January 2

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War
by Madeline Albright

Albright served as Secretary of State during the Clinton administration, but it's clear she learned important lessons and gained invaluable experience as a little girl in Europe during the years leading up to, during, and immediately following the second World War.  Born in Prague in 1937, Madeline was raised in a family that valued freedom and democracy.  She spent much of her early years in London, where her journalist father served the Czech government in exile.  After the war, her family was posted to Belgrade, where her father served as ambassador to Yugoslavia.  When a Soviet takeover seemed imminent, Joseph Korbel was able to secure political refugee status and (luckily for us) moved his young family to the US.

Some of the most disturbing events were Hitler's "concern" for the German Czechs living in the Sudetenland (border regions near Germany) and his justification for invading the area to "protect" them - chillingly like Putin's advances into eastern Ukraine - and Madeline's description of life in the model camp Terezin, where many of her Jewish relatives perished.  Highly recommended reading for those who do not want to see history's mistakes repeated and any who are interested in Eastern European history, especially around King Wenceslaus, Jan Hus (a church reformer who predated Luther by over a century but who, unlike Luther, was executed for his  "heretical" beliefs), and the dividing of the European states.