Albright's book examines her Jewish roots

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WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- Madeleine Albright's new memoir says she was never told by her parents of her Jewish roots, and 25 family members were lost in the Holocaust.

The book by the former secretary of state in the Clinton Administration, "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948" is set to be released this week, and says that between 1942 and 1944, at least 25 members of her family were herded into a ghetto by the invading Nazis in Terezin, Czechoslovakia. None survived.

Albright, originally named Marie Jana Korbelova, left Czechoslovakia for England in 1937, when she was 2 years old, and grew up Catholic, and later Episcopalian.

In an article published Thursday in The Washington Post she recounted the painful research involved in writing the book, after speculation throughout her diplomatic career that she might be Jewish, and going through numerous boxes of family documents and remembrances. One item was a 123-page manuscript, an unpublished novel written by her father, a Czech diplomat who spent World War II in London directing radio broadcasts as a member of the Czech government-in-exile.

The novel involves a Czech diplomat who returns to his homeland.