The 1 ,000,000th D.P.

At 3 a.m., Alexander Ranezay was roused from his bunk on the U.S. military transport General C. H. Muir. His wife packed; his daughters, Lydia, 21, and Erika, 10, dressed with special care. International Refugee Organization officials wanted the Ranezays to be all ready when the ship docked at 7 a.m. For 47-year-old Ranezay, once a Slovak farm manager, had been picked as the 1,000,000th refugee to be resettled by the I.R.O. since it began its work four years ago. He was I.R.O.'s 280,572nd displaced person accepted by the U.S.*

The porter carrying his bags from the ship asked: "Are you the 1,000,000th?" Ranezay nodded, and the porter set down his bags. "I got to shake your hand," he said. The cab driver who drove them to St. Patrick's Cathedral declared proudly: "I'm going to put a sign in the back that the i, 000,000th rode here." At St. Patrick's, the Ranezays knelt and gave thanks.

The Ranezays are bound for Midland,

Texas, where William Y. Penn, a consulting geologist, offered Alexander a job as gardener and his wife work as housekeeper. The Ranezays will live in the comfortable guest cottage on Penn's estate. Lydia, who learned English in the D.P. camp, wants to be a dress designer.

In 1945, when the Russians came to Poprad, Czechoslovakia, the Ranezays had climbed into their car and fled. They crossed into Austria, settled in a D.P. camp near Salzburg. Alexander got work as a driver, first for Coca-Cola, later for the U.S. motor pool. At last, the I.R.O. told Ranezay he could go to the U.S.

Of the 1,000,000 resettled D.P.s, the U.S. has taken by far the greatest number --nearly one-third. Australia has taken 180,000, Israel 132,000, Canada 115,000, the United Kingdom 86,000, Latin America 86,000. Of the 281,000 accepted by the U.S., more than 96% came from countries behind the Iron Curtain--more than a third from Poland, another 25% from the Baltic countries, the rest from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Russia itself. Said Ranezay: "There is only one thing we would still like to ask. Please don't forget those who are still behind. We who have learned the meaning of freedom wish it for everyone."

-Arrived this week: Jaroslav Konvalinka and Karel Truksa, engineer and dispatcher, respectively of the Czech train which made a dash for freedom across the border into Western Germany (TIME, Sept. 24). At the invitation of Lawrence Cowen, president of Lionel Corp., they will settle with their families in Irvington, N.J., work in Lionel's toy-train plant.

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