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10,000 Attend Chicago Funeral Rites for Czech Refugee Mother and Children

August 8, 1939
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Mourned by ex-Senator Vojta Benes of Czecho-Slovakia as a mother who “fought the only way she knew how,” Mrs. Adela Langer, Czech Jewish refugee who last week took her life and those of her two children, was honored today by 10,000 persons at funeral services sponsored by Czechoslovak-American organizations and the American Jewish Congress. Before the three caskets lying at the base of Albin Polaschek’s heroic statue, “The Mother,” Mr. Benes, brother of Czecho-Slovakia’s exiled ex-President, appealed to Americans “to open your hearts to hear the plaintive cry of those fathers and mothers, fugitives from many lands, those who know not where to rest their weary heads.”

Prompted by the suicide, the Czech National Alliance of America wrote to President Roosevelt asking him to let persecuted European refugees remain in the United States after the expiration of their temporary immigration permits.

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