Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has spent her career working on complicated issues of history, ethnic identity and governance, but she didn’t realize the complexity of her own identity until the age of 59. In 1997, as the Clinton Administration vetted then-Ambassador Albright for the Secretary of State position, Albright discovered that most of her family was Jewish – and that many of her relatives perished in the Holocaust. That realization provided the impetus for her new book, “Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948.”
In “Prague Winter,” Secretary Albright traces her family’s story through the history of Czechoslovakia and the rest of Europe in World War II. Albright discusses the unique history of Czechoslovakia, discovering her Jewish heritage, and learning from world leaders’ mistakes in the inter-war period. Secretary Albright also spoke with John Hockenberry about the United States’ complicated relationship with China.