CZECH REPUBLIC: BIRTHPLACE OF UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY'S GRANDFATHER ROOTS FOR A WIN AGAINST GEORGE W. BUS
Record ID:
338251
CZECH REPUBLIC: BIRTHPLACE OF UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY'S GRANDFATHER ROOTS FOR A WIN AGAINST GEORGE W. BUS
- Title: CZECH REPUBLIC: BIRTHPLACE OF UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY'S GRANDFATHER ROOTS FOR A WIN AGAINST GEORGE W. BUS
- Date: 9th October 2004
- Summary: (CEEF) HORNI BENESOV, CZECH REPUBLIC (OCTOBER7,2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF TOWN 2. TOWN SIGN 3. CHURCH 4. CEMETERY 5. TOWN HALL BUILDING AT MAIN SVOBODY SQUARE 7. TOWN HALL SIGN 0.26 9. ARCHIVER JIRI STIBOR, PhD. WALKING NEXT TO FILES 10. FILES IN ARCHIVE 0.47 11. SOUNDBITE (Czech) ARCHIVER JIRI STIBOR SAYING: "Frederick Kerry was really born here on May 10th 1873 as a child of Jewish parents under the name Fritz Kohn" 12. FILES 13. SOUNDBITE (Czech) ARCHIVER JIRI STIBOR SAYING: "Already his brother Otto asked the officials on January 7th 1897 for change of name from Kohn to Kerry. And it was allowed" 14. JIRI STIBOR SHOWING THE TEXT OF CHANGE IN THE FILES 1.29 15. SOUNDBITE (Czech) MAYOR OF HORNI BENESOV JOSEF KLECH SAYING: "The grand grandfather lived here and he was running a brewery here. He had 3 kids and one of them was Fritz Kohn, born here in Horni Benesov. And this was the grandfather of present US presidential candidate" 1.46 16. JOSEF KLECH SHOWING OLD PHOTOS IN THE TOWN PHOTO FILES 17. SOUNDBITE (Czech) MAYOR OF HORNI BENESOV JOSEF KLECH SAYING: "Why the name Kerry? This is more or less a speculation about this. It is expected, that both the brothers, Otto and Fritz, took an atlas and put their finger by chance onto the county of Kerry, which is in Ireland." 2.13 18. SCU SEAL OF HORNI BENESOV TOWN 2.16 19. SOUNDBITE (Czech) MAYOR OF HORNI BENESOV JOSEF KLECH SAYING: "We would like to order John Kerry by citizenship of honour and we also think about the placing of a memorial plate in the place, where the family house stand in the past." 2.36 20. STREET AND THE PLACE OF THE HOUSE 21. GARDEN IN THE PLACE THE HOUSE STAND 2.45 22. SOUNDBITE (Czech) RADEK SINDLEROVA, OWNER OF THE HOUSE AND OF THE GARDEN NOW AT SITE OF KOHN'S HOUSE SAYING: "If it is true, what Kerry is saying, I would support more him than Bush. Because Bush solves problems by war." 2.54 23. PLAYGROUND IN THE GARDEN 24. SOUNDBITE (Czech) JARMILA SINDLEROVA MOTHER OF RADEK, SAYS IN CZECH: "I cross my fingers for him to be elected, because I don't like Bush. He is not our president, it is not concerning us, but as a man - Kerry is better." 25. GARDEN 3.24 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 24th October 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: HORNI BENESOV, CZECH REPUBLIC
- Reuters ID: LVAESNG92ZMLFEB3WWSJYWOWGIPV
- Story Text: Birthplace of U.S Presidential candidate John
Kerry's grandfather in the Czech Republic rooting for a win
against George Bush.
Nestled in the mountainous north-east of the Czech
Republic, the town of Horni Benesov seems far removed from
the the world of American politics, where Democratic
Presidential candidate is waging a heated campaign to put
George Bush out of office.
But for the people of this former mining town, John
Kerry's emergence as the Democratic party candidate means
the race is being closely followed.
Although he is a Catholic from Massachusetts and has the name
Kerry, the man leading the pack is not Irish by
background but can instead trace his roots back to a town
in the former Czechoslovakia where his Jewish grandfather
was born but later fled as anti-Semitism took hold.
Now Horni Benesov's 2,400 inhabitants cannot get enough
of the Democratic front-runner's quest for the White House
and have been following Mr Kerry's campaign with interest.
Horni Benesov's mayor, Josef Klech, says is ready to offer
Mr Kerry honorary citizenship of the town.
"The grand grandfather lived here and he was running a
brewery here. He had 3 kids and one of them was Fritz Kohn,
born here in Horni Benesov, and was the grandfather of
current US presidential candidate" says Klech.
Word of Mr Kerry's Czech connection first surfaced last
year, when an Austrian genealogist hired by Boston Globe
discovered that the candidate's paternal grandfather,
Frederick Kerry, was born in Horni Benesov as Fritz Kohn in
1873.
The news surprised Mr Kerry, a Catholic, and it sent a
thrill through the town 175 miles east of Prague, the
history of which dates back to 1253.
Today, there's nothing left to suggest Jews ever lived
here - no synagogue, no traces of Jewish tombstones.
Czech government archives reveal that Fritz Kohn
changed his name to Frederick Kerry on 17 March, 1902 and
emigrated to the United States three years later.
"Why the name Kerry? This is more or less a speculation
about this. It is expected, that both the brothers, Otto
and Fritz, took an atlas and put their finger by chance
onto the county of Kerry, which is in Ireland", Klech
says.
Kerry's grandfather first settled in Chicago before
moving to Boston, where his wife, Ida, gave birth to the
senator's father, Richard, in 1915.
Frederick Kerry, apparently despondent over mounting
debts, shot himself in the head in Boston's Copley Plaza
Hotel in 1921 and died.
The Kohn family house is now gone, and the remains of
the brewery are now a public sauna. But the people of Horni
Benesov are closely following Mr Kerry's progress.
"If it is true, what Kerry is saying, I would support
more him than Bush. Because Bush solves problems by war",
says Radek Sindlerova, who owns the site where the Kohn
house once stood.
"I cross my fingers for him to be elected, because I
don't like Bush. He is not our president, it is not
concerning us, but as a man, Kerry is better", added
Radek's mother Jarmila Sindlerova.
At the end of the 19th century, Horni Benesov was a
lively mining town and textile industry centre in what was
then the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Its mines yielded gold and silver, then later zinc and
lead as the precious metals petered out.
The town's 5,000 citizens, mostly ethnic Germans, knew
the town by its German name, Bennisch.
Shortly after the Second World War, about three million
ethnic Germans were expelled from the former-Czechoslovakia
and had their property confiscated. They were considered
enemies of the Czechs and Slovaks because many had
supported Adolf Hitler and the wartime Nazi occupation of
the Czech lands. Their exodus, and the arrival of Czech
newcomers, meant there was virtually no information about
Horni Benesov and its past.
All that survived was a book of the town's photographs
from 1937, which contains a picture of Mr Kerry's
grandfather's house.
The last mine closed in 1992, and unemployment is 16
per cent. Mr Klech, the mayor, hopes his town could become
a gateway for tourists heading to nearby ski resorts and
that perhaps the Kerry connection could help.
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