Madeleine Albright in Serbia, 1939

1235:CYPPRESS:03

[03] Albright - Serb - Cypriot magazine report

Nicosia, Apr 17 (CNA) -- A Serbian family living in Vrinjetska Banja village, in Yugoslavia, is reported to have given shelter to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when her family fled Nazi persecution during World War Two.
A Cypriot weekly publication "To Periodico" (The Magazine) carried the story yesterday, with phaded black-and-white photos including one of four- year-old Albright embracing Ljutko Popic, who told his story to the magazine.

Popic claims he is the boy in the picture, taken in 1939, and the girl is the present US Secretary of State. He said he was Albright's "first love" and wondered why she is now backing NATO bombing in Yugoslavia.

The Serb is reported to have said that Albright's Jewish-Czech family took refuge with his family, in their village Vrinjetska Banja, some 80 kilometres out of Kraljevo, to escape the threat of Nazi persecution.

His village was bombed on the night the Cypriot journalists stayed there, April 12, and the following day the villagers apparently scrawled a message on an unexploded NATO bomb saying: "Thank you Mrs Albright for the presents you send us in return for our hospitality."

According to the report, Popic said he had sent Albright a letter asking her to halt the air strikes, but had received no reply.

CNA MA/MK/1999

ENDS, CYPRUS NEWS AGENCY


Hellenic Resources Network
http://www.hri.org/news/cyprus/cna/1999/99-04-17.cna.html

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Marie Jana Korbelová was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and raised as a Roman Catholic by her parents, who had converted from Judaism in order to escape persecution. She has a brother, John, who later became an economist. "Madeleine" was the French version of "Madlenka", a nickname given by her grandmother. Albright adopted the new name when she attended a Swiss boarding school. Albright is the daughter of a diplomat—her father, Josef Korbel, served in the Czech diplomatic service. Her brother said, "Madeleine had a special relationship with our father, partly because she followed so closely in his footsteps." Later in life, she joined the Episcopal Church in the USA.

From 1936 to 1939 the Korbel Family lived in Belgrade, and in 1939 the Korbel family fled to London. Many of her Jewish relatives in Czechoslovakia were killed in the Holocaust, including three of her grandparents.

Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright

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