had simply banned it. They then conditioned it by removing the lilies from our coats, so that we’d not be designated as Scouts. But we wouldn’t agree to that.”

  • “In 1968, I and Míša founded the troop. This was quite a mouthful for the functionaries at the Skoda works. Thus I was financially persecuted for my ‘controversial’ activities. They wouldn’t raise my salary. Others got an increase in their salaries, even at positions less demanding than mine. But I wouldn’t get an increase. But I didn’t care.”

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    Plzeň, 27.09.2013

    (audio)
    duration: 02:14:24
    media recorded in project A Century of Boy Scouts
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Fight and love will be your weapon

Jana Vojáčková
Jana Vojáčková
photo: Pamět Národa - Archiv

Jana Vojáčková, née Uhlíková, was born in 1931 in Plzeň in a working class family. She attended a cloister school and spent her childhood in the neighborhood of a rectory. In 1945, she joined the 12th Catholic Scout troop. Later on, she passed to the 27th troop, where in 1947 she passed her oath of scouting allegiance. After the banning of the Scout, she hid some things from the club house at her place. In 1950 she went to Prague where she was employed as an accountant. Later on, she returned to Plzeň keeping her job. In 1968, she was involved in the restart of the Scout in Plzeň, personally founding the 6th troop, which later became the 55th troop “Bílá Střelka”. In the course of the subsequent two years, she invested a lot of her effort into Scouting. After the renewed ban in 1970, which saw the Scout dissolved, most of the children passed to the skiing club, which carried on in the tradition of raising the young in the Scout spirit. Jana also got involved in the renewal of Scouting after 1989 and still continues to be an active Scout today.