Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)

Interaction, migration and change

254 Maruška Svašek

other. Over the years, they also left more permanent marks on the village by restoring the old war memorial and doing up the few remaining Sudeten German graves.

12 Inhabitants from the Czech border area both welcomed and feared the strength of the German economy. Some profited by working across the border for Deutschmarks, and by selling products to German customers.

13 The school was owned by the Orthodox Church, and the parsonage by the Catholic Church. Within a year, Hulshoff managed to buy both buildings, respectively for 600,000 and 250,000 crowns (about 12,000 and 5000 pounds). He clearly profited from the weakness of the Czech economy, also by hiring cheap Czech and Ukrainian labourers to renovate the buildings.

14 As part of the démocratisation process, the Czechoslovak government had designed a law to grant former land owners or their descendants the right to reclaim previously owned land which had been nationalised or collectivised. People who did not want to reclaim land, either because their plot was too small to make it profitable or because they now lived in cities, sold their restitution rights to third parties. Various entrepreneurs such as Hulshoff bought as many restitutions claims as they needed to start particular projects.

15 In 1997, the official (but highly unrealistic) value of the base was still 15 million crowns.