In the aftermath of World War II in Europe, the world faced an enormous humanitarian crisis. Millions of people had been made homeless by the terrible conflict that had ripped the continent apart. While the struggle’s end neared, President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked to establish the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an international agency to plan and coordinated relief of victims of the war, and after the war was over Congress wrangled with the problem. After strong and forceful involvement by President Harry Truman, the reluctant lawmakers managed to pass the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which authorized the admission of 200,000 European displaced persons (DP) for permanent residence.
The DPs coming to the United States had to have a sponsor and a place to live before their arrival. The first 813 refugees arrived in New York on Oct. 21. 1948. Over the next twelve months, some of the DPs came to Cecil County to start a new life. One of those was the family of Walter Mudryk, 38. The Germans had taken him prisoner during the War. His families prosperous Ukraine farm had been seized, some family members were put to death, and others served as forced laborers for the Germans.
Norman Fell sponsored this family in Cecil County, and they arrived here on January 21, 1949, to work on his farm near Calvert. They departed from Munich for the United States, and after arriving by steamer in New York, they were sent to Baltimore on the railroad. Mr. Fell met them at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore, where hundreds of refugees waited to meet their sponsors.
Out of this terrible conflict, their homeland destroyed, Walter Mudryk, 38, Nina, 25, his wife, and their two-year-year-old son Victor settled down on the Norman Fell Farm to start a new life in Calvert. Sponsors in Queenstown and Virginia had also hosted some family members.
Source: The Maryland News Courier, May 6, 1949: Russian D.P.’s Now at Work on Calvert Farm.