Description:
Text transcribed from caption: C-46227 REGAINING THE PAST NEW YORK -- Simas
Kudirka (center, dark jacket) inspects the book that records his mother’s
baptism at St Mary of the Angels Catholic Church in Brooklyn. Father Anthony
Petrauskas, pastor of the church, shows the 1906 baptismal record book to,
from second left, Mr. Kudirka’s son Evaldas, his daughter Lolita, Mr.
Kudirka, an unidentified man, and Marija Sulskis, Mr. Kudirka’s mother. Mr.
Kudirka, 45, is the Lithuanian seaman who was removed by force from a U.S.
Coast Guard cutter in 1970 by officers of a Russian vessel from which he had
defected off Martha’s Vineyard. Sentenced to 10 years in a Siberian prison
camp for treason, his release was pushed up when the baptism records
established the U.S. citizenship of his mother. That was sufficient to
qualify him for citizenship in this country too. He was allowed to leave the
Soviet Union with his family to begin a new life in the U.S. Credit Must
Read: RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE PHOTO (A-NY-11A-74-DS)
Creator:
Wide World Photos, Inc. (publisher)
Subject names:
Religious News Service--Archives., St. Mary of the Angels Church (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.), Kudrika, Simas., Kudirka, Evaldas., Kudirka, Lolita., Sulskis, Marija., Catholic Church--Clergy., Petrauskas, Anthony.
Topics:
Emigration and immigration., Citizenship--United States., Clergy--New York (State)--New York., Church records and registers--New York (State)--New York., Cold War., Defectors--Soviet Union.
Geographic subjects:
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.), Soviet Union--Emigration and immigration.
URL:
https://digital.history.pcusa.org/islandora/object/islandora:361900