Posted on 10/06/2004 8:27:52 AM PDT by No Surrender Monkey
Win or lose, U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry will receive an honorary citizenship in the Czech town of Horni Benesov, where his grandfather was born and lived in the late 19th century.
"The life story of John Kerry is amazing, showing how a boy from a poor family and a village in what used to be the Austro- Hungarian empire can become a candidate for the U.S. presidency," Horni Benesov Mayor Josef Klech said on Tuesday.
Klech said the town of 2,400 inhabitants would bestow the honour on the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts "no matter how he does" in the November 2 election.
Records show Horni Benesov as the birthplace of Kerry's grandfather, Fritz Kohn, who historians believe was most likely of Jewish origin and spoke German.
Horni Benesov, called Bennish in German, belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire, which disintegrated after World War One. The town is now in the Czech Republic.
The Kohn family left Bennish for Vienna in 1878 and Fritz Kohn later changed his name to Friedrich Kerry before leaving Europe with his family for the United States in 1904.
Legend has it that Fritz Kohn and his brother Otto picked a new name after closing their eyes and pointing a finger at a randomly chosen map, hitting Kerry county in Ireland.
Nice place for him to retire.
If he had stayed there, these same people's parents would have killed old Fritz. I read that Fritz changed his name so he wouldn't have any memories or ties to the crappy place he came from.
Kerry gets Horni!
Do the folks in Horni get Czech-mated often?
I say 14 posts before this thread gets closed.
Senator Kerry, was the Czech Republic coerced or bribed?
"The life story of John Kerry is amazing, showing how a boy from a poor family and a village in what used to be the Austro- Hungarian empire can become a candidate for the U.S. presidency," Horni Benesov Mayor Josef Klech said on Tuesday.NOTE: This is mostly sarcasm.
The life story of John Kerry is amazing, showing how a boy from a poor family...
***
W.T.F.? His mother was a FORBES !!!
Depends on how many Horni folks we can ping to this thread.
???
His grandfather was the Czech immigrant and he wasn't particularly poor to start with.
Senator Kerry's father was a banker, I believe, and his mother was one of America's wealthiest heiresses.
So apparently Kerry takes after his father in marrying rich. Perhaps this is the kind of virtue Czechs admire.
A mutual friend who shall go nameless has been suspended for a week for posting a legitimate news article about a dildo in a suitcase that shut down an airport, but he wanted you to take a look at this article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1236848/posts?page=10#10
What was a good Irish Catholic doing living as a Jew in a Czech Republic?
I always knew that Kerry gigolo was Horni.
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