"Many Lands, One County" Opens Cultural Heritage Month

HANOVER TWP. - They came from all parts of the globe and for many reasons.

After World War II, Sophia and Wesyl Paszczak needed a home. Natives of the
Ukraine, they were among the "displaced persons,' refugees left without a country after World War II. They found a place for themselves in the new world in a town called Morris Plains.

Angeliki Brouard came to the United States as an exchange student and spent a year in an Ohio high school. She then won a scholarship to Bethany College in West Virginia and there met the man she married. His work brought them to Dover which became her home.

Maria Marothy-Bastamov and her husband George were political refugees
from Hungary. They took part in the 1956 Uprising and were hunted by the Soviets for their years of political activities. They escaped to Vienna - and then to the United States where they settled in Livingston. Eventually, Maria opened a dry cleaning business; after George's death in 1981, she began a wine import business and moved to Florham Park.

Sven Eike, who was born in Norway, followed his family to the United States. He immigrated to Brooklyn in 1928 and moved to Lake Telemark in 1943 where he lived until his death this month. He served on a tugboat in the Merchant Marines during World War II and took part in the Normandy invasion. He later was a tugboat engineer and a sales engineer.

Witold Szymanski was a war survivor, a former Nazi prisoner in his native Poland. He was both a member of the Polish underground fighting the Germans, one of the Polish Christians who risked their lives to help Jews, and of the post-war resistance fighting against communism. He and his family arrived in America with $5 each in their pockets. They found a home in Parsippany.

The stories of these and dozens of other immigrants - both from the past and present - are told in an exhibit called "Many Lands, One County" which is on display at the Morris County Library from August 25 to September 28.

The exhibit is sponsored by the Morris County Human Relations Commission and the Morris County Historical Society as part of the observance Morris County's Cultural Heritage Month. A second event - a festival of entertainment, food and information for the whole family - will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, September 17 at the Morris County Cultural Society.

Chairing the events are Debra Westmoreland, curator for the Historical Society, and Ragini "Regina" Goel, past chair of the Human Rights Commission and herself an immigrant from India.

Westmoreland said the exhibit looks at immigration's impact on the county from the arrival of the first Dutch settlers in the 17^th century to the coming of Hispanic and Asian immigrants in the 21^st century.