Albright refuses to return WWII loot. She definitely meets the standards of qualifiction for membership in the Clinton cabinet.
London Sunday Times (March 28 1999)
techstocks.com
Albright's father 'took war loot to America'
by Matthew Campbell, Washington
A WEALTHY Austrian family is threatening legal action
against Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state,
in an acrimonious row over a priceless collection of paintings
and antiques that has its roots in the chaotic aftermath of the
second world war.
In a hitherto unpublicised dispute, descendants of Karl
Nebrich, an Austrian industrialist, claim that Albright's father,
Josef Korbel, a former Czech foreign ministry official who
was Jewish, stole millions of dollars' worth of art and furniture
from them, then fled with it and his family to America at the
end of the war.
Tired of endless brush-offs from an American lawyer acting
for John Korbel, Albright's brother, Nebrich's heirs are
considering legal proceedings to reclaim the property -
including a collection of old masters - in what risks becoming
an embarrassing distraction for America's first female
secretary of state.
"I cannot believe the American secretary of state enjoys
eating with my family's silver," Philip Harmer, a
great-grandson of Nebrich, said last week. "These things
must be handed over to my family."
Albright fled from Nazism and then Stalinism as a child and
has cited these events as having shaped her world view. After
escaping to London when the Germans marched into Prague
in 1939, her family returned to the Czech capital in 1945,
when Albright was eight. They found that several of the
family's Jewish relatives who had stayed behind had died in
concentration camps. A luxurious first-floor flat at 11
Hradsanke Street in Prague was assigned to Albright's father
as a reward for his services to the Czech foreign ministry. It
had been expropriated from the Nebriches, who, although
not members of the Nazi party, had lived comfortably as
citizens of the Reich during the war but then found themselves
out of favour with the Czech authorities when the war ended.
The Nebriches allege that Korbel took possession of
paintings, silver and antique furniture, though these were not
included in the expropriation order. "He took the lot, even the
nails from the wall," said Doris Renner, a daughter of
Nebrich. When Korbel was appointed ambassador to
Yugoslavia, he moved his family - and, allegedly, the treasure
trove of art - to Belgrade.
Three years later, however, Czechoslovakia's communists
staged a coup and Korbel, an opponent of the communists,
was in danger. The family fled to America, where he became
a professor at the University of Denver.
The Nebrich family tried for decades to track a "Dr Korbel"
in America. But it was not until 1996, when Albright - then
America's ambassador to the United Nations - revisited her
childhood home in Prague and spoke of her happy memories,
that the Nebrich family realised she was Korbel's daughter.
Harmer, acting for Nebrich's two surviving children - Renner,
his great-aunt, and Ruth Harmer, his grandmother - began
bombarding Albright's office with faxes, letters and lists of
items allegedly taken by Korbel. Among them were 20
paintings - including one by Tintoretto, the Venetian master,
and one by Andrea del Sarto, another of the most important
artists of the 16th century.
"You lived in our flat as an eight-year-old child and I am sure
you will remember some of the paintings mentioned on the
attached list," Harmer wrote to Albright in February 1997.
He suggested a meeting. The response was not promising.
"You may wish to raise this matter with the government of the
Czech Republic," a State Department official wrote back.
After more faxes from Harmer, Albright handed the file to
John Korbel, her younger brother. Michael Jaffe, his lawyer,
wrote to Harmer in October, 1997, saying: "There is no basis
whatever for thinking that any artworks of the late
Ambassador Korbel came to him improperly."
Undeterred, Harmer flew to Washington last year to see the
lawyer. "Essentially he said we have no case and warned us
not to make a noise since this powerful woman is involved,"
Harmer alleged.
The lawyer declined to discuss the case last week and
Korbel, who works for the accounting firm Price Waterhouse
Coopers in Arlington, Virginia, was unavailable for comment.
Harmer is considering taking Albright, Korbel and their sister,
Kathy, to court. He was heartened recently by Korbel's
reported acknowledgment to a journalist writing a biography
of Albright that at least some works on the Nebrich list
belong either to him or to Kathy. None of the paintings is
believed to be hanging in Albright's home in Georgetown,
Washington.
Harmer said the family believed that Korbel Sr might have
sold some of the paintings to finance his start in America.
"We accept that Josef Korbel's children are not responsible
for their father's activities," he wrote in another fax to
Korbel's lawyer last week. "However," "we definitely
expected them to list any items honestly and to hand them
over."
Renner says she recalls Josef Korbel arguing that he was
entitled to take the Nebriches' belongings as compensation
for having lost everything to the Nazis.
"All his relatives died in concentration camps," she said last
week from her home on the shores of Lake Wolfgang near
Salzburg. "That is very sad. But it doesn't justify him taking
everything from us." |
