Annotation
Topography is not an exercise in geography, topography is the story and drama of a particular place, specific people, and the irreplaceable role and fate of family property and land. It is good to always have this so-called "little history" seen in the context of "great history" which is out of reach for the ordinary man and thus leaves him with control only of his personal freedom and honor. In short: I do not want to teach geography as a theoretical problem, which it is not, but as a particular story. And because I have a close personal relationship with this country and because I have logistical, human and research facilities there, I do not want to teach primarily in Jinonice, but a bit further, in Neveklovsko and Sedlčany, where in the years 1942-1944 nearly 30,000 inhabitants of 70 communities
(180 villages) has been forced to move from their estates to make a room for the Waffen-SS Benešov training area.
That was in fact the beginning of the so-called "final solution of the Czech question" and it was precisely this space—that lay in the middle Czech part of the Protectorate—that was chosen to be the first to be Germanised and to create a German territory amid continuous Czech settlement. In 1945, the majority of the displaced returned to their homes and those living now are at least 80 years old, which is the cutoff time to try to record this topographical drama. Nothing more.