Czech Town Mesmerized by Kerry Campaign

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Czech Town Mesmerized by Kerry Campaign
By KAREL JANICEK
Associated Press Writer

American presidential politics don't normally cause much of a stir in this far-flung corner of the Czech Republic. But revelations that John Kerry's grandfather was born here have mesmerized the mountain town.

Suddenly, Horni Benesov's 2,400 people can't get enough of the Democratic front-runner's quest for the White House or his Czech ancestor, an ethnic German Jew who fled rising anti-Semitism for America's shores at the turn of the last century.

If the Massachusetts senator clinches his party's nomination, Mayor Josef Klech is ready to offer Kerry a more obscure post - honorary citizen of this former mining town in the northeastern Czech Republic's Jeseniky mountains.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed for him," Klech said.

Word of Kerry's Czech connection first surfaced last year, when an Austrian genealogist hired by The Boston Globe discovered that the candidate's paternal grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry, was born in Horni Benesov as Fritz Kohn in 1873.

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