In November, says Rubin, Albright received some communications that for the first time made her wonder whether she really might have Jewish origins. She mentioned it when she was vetted by the White House for the State job. And during a Christmas skiing holiday in Aspen, she discussed it with her family. “She asked her brother and sister if their grandma had ever told them any stories,” says Rubin. “They all asked the obvious questions, but nobody knew anything.”
Nobody, that is, but Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who went to the Czech Republic to research Albright’s roots for a piece in the Post magazine. The day after Albright’s confirmation, Dobbs called her daughter Anne, a Maryland lawyer, to say, “Did you know that your grandparents died in Auschwitz?” Anne then phoned her mother with the news. But the secretary of state was not completely convinced until Dobbs came to her office and laid out the evidence. Friends say the revelations have been unsettling for Albright. “Bittersweet,” says one. Most upsetting is the discovery that several relatives died in the Holocaust. “It’s a great shock,” said Albright’s former husband, Joseph Albright. “I sympathize with her anguish.” Friends say the revelations have not shaken Albright’s deep Christian beliefs.
