“You could see that even at my mother's funeral. It was like a state funeral. It was broadcast on the internet. Czech television was there, and the church was really full. The priest even had to install speakers outside to broadcast the ceremony to the entire population. We buried my mother in Sloup, in the Czech Republic, which is 7 km from Rájec. We have our own Salm cemetery there, which is now under protection as a monument, and that's where we buried my mother. So she's back home again. And we continue to maintain that my mother is still present here, and I recognize that in the conversations we have locally. My mother is always mentioned, and everyone tells me a story they experienced with my mother. She spoke Czech like others speak their native language. And Czech was their mother tongue!"
“It was very exciting. I had always been told about Rájec and so on. It was my mother's home, where she grew up, where she used to roam around. But of course, there was also the other side, communism at its height, in the 70s, 60s. But my mother always wanted to return to her homeland. And one day, the decision was made that my mother, with her sister and us, would go to Czechoslovakia. We submitted the visa application, and I remember how we all, Aunt Elise with her children, and my mother with my brother Leopold and me, went to the border. The Austrian border was no problem. At the Czech border, though, we stood there for three hours and had to wait to be let through, if they would even let us into Czechoslovakia at all. After three hours, we were allowed in, and it was very exciting. My mother held us, my brother and me, no words to speak, nothing to say, just waited silently. We didn't dare make any stupid comments; everything could be used against us. We stuck to that, and we sat in the car, mother, brother, and I, and watched. It was interesting what you can or cannot do in three hours and how to kill time. And after three hours, the heavy bar lifted, and we drove to Rájec. And there was a big welcome there. Naturally, many tears were shed. My mother couldn't say goodbye to anyone, because everyone would have known that my mother wouldn't be coming back with my father. Well, I had the feeling... We were still in the church; everyone in the church knew we were all coming, so it was really very, very emotional.”
"He had two castles. Although he was already under compulsory administration, he was still also the one who could make decisions about the premises. Economically, though, he could no longer make decisions. That is also an important point. The German administrator took over. And then I would like to add, it was not only the Salm family under forced administration, it was also the neighborhood. Mensdorff under forced administration, Belcredi as well. So the people with political disobedience, in the eyes of the Germans. For the Czechs, of course, they were the best supporters, these families who really fought back. And my grandfather was of course constantly in contact with the local mayors, they visited him regularly and informed him about the situation. Of course my grandfather also kept himself informed via the BBC, which was strictly forbidden, so he only listened to it on his own. My mother said that at a certain time, I don't remember when, maybe 6 p.m., the BBC had the news program. Then my mother had to leave the room so that there would be no witnesses. But she knew he listened to the BBC. And so he listened to all the news reports describing the world situation. But then came a crucial point. The mayor came to him again for a conversation and my grandfather knew that Göring and Himmler wanted Rájec. Himmler, I don't need to explain – Waffen SS, human life was nothing to him. Quite the opposite of my grandfather, for whom human life was enormously valuable. And then the mayor came and said, ‘His Serene Highness, Prince Hugo Salm, please, there are now two towns in Czechoslovakia that have been selected, namely Bouzov and Rájec. If you don't accept German citizenship now, then the Waffen-SS will come here to Rájec, and we all know what that means.’"
Georg Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz is, on his mother’s side, a descendant of the noble Salm family with seats in Blansko and Rájce in Moravia. His grandfather Hugo was anti-Nazi, but during the war, the Nazis placed his property under forced administration. At the end of the war, however, his grandfather agreed to be granted German citizenship. Georg was still conceived in Moravia, but he was born in 1958 in Vienna, where his parents had emigrated. His parents divorced relatively shortly after they moved, and Georg was fully adopted into the family of his mother Marie Alžběta Salmová, whose full surname he uses. He doesn’t speak about his father at all. A visit to Moravia in 1972 deeply influenced him, and after the fall of the Iron Curtain, he often visits his mother’s birthplace, maintaining relationships with local residents. He is passionately interested in his family’s history and its ties to the Moravian Karst. He deeply laments that the restitution of noble property after 1989 only minimally affected the Salm family. He had his mother buried in the family tomb in Sloup.
