Kerry, Bush share genes

[Chiwas]

Believe it or not, they are cousins. First, the quadruplets of Michael Jackson, now this....[img]i/expressions/anim_roller.gif[/img]

[Richie41]

Where did u get that from? Is it accurate?

[Chiwas]

From Ancestry.com in a link at MSN.

[MavKikiNYC]

I wonder if there's a flip-flop gene.

Czech town claims Kerry as its own
Father's side of family hails from area

By DON MELVIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/24/04


Horni Benesov, Czech Republic — Few overseas viewers of news coverage of the Democratic National Convention this week will watch with more intense interest than the residents of this small Czech town.

This down-at-the-heels hamlet has finally found a claim to fame, and it is grasping it with both hands: The grandfather and great-grandfather of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee-to-be and a possible future president of the United States, lived here.

Miroslav Grygar, 31, who works in his mother's store off the decrepit square in Horni Benesov, dreams of a Kerry visit. 'I would go to welcome him waving some kind of flag,' he says.

"I am watching the news every day, and I am definitely not for [President] Bush," said Jarmila Sindlerova, 68, who moved to the town with her parents in 1945.

Horni Benesov (pronounced HOR-nee BEN-uh-shoff) is roughly 175 miles east of Prague, the Czech capital, and not far from the border with Poland. It has about 2,500 residents and high unemployment. It is so obscure that it isn't on some maps of the country.

According to town officials, Benedict Kohn, Kerry's great-grandfather, worked here in a brewery, part of which survives and is now used as a sauna. Kerry's grandfather, Fritz Kohn, was born here in 1873 and lived in the town until 1901.

Fritz Kohn abandoned Judaism, becoming a Roman Catholic and taking the name Frederick Kerry. He is believed to have moved to Germany in 1901 and emigrated to the United States in 1905. He committed suicide in Boston in 1921.

Pride in Kerry extends beyond Horni Benesov. About 1,000 residents of Prague have registered with Kerry's Web site to receive campaign updates and make contact with other Kerry supporters.

"There is high interest in the Czech Republic," said Jiri Frkal, a partner in Media Flow, a Prague public relations firm that hopes to entice Kerry to visit the country and Horni Benesov.

"Most Americans don't know where Europe is, and where exactly the Czech Republic is," said Frkal, who has written the Kerry campaign about a possible visit. "Now they will know where the Czech Republic is. It will be good for our place in Europe, for our self-confidence and for our feelings that we are not so small."

The country is about the size of North Carolina and only 15 years removed from communism. It takes its pride where it can. Madeleine Albright, who was born in what was then Czechoslovakia and still speaks excellent Czech, is an icon in her native land, Frkal said.

But while the successes of Kerry and Albright are sources of pride, their family histories throw light on a cause for shame. Both are descended from families that abandoned Judaism as anti-Semitism in the country grew more virulent.

Neither Kerry nor Albright was aware of a Jewish heritage until deep into adulthood.

It is not an uncommon story, said Lucie Hindlsova of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

"Even today, you're going to find people in the region who don't know that they have Jewish ancestry," she said. "A lot of people decided to change their names, and a lot of people decided to leave. A lot of parents didn't tell their children they were Jewish because they wanted a completely new identity."

None of that dampens the enthusiasm of residents of Horni Benesov, almost all of whom come from families who moved to the town in 1945. In the aftermath of World War II, the entire population changed: Most previous residents, who had German ancestry, moved to Germany and were replaced by Czechoslovaks.

If Kerry is nominated, the town will erect a plaque to mark the spot where his ancestors lived, said Deputy Mayor Jaroslav Zerotinsky. The house was demolished in 1945.

It stood in what is now the garden of the house Sindlerova shares with her husband, her son, his wife and their daughter.

"When we got this house, this was a ruin of bricks," Sindlerova said, indicating the shady garden, adorned by an apple tree, flowers and a swinging bench. She and her family removed all the bricks by hand.

She hopes one day to find a president of the United States on her doorstep. "Certainly I would welcome him," she said.

Miroslav Grygar, 31, who works in his mother's general store off the town's decrepit central square, can envision a Kerry visit, too. "I would go to welcome him waving some kind of flag," he said.

Will he be watching the coverage of the convention? "Definitely!" Grygar said, his smile wide.

At one end of the square stands a crumbling monument to families working for the glory of socialism. If Horni Benesov's favorite son is elected, Frkal wants to convert it from a decaying symbol of socialism to a gleaming Kerry memorial.

Zerotinsky, the deputy mayor, can envision a presidential visit to Horni Benesov as well. Just not right away.

"If it should happen," he said, "we wish it would happen in about two years. Because right now the town doesn't look very pretty."

[mavsman55]

That sucks for Bush. Family reunions had to be hell for him growing up.