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FITCHBURG (MASS.) SENTINFL, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1963She Greets Refugees From Tyranny-Mrs. Tropin And The Fugitivewas sent to New York to greet UieNEW YORK—(NEA)—According to the dossier, the small, red-cheeketl man blinking In the early morning sun was Janus Pavelka (Czech, truck driver, age 39, married, two children). Tentatively he begun to descend tbe steps from the giant transport plane toward the snowy U.S. soil of Idiewild Airport and the outstretched hand of Ruth Tropin.For almost all of the 800,000 refugees from European tyranny brought into this country under official U.S. auspices since the end of World War II, Mrs. Tropin has been the lady with the lamp. It is a byproduct of her job as New York officer in charge of the Inter govern-mental Comfnlttee for European Migration that she can extend a welcome in almost every language spoken in this country today.“Good day/' Pavelka said. “1 speak a little English. 1 was in the RAF for part of the war.While the great crush of European migration is over, and most of those leaving novv-a days go either to Australia or Latin America, Mrs. Tropin still meets about 40U refugees here each month, people who still manage to escape the grinding cruelty ul their homelands,“1 tried to get out of Czechoslovakia in 1948;’ Pavelka said. ♦'Eleven of us were going to commandeer a plane. But somebody told. I was sentenced to work in the uranium mines for five years/'Until the war broke out in 141,Mrs. Tropin was working with the Emergency Rescue Committee. When It could no longer operate, she went to work in tbe War Shipping Administration, And as soon as peace was proclaimed, she signed on with the U.N. Relief aod Rehabilitation Agency, and on its dissolution with the International Refugee Organization. In 1948 shefirst ship of refugees, the General Black.“I don't know how 1 survived work in those mines,” Pavelka said. “But in 1953 1 was released and began again to plot an escape.Ten years ago, when ICEM took the place of IRO, Mrs, Tropin was at work in New York greeting andprocessing refugees. On moderately busy days, she bad five plane arrivals In New York, another in New Jersey and very likely a shipload as well.Nothing seemed to work, Pavelka said. It looked as though I could never get out. Then suddenly, two years ago I hit an a plan. I sent juy brother-in-law, who was 13, to hang around the airfield In our section of Bohemia to pose as being tremendously interested in flying.*’If Mrs. Tropin has missed meeting a few of the refugees, it has been for a good reason. On the day that she gave birth to her firstchild, she w’as scheduled to meettwo planes. On the ride to the hospital, she briefed her husband on what had to be done at the airfield. While she was taken to the maternity ward, he went to greet the refugee planes.Actually, Pavelka said, the boy was getting to know the airfield guards and learning about what their routines were. Then, last autumn, we got our break. There wasto be a big fair and all the guards were going, leaving only the local police to watch over the field and the planes.Actually, Mrs. Tropin's work only begins at the airfield. Much of her lime is taken with liaison work among church and civic refugee organizations, checking on sponsors for migrants, conferring with U.N.refugee officials, and making sure that the refugees themselves move easily to their new homes. It is not unusual for Mrs. Tropin to be awakened at 3 a. m. by the police, who have found an ICEM refugee lost and unable to remember the name of his hotel or sponsoring agency.14As soon as the guards were gone,y Pavelka said, ,4I took my wife, two children and brother-in-law to the airfield and put them in a single-engine, Iwo-seat plane, started the engine and taxied down the runway, waving happily to the police who had no idea of what was going on.”In the course of the years, Mrs Tropin says, a few refugees have turned out to be trouble-makers, But she can count, she says, disillus-ionments lige them on the fingers of one hand. The hundreds withwhom she corresponds are withoutexception wonderful people,“I had not counted on cloudy weather,” Pavelka said. But it was not mine to choose the day. I was forced to crash-land, injuring the baby’s leg in doing so. But it did not matter. We were in Austria and safe.”Why has Mrs, Tropin stayed solong with a job forgotten by therest of the world? In part, obviously, because of the thrill in greeting people with an eagerness and enthusiasm for the U.S. In part, too, because of the renewing wonder of helping people discover they are free. But also in large part because Mrs, Tropin was herself orphaned at the age of four.It is a wonderful thing to hehere,” Pavelka said, “after having tried to come for so long.No, I do not have any friends ox relatives boro, except for Mrs. Tropin. I once knew an American eergeant from Chieago during the war. But I don’t think he would remember me. That was 20 years ago and he has probably been through a lot since then/'Biggest Public ProjectTULSA, Okla. 0?!—The $1.2 bii-lion Arkansas River project, scheduled for completion In 1970, ranks as America’s biggest single public works project.It tops even the St. Lawrence Seaway, In which American participation totaled $1 billion.Good Old FatsoNEWARK, N.J. liD— Mrs. Jeanne Kunkel, a grandmother and part-time cashier, raises pedigreed eats in a toft.She has 30 cats being groomed as pets or as show animals, Whal began as an impulse now takes up a good part of her every day.On her first visit to a cat exhibition, she Tell for a blue persian andbought him for $40 for a pet. A few years later she bought a female blue persian.Mrs. Kunkel now enters several cats in competition herself. Her current pride is a champion silver Persian officially dubbed Wee-quahie Silver Sonata, although he answers to Fatso around the house.RUTH TROPIN meets some of the 800,000.
Newspaper Details
Fitchburg Sentinel
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, US
Fri, Feb 22, 1963
Page 16
Full Page
Clipped by
Yannah P.
USA 20 Nov 2022
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