Sokolský život vzdělavatele Bedřicha Jenšovského
The Sokol Life of the Educator Bedřich Jenšovský

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the Sokol educational work during the First Czechoslovak Republic, taking Bedřich Jenšovský as an example and showing the reasons and motivations of individuals for the voluntary and time-consuming work for the Sokol movement. Bedřich Jenšovský had been a member of the Czechoslovak Sokol Movement since the 1920s, working in Sokol Sibřina and Sokol Újezd nad Lesy, eventually being appointed chairman of the latter. In 1928 he assumed the role of the regional organisation’s educator and five years later he decided to use his experience as educator, archivist, and historian in the educational department of the Czechoslovak Sokol Movement. He set a goal to expand the Sokol members’ knowledge in archival and library science. He became involved in writing the Sokol history and sparked the origin of the Sokol biographical dictionary. At the regional organisation, he spearheaded the clubs’ educators, regularly submitted reports on social and cultural activities, and was a member of several committees and the Vzlet periodical editorial staff. He encouraged discussions about the republic’s situation. As a consequence of his Sokol high-post activities, he was arrested on 8 October 1941, sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto, and early in 1942 to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There a Polish prisoner painted his last portrait which remains. Bedřich Jenšovský died on 12 February 1942 and the article includes the memories of Rudolf Bárta, a Sokol member recalling his last days. Jenšovský was one of the leading Sokol educators of the 1930s.

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