No Return

Around Chicago's St. Bernard's Hospital, Dr. Joseph Kamarauskas was a man of mystery. He was painfully conscientious, unfailingly polite, but always a little moody and distant with his colleagues. He never talked much about the past, except to say that he and his wife had come to the U.S. from Lithuania two years ago as displaced persons.

Eventually a few more details seeped out. Joseph Kamarauskas had been a successful radiologist in his homeland, had been captured and forced to work for the Germans during the war. When the Russians swarmed back, he feared that he would be shot, fled with his wife a few minutes ahead of the Red army. The fugitives eventually made their way to Western Germany and found shelter in a U.S. camp for D.P.s.

In the U.S., Kamarauskas interned at two Chicago hospitals before going to St. Bernard's, and each time earned the respect and liking of the staff. At night, he drove himself hollow-eyed polishing up for the state medical examinations in radiology. In his few relaxed moments, he would tell in halting English of his ambition to become a U.S. citizen, to build a new career and fit happily into his new world.

A few months ago, Dr. Kamarauskas took his radiology exam and failed. Even though he knew he could take it over again in January, he became nervous and depressed. He developed acute tonsillitis, his kidneys became infected. Friends at St. Bernard's took him to an Indiana sanatorium for a few weeks' rest, and sent a box of neckties for Christmas.

But he grew more & more despondent. He began worrying about his new examination, about the difficulty of practicing in a strange nation and strange language. Last week, after reading in the Chicago Tribune that aliens were to be reregistered, Dr. Kamarauskas feared that he would be deported. He sat down and wrote a letter to his wife. Then he walked out in the snow, put a belt around his neck, tied the other end to a 5-ft.-high fence and leaned forward until he strangled to death.

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