The Daily Express

Czechoslovak Women Leader Will Speak Here
Madame Ruzena Pelantova, First Deputy Lord Mayor of Prague from the end of World War II until the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, will speak at an open public meeting sponsored by the Dayton Council on World Affairs 8 p.m. Thursday in Longfellow School Auditorium.

Madame Pelantova is one of Czechoslovakia's most outstanding women leaders in the field of social welfare. In 1919 she helped to establish YWCA courses for social workers, with the assistance of American experts who were invited to that country by President Masaryk. In 1920 and 1921 she studied social welfare at the University of Chicago, where she worked with such outstanding American social workers as Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop. After finishing her studies in this country, she returned to Czechoslovakia where she helped to organize the National Red Cross of that country, which was headed by Miss Alice Masaryk, daughter of the President.

Madame Pelantova's task was to help emigrants, particularly Russian refugees who fled the Bolshevik Revolution and found refuge in Czechoslovakia.

After the Munich catastrophe of 1938, Madame Pelantova was charged with the responsibility of lodging, feeding and finding jobs or transportation for the thousands of refugees who fled the Sudeten region seized by the Nazis. The Nazi occupation of her country brought to an end her official responsibility, but she secretly continued to help the victims of Nazi persecution. In 1943 she was arrested and sentenced to eight years' hard labor. She spent more than two years in different prisons in Germany, and in May, 1945, was freed by American soldiers.

At the end of World War II, Madame Pelantova returned to Prague where she was assigned the job of returning to their homes refugees from Nazi prisons and camps. In September 1945 she was made Deputy Mayor of Prague, and as acting mayor had to learn the entire administration of the city. Her chief interest was the social welfare of the people of Czechoslovakia. She was under constant pressure from the Communists who tried to take over the welfare department of the city, but she managed to withstand this pressure until the very time of the Coup in 1948. Following that, she was forced to flee her native country. After spending some time in Germany, she came to the United States where she now works in a neighborhood social center in New York City.

Madame Pelantova continues to write articles for Czechoslovak papers published in the United States, and broadcasts to her native land over Radio Free Europe.

Madame Pelantova will speak on "Czechoslovakia Under Communism."

The meeting, Thursday evening is in the Longfellow School Auditorium, Salem & Superior Avenue. The public is invited, there is no admission charge.