Comrades, we need some of them alive

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In the summer of 1949, Radomil Raja and his friends were warned that they were going to be arrested. They decided not to wait any longer and cross the border. They had no idea that they had fallen victim to a conspiracy of a provocateur and the State Security. “Seven of us had been staying near the road between Smědavá and the dam Souš. We were supposed to wait for the right moment there and then cross the border.” On July 24th, the clearing with two tents on it was encircled by the State Security at dawn which started to fire at the defenceless scouts. “As we were lying there, a policeman or two of them had run up to us and fired an entire cartridge. Tomáš Hübner, a young boy, who was lying next to me, was shot dead. I was shot in my leg and shoulder, Pepík Veselý, and Jindra Kokoška were shot too. So they’d fired about seven shots into those bodies. When he was changing his cartridge in order to continue shooting, somebody, I don’t know who, shouted at him. He said: ‘Comrades, don’t overdo it, we need some of them alive.’” Tomáš Hübner was dead instantly. Jiří Haba was shot and he was defending himself by shooting from his gun. According to the official interrogation, Haba had supposedly shot Hübner and then committed suicide. The State Security had brought a machine gun with them, and the tent Haba was sleeping in was shot into pieces. Pan Raja is convinced that in the given situation it was practically impossible for Haba to shoot Hübner. He is sure that both young men were mercilessly executed by the State Security.

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Radomil Raja and the operation of the State Security in Smedava

Radomil Raja was born in 1932 in the town of Železný Brod in a family of a small businessman - his father owned a small glassworks. He graduated from the Glasswork-school in Železný Brod with the vision that one day he will take over his father's business. On 24 July 1949, however, he was arrested under dramatic circumstances. Železný Brod had a very strong Scout organization - after the war, the Scouts had a big clubroom, there were several divisions, they organized annual camping trips to the Jizera mountains with a camp traditionally nearby Smědava. The Communist regime of course resented a strong Scout movement. His friends from the Scout movement were warned that the Communists are planning their arrest. They didn't want to remain passive and wait for the police to come and arrest them, so they were getting ready for a border-crossing in Šumava. They didn't know, however, that they became puppets in a game of the StB (secret state police). Under the leadership of under-cover StB agent Hilger seven scouts from Železný Brod gathered in the Jizera Mountains at the same time as State-police agents in the morning hours of 24 July 1949. Two of the scouts were shot on the Jizera Mountain-ridges by the State police agents - their names were Tomáš Hübner and Jiří Haba, a tax officer. The thirty-five-year old Haba was the only one of the seven scouts who wasn't still a teenager. Radomil Raja was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He was through several juvenile-delinquent prisons and he underwent medical treatment of his shattered shoulder joint. After his release from prison in the fifties he worked in stone pits and quarries, he also worked as a lorry driver. The relaxed political situation in the sixties enabled him to work as a glass grinder in the Železný Brod Glassworks and later even at the special-orders department. Today, he still lives in Železný Brod, he is a passionate beekeeper, sports fisherman and an active member of the Jablonec branch of the Confederation of political prisoners.

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Smědava

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Smědava is the name of an area around the mountain lodge of the same name in Jizerské Mountains near the Souš dam. Its centre is the confluence of the Bílá, Hnědá and Černá Smědá streams, resulting in the Smědá stream. The first tourist chalet was built on the confluence in 1841 and the first road was built there fifty years later. The StB raided a group of Boy Scouts in the hills in the Smědava area in the summer of 1949.

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Comrades, we need some of them alive

Radomil Raja and the…