Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/132

What the American Young Men’s Christian Association did for the American soldiers during the late war needs no retelling; there is hardly a family in the whole breadth of this great land that did not get a letter with a red triangle on it, written in a Y. M. C. A. hut. But comparatively few people know of the service which this great organization rendered to the men of French, Italian and Russian armies; and that the American uniform with the four magic letters on the collar is the most popular uniform in Czechoslovakia is something that deserves to be better known in this country.

Czechoslovak legions serving in France, Italy and Russia received early the attention of the men in charge of the military activities of the Y. M. C. A. In Russia there were workers with the Czechoslovaks on the southern end of the old Russian front as early as 1917. In France the service began early in 1918, in Italy in the latter half of 1918. When armistice came and the Czechoslovak legionaries from France and Italy were to be sent home to their liberated fatherland, both the men and their officers were insistent that the Y. M. C. A. workers their uncles from America—should go with them. The secretaries were willing, the Y. M. C. A. headquarters in Paris and New York agreed, and the Czechoslovak government welcomed the suggestion; the arrangement was reached between the organization and the new government that Y. M. C. A. work be extended to the entire Czechoslovak army, of which the French and Italian legionaries formed numerically only a small part.

In December 1918 the European representative of the International Committee at Paris called two secretaries into his office and told them of the new opportunity in the Czechoslovak Republic; then he gave them orders to get material together and attach it to a troop train which was to leave Cognac, the Czechoslovak camp in France, for Prague.

A month later the two secretaries arrived at the Capital of Czechoslovakia and received a welcome which came undoubtedly straight from the hearts of the people. The government, the army officers, the civilians vied with each other in assisting the Y. M. C. A. men in their work. There were, however, many difficulties to be overcome, for everything had to be built up from the foundations. No supplies or equipment were available in the country, and transportation facilities from France were quite inadequate, to say nothing of the strangeness of the customs and language of Czechoslovakia. But Americans were equal to greater difficulties than these, and the work was rushed forward. The first Y. M. C. A. unit in the new Republic was established about the middle of January, 1919, at Trenčín barracks, Slovakia.

We had no need of advertising what we were ready to do for the soldiers; in a few days the people, and above all the army, knew all about “uncles from America”, and calls multiplied for the opening of other huts like the first one in Trenčín. The organization was willing, but it lacked secretaries to man the new. units, and thus the work increased only as secretaries kept on arriving. But even today the demand for workers exceeds the supply.

At present the American Y. M. C. A. is operating 39 huts (vojenský domov) in the following garrisons of the Czechoslovak army: In Bohemia—Budějovice, Praha, Plzeň, Milovice, Pardubice, Josefov, Most, Cheb, Stříbro, Litoměřice, Terezín, Čáslav, Hradec Králové, Vysoké Mýto, Liberec, Prague Hospitals. In Slovakia—Trenčín, Bratislava, Nové Zámky, Komárno, Lučenec, Žilina, Prešov, Košice, Užhorod, Nitra, Báňská Bystřice, Zvoleň. In Moravia and Silesia—Opava, Bohumín, Moravská Ostrava, Brno, Olomouc, Jihlava, Znojmo, Německý Brod, Kroměříž. In all these towns there are attractive places equipped for the soldiers. The government furnishes buildings, light, heat, fixtures and free transportation of material. On each of these buildings there is a handsome sign that can be seen from afar, reading “Vojenský Domov” (Soldier’s Home); a free program of enter-

(Mr. Regnemer has served as Y. M. C. A. Secreary in Slovakia for a year and has had an important share in the work which he here describes.)