Hundreds of refugees came to Sudbury from Hungary, Vietnam in decades past
In 1956. dozens of Hungarian refugees landed in Sudbury; in 1980, 350 refugees from Vietnam also came to city
Preparations are being made to welcome Syrian refugees to Sudbury and across northern Ontario, but this is not the first time doors have been opened to those from troubled corners of the world.
We look back on the last two influxes of refugees that saw families sponsored, fundraising campaigns launched and new Sudburians welcomed.
George Galba
George Galba was a 15-year-old hanging out in a public square in Budapest when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland.
He was swept up in a rush to the border and ended up in a refugee camp in Austria. It was two months before his parents found out what happened to him.
Galba was eventually put on a boat for New York, and ended up in the Sudbury area. He was placed with a farmer and was treated like a slave labourer — something he never liked to talk about. He later lived with a Hungarian family in Sudbury, completed eight elementary school grades in one year and was hired on at INCO's Clarabelle Mill.
He met his future wife Jessie at a dance. She was seven months pregnant when he died in a plane crash in 1973. Her daughter, Georgina, has embraced Hungarian culture, despite never knowing her father.
Nam and Carol Le
In October 1980, Carol went to the Sudbury airport to pick up the latest group of Vietnamese refugees. Working at the multicultural centre, she had helped some of the 350 "boat people" settle in the city.
A quiet young man named Nam Le was part of the group. He had fled Vietnam in a small boat and spent 11 days lost on the ocean before arriving in the Philippines. In Sudbury, he got to know Carol as he served as an interpreter for the other Vietnamese who were arriving.
They are still married today, living in the village of Walford, west of Sudbury. His first job was making doughnuts, but he is now a respiratory therapist at the Sudbury hospital.