When Kerry was still Kohn Roots in Europe: The most promising challenger George Bush comes from a place in northern Moravia By Daniel Brössler Horni Benesov, in February - Bravely holds a Soviet soldiers position on the peace court. The location is quiet in the mountain town of Horni Benesov, a few granny wear their purchases home - past the light blue showcase of veteran freedom fighter from the Association. Hang it in newspaper clippings with headlines like: The U.S. is waging a terrorist war and Bush is a children killer. Horni Benesov is an ordinary nordmährischer spots - with 2440 souls, a disused mine and a Soviet Bronze Soldier on the peace court. Right behind it is sitting mayor Josef Klech in his yellow Hall and scheming. The whole place will be restored. We put the old St John of Nepomuk column on again, and then also the monument to the Soviet Liberator is coming off, he promises. Quite possible that image consultants from the White House in Washington far the Czechs will thank once. One day, an American president named John Kerry might have to shake hands on the peace court, and since the bronze Red Army would not do well on television screens. Once the Democrat Kerry must of course be president, then he should also follow the invitation of the Mayor Klech. In both respects, the Czech is confident. Finally, he sent an email to Kerry: We greet you from Horni Benesov where your family came from. During the campaign, we will keep our fingers crossed. For a long time the Senator from Massachusetts probably believed himself, his family originated - as the name suggests Kerry - from Ireland. But the Viennese genealogist Felix Gundacker found out on behalf of the Boston Globe, that Kerrys grandfather, Fritz Kohn was originally and on 10 May has arrived Benisch in 1873 in Austrian Silesia, today the Czech Horni Benesov, for the world as the son of Jewish Brewery tenant Benedikt Kohn and his wife Mathilde. The pencil fell to Ireland The long road of Fritz Kohn of Benisch to Boston started early. When the little Fritz was barely three years old, his father died. The widow Mathilde left with her three children Silesia and moved to Vienna. A quarter century later, Fritz Kohn was with his wife Ida and his first son, Eric in Mödling near Vienna before a priest. The baptism alone is not enough for him, he did not even its old name. Kohn sounded too Jewish, he wrote in his application to the authorities in Vienna, his desired career in the military was not conducive. As the choice of the unusual for Central European latitudes name Kerry fell, it knows genealogists Gundacker to tell a family legend, if not true, yet invented well, Fritz was with his brother Otto, a pencil falling on a map. The tip hit the county Kerry in Ireland the end of 1904, the Kerry embarked in Trieste a -. Not to Ireland but to America. Until recently, John Kerry knew nothing of all this. About the grandfather was hardly spoken in Kerrys home, what with an event of the 21st Probably related November 1921. On that day, a man entered with money worries a washroom of the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston and shot himself in the head. It was Frederick Kerry, son of a brewer from Benisch, grandfather of a later senator from Boston. If Kerry to search for traces of this man decide in Horni Benesov, he should be prepared for some disappointments. The former brewery is only the part, which slightly dilapidated white house now houses a sauna. Where once stood Kohns birthplace, only a garden swing with Hollywood can be seen. As a consolation Mayor Klech could the President only the old photo album with the title Our hometown Benisch in the image of 1937 and the beautiful motto Love your home. Make them big and beautiful hand over. It also contains the image of a rather inconspicuous two-story house in the Crown Street, the former home of Kohn. Thats it, says Klech, we do not have more. Thats it. There is no zealous in Horni Benesov city archivist, no association rühriger local historian and certainly no old men who could still remember the brewer, to any Kohn or even to Jews in the town itself. The fact is that the collective memory of the city Horni Benesov no further back than 1945. Until this year, there were almost only German, and almost all of them were expelled after the Second World War. Kerrys peers in Horni Benesov certainly has no one made a grandfather Benisch. Klech himself was born in 1947 in Horni Benesov, his parents came from Moravia. I hope you do not write, Kerry was a Sudeten German, attends the mayor. The people in his town, it falls a little hard to see Kerry as a compatriot, he explains. The ratio of the citizens of the city was not as, where for centuries the ancestors live. Localism we have not. Could also have a little to do with the dreary present. Not only that mine has long since been shut down, even on the former state farm itself does not have much. Unemployment stands at 17 percent, the national average is just under eleven. In short: Horni Benesov is a city in the descent, as the mayor says. Since it can not hurt to have a powerful and wealthy friend in America. It is clear that Horni Benesov thus more visible. Of which we can only benefit, said Klech. In the meantime, is a response to the nice email to Kerry still out, but that takes the sporty Mayor: I am for him. He is sympathetic to me, and I think he will be president. And at some point, because he is sure he will also visit the old home. Kerry then beckons in Horni Benesov an honorary citizen and perhaps a Kerryova - a Kerry road. All this of course only if he becomes president really is, and especially if he really is a day to visit. We do not suck up to us, says the mayor clear. And great hopes he will not even stir up: Im a realist. Also, if he comes here not everything will get better overnight. The Milan Vajda and his friends believe not. You sit in front of beer and liquor in a venue that simply Restaurace is, although there are only eating sausages. Kerry? I wish that he will be president, said Vajda. He is wearing a gray sweatshirt with a U.S. flag. For a visit to Kerry, he has nothing. Only if he himself is still there, does not know Vajda. The passport he had been the right stamp, he says - the American visa.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:10:17 +0000
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