Secretary of state discovers Jewish roots

America's top diplomat has termed "fairly compelling" newly uncovered information that at least three of her grandparents were Jewish. These grandparents, along with more than a dozen other relatives, died at the hands of the Nazis.

Albright's parents never told her of their Jewish roots and raised her as a Roman Catholic, she has said.

The revelations, prompted by extensive research in Europe by The Washington Post, come only a week before Netanyahu is set to kick off a procession of visits by Middle East leaders hosted by Albright and President Clinton. In meetings with Clinton, talks are expected to focus on solidifying the gains of the recent Israeli-Palestinian Hebron agreement, as well as on trying to restart Israeli-Syrian peace talks.

But another focus of the visit is to begin working relations between Netanyahu's government and the new secretary of state.

Stunning news
News of Albright's Jewish roots stunned many this week - most of all Albright herself. When she was first appointed, many people, especially in the Arab world, were certain she was Jewish. But Albright's office repeatedly confirmed that she was not.

According to information published in the Post that was given to Albright only last week, her paternal grandparents, Arnost and Olga Korbel, were Jews who died at Auschwitz. Albright's maternal grandmother, Anna Spieglova, was also killed by the Nazis. Other relatives died at Terezin, a holding camp for Czech Jews, before being sent to Auschwitz.

"Obviously it is a very personal matter for my family and brother and sister and my children," Albright told the Post. "The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up," the paper quoted her as saying.

Albright's father died in 1977. Her mother died in 1989.

History detailed
Albright gave the Post a copy of an 11-page unfinished family history written by her mother. The handwritten manuscript, written in 1977 after Albright's father's death, makes no reference to Judaism or relatives who died in the Holocaust.

The Post quoted Mandula Korbel as writing, "With the help of some good friends and lots of luck and a little bribery" the family "managed to get the necessary Gestapo permission to leave the country."

Albright's family fled Czechoslovakia in March 1939, days after Nazi forces occupied the country. Her father, a diplomat, took the family to London, where they stayed until after the war. The family returned, but again fled in 1948 after a Communist coup, and settled in the United States.

Albright's first cousin, Dagmar Simova, who lives in what is now the Czech Republic, told the Post that Albright's parents did not tell her about the fate of her relatives because she was only 8 years old at the end of the war.

A copy of Albright's father's birth certificate lists Josef Korbel as "Jewish," according to the Post. In addition, names of relatives reportedly appear on the list of 77,000 Czech Holocaust victims inscribed on the wall of the Pinkas synagogue in Prague.

The revelations about Albright's Jewish roots are expected to have little direct impact on relations between Washington and Jerusalem, diplomatic officials said.