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• EDITION •
Taxi operator found still cheating asylum seekers AG: Owner of Northern Taxi and Chris’ Shuttle Service violated order
Vladimir Munk was born in February of 1925
in Pardubice, a city 60 miles east of Prague, the capital of present-day Czech Republic. On Dec. 6, 1942, 606 Jews living in the city were deported to Terezin, a small military town converted to a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. Many Jews were later sent from Terezin to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the extermination camp operated by Nazi Germany. They were either sent to the gas chambers there or used as slave labor in one of the 40 Auschwitz satellite camps, where they ultimately died of hunger and disease. Only 46 Jews from Pardubice survived. Vladimir was one of them. He currently lives in Plattsburgh. This is Vladimir’s story. ■
ABOVE: A portrait of the Munk family, including Karel, Hermina and Vladimir in 1929.
PLATTSBURGH | Attorney General Letitia James announced a guilty plea in a contempt of court proceeding May 8 that found that Christopher Crowningshield was illegally taking advantage of asylum seekers. Crowningshield, the owner of Northern Taxi and Chris’ Shuttle Service, routinely overcharged vulnerable asylum seekers who were using his company for transportation to the Canadian border, the Attorney General’s Office said. In May 2017, a court order obtained by the office prohibited him from taking financial advantage of these individuals. The Attorney General’s Office found that Crowningshield violated that order and continued to overcharge passengers. Crowningshield pleaded guilty May 7 to civil and criminal contempt of court and was fined $10,000 and sentenced to serve three weekends in jail. “Immigrant communities are scared and it is unconscionable that business owners would try to take advantage of that fear to line their own pockets,” James said in a press release. “Not only did Christopher Crowningshield repeatedly swindle these vulnerable individuals, but he then violated a court order strictly prohibiting him from engaging in the same predatory behavior. We will never tolerate individuals that profit from fear or disrespect the law.” » Taxi Cont. on pg. 2
RIGHT: Photo from the Munks’ 1935 summer vacation.
Photos provided
Pardubice: The early years Plattsburgh resident, concentration camp survivor shares story By Julie Canepa GUEST W RITER
PLATTSBURGH | What makes any one person a survivor? Is there a characteristic, an idiosyncrasy, that might lend itself to survival through one of history’s most horrifi c campaigns of mass genocide? Is it luck? Fate? Faith? Family? Or is it a series of synchronicities, uncanny coincidences, that add up to a reversal of fortune that defies all odds? The answer is anybody’s guess. This is Vladimir Munk’s story.
A PROUD POW
After the war, Munk’s father returned to school in Prague. It was there that he met his future wife, Hermina Gesmai. Karel finished his studies with a degree in chemistry and returned to his hometown of Pardubice where he began working as a chemist in a large industrial distillery. Karel and Hermina were married in Pardubice in 1923. Although they were both Jewish, they were married in a civil ceremony at city hall.
Munk’s father, Karel, was in his third year of studying chemical engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague when he was drafted into the AustrianHungarian army. It was 1914, the beginning of WWI, and many Czech soldiers, upon being sent to the eastern front to fight against Russia, surrendered voluntarily to the Russians instead of fighting their “Slavic brothers.” These Czech POWs then volunteered to fight side by side with the Russians against the German and Austrian forces and were organized into units called legions. “My father joined the Russian legion. Legionaries were considered the most patriotic citizens of newly created Czechoslovakia. Many of them remained in the military and became the nucleus of the Czechoslovak army,” explained Munk.
HAPPY MEMORIES
Czechoslovakia grew to be one of Europe’s most prosperous states between the two world wars. In that golden era, on Feb. 27, 1925, Vladimir Munk, the only child of Karel and Hermina Munk, was born. Karel was promoted to manager of the distillery, and the family resided in a comfortable, two-story flat attached to the factory. » Munk Cont. on pg. 5
Trip of a lifetime B’town students, Legion Riders lend effort to North Country Honor Flight By Nathan Ovalle EDITOR
Seventh-grade students from Beekmantown work on their North Country Honor Run 5K & U.S. Oval Walk project. Photo provided
BEEKMANTOWN | When the 27th North Country Honor Flight participants leave their send-off ceremony Saturday, they will have additional company for part of their parade route to Plattsburgh International Airport. Seventh-grade students at Beekmantown Middle School have lent their effort to the cause, orchestrating the North Country Honor Run 5K & US Oval Walk. Runners and walkers are encouraged to show their support in their apparel. Prizes will be awarded to the top three runners and best dressed.
“Dress in your most patriotic running apparel and be a part of this memorable race,” a press release from Team Ascent seventh-grade students and teachers said. “If you have never witnessed an Honor Flight ceremony, this is an event you won’t want to miss!” The 27th North Country Honor Flight trip — set for Armed Forces Day (Saturday, May 18) — will see 15 more area veterans head to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials in their honor. “This ceremony will be more spectacular than ever,” Honor Flight Director Barrie Finnegan said in an email. “The kids and the staff have worked very hard on this in hopes of sponsoring their own flight.” Part of this flight will be four World War II veterans, including 101-year-old William Busier. Korean War, Cold War and Vietnam veterans will round out the flight. The trip is one which “many call one of the best days of their lives,” Finnegan said. » Honor flight Cont. on pg. 3
First woman president at SUNY Plattsburgh dies Dr. Sherry Hood Penney remembered
PLATTSBURGH | Dr. Sherry Hood Penney, 81, who served as interim presi-
until 2012. Her husband was a retired Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. The fi rst woman to serve as president at SUNY Plattsburgh, Penney arrived on campus in 1986 following the retirement of President Joseph Burke, who went to
Albany to become SUNY provost. When tapped to interim at the college, she had been vice chancellor of academic programs, policy and planning at SUNY. She became chancellor and professor of American and women’s studies at UMass Boston in 1988. » Hood Cont. on pg. 2
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dent at SUNY Plattsburgh from 1986 to 1987, died at her Florida home. Penney had retired as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2000 and then founded the Center for Collaborative Leadership there, serving as its director