Oswego's Guests

After putting it off for a year, the U.S. had to face a new kind of problem in D.P.s--displaced persons. The problem was small in bulk--only 970 war refugees were affected. But it gave some U.S. citizens a glimpse of what Europe--which counts its displaced persons in the millions--now has on its hands.

The refugees came to the U.S. and to Oswego, N.Y., in August 1944. President Roosevelt invited them; Oswego did not. What he intended was that the New World, giving them a haven, should bear its token share of the Old World's refugee burden. As their part of the bargain, Oswego's guests had agreed before sailing (from Italy) to go back at the war's end.

But by last week, with Europe's war over, they had long since changed their minds: most of them wanted to stay in the U.S. An Oswego liaison committee and Chairman Samuel Dickstein of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee agreed that they should stay. But many Oswegonians (plus Hearst Columnist Westbrook Pegler) thought they should be held to the letter of the agreement: they had said they would go back, now let them go.

Fenced In. Arriving after years of being kicked around Europe, the guests--mostly Jewish nationals of Yugoslavia, Austria, Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia--had found America was indeed the land of the free.

But they also found they were not quite in that land nor of it. (Their new home was declared an "Emergency Refugee Shelter" so its guests would not be subject to immigration laws.) Quartered in old Fort Ontario behind a fence of restrictions, they could get only six-hour passes. They could not travel farther than 20 miles. They had to be in at night. Their barracks apartments, partitioned with wallboard, were better than a concentration camp, but had little privacy. They shared bathrooms and the mess hall.

Beyond the fence were other barriers. When the foreigners spoke brokenly or had trouble with restaurant menus, some Oswegonians snickered. Once, when a Yugoslav couple bade a visitor goodbye at the bus station and the men kissed each other on the cheek, townfolk watched with open amusement. Staid Oswego (pop. 22,062) was unprepared for such a massive transfusion; it could not help gaping, winking, misunderstanding, resenting.

Barriers Burned. Some of the refugees were readily assimilated. The Oswego High School graduated six of the refugees in June, and Principal Ralph Faust was impressed with their maturity and eagerness. Seven girls enrolled in the local business college. At the Fort, where private welfare groups like B'nai B'rith aided a recreation and work program, women crowded the beauty-culture school. Men and boys learned woodworking. Olga and Michael Mikhailoff--who once were in Italian films --got an amateur theater going. Carl Selan, who used to represent 20th Century-Fox in Zagreb, booked movies into the center.

Thus they avoided idleness, but by last week they could no longer escape nervousness. A hundred questions plagued them: would they be sent back, and where? What would be the citizenship of the 13 children born at the Fort? What was the chance of getting to Canada, then back into the U.S. with a visa? What of the ones with sons in the American Army?

Peter Ourousoff, a White Russian, summed it up: "We have signed a paper saying we would return to our homeland. But where is it? We have none. For us to go back is suicide." Carl Selan voiced their hope: "If we could stay here America would find many of us would be assets. . . . We want only to obey the law, to have peace, liberty. ..."

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