Hans-Günter Grech

"I only knew it from my parents' stories. For me - and for my brother and my sister as well - it was a paradise rife with milk and honey, with everyone well off, just paradise. Then we crossed the border. Sure, Austria was no paradise at the time, but it was so much worse across the border. It was... Every other house was broken or torn down and taken apart . When a house was no longer inhabited, it was instantly used for building material, and the villages looked like that. The streets were almost unpaved. Side roads were all patches. To us, it was... I once dared tell my parents, 'You told us how beautiful it was across the border, but...' And then I said something and my father got very angry with me for talking about our old country like that. The first time he crossed the border with me was on New Year's Eve in 1989. It was foggy and a bit frosty as we were driving via Klentnice and Mikulov. He was somewhat quiet, making only approving comments such as, 'Look at the beautiful view here!' I thought, well, I don't know about that. We returned to our village, which frankly was really backwoods too, and then he said: 'What have they done to our homeland?'"

"But again, some were against it, like 'First they kicked us out, and now they want us to help them?' But my predecessor, thank God, was so strong and energetic that he stuck it out and said, 'This is our culture over there, and as such, we sure have the duty and responsibility to look after it - especially since the other side is really willing to work on it. Most of the mayors saw that there was something happening here that could benefit their communities, livening up that bleak environment a bit. I have to say that this was fine, and it still is one of our main tasks. More and more events are being organized across the border, with the local priest, with our former local priests. So, we're seeing a reconnection of what always belonged together if it weren't for nationalism."