Czech student finds refuge at Beloit College
Milan Hapala ’40 first attended Beloit College as an exchange student, but the outbreak of war lead him to find his, “second home,” in the United States.
Credit: Beloit College ArchivesIn 1937, Milan Hapala ’40 of Brno, Czechoslovakia, applied to Beloit College as an exchange student through the Institute of International Education. He wrote in his application: “I want to study in America for the reason to be able to make the best of my knowledge of English and all my experiences in America in the study in the school of diplomacy.” He had studied English for one year in secondary school and two years at the English Institute in Brno, and expressed interest in learning foreign languages and a fondness for music and theater. “Coming back from America I intend to study law at the University in Brno.” World events would change his plans.
Hapala arrived at Beloit in September 1938, where he lived in The Haven, one of two relatively new men’s dormitories. A government major, he immersed himself in his studies, though he struggled at first. A profile in The Round Table quotes him as saying, “Though I do not find it too hard to read English books, as yet I have found it quite hard to catch everything that the professor says in his lectures.”
The plight of his homeland was also on his mind. Nazi Germany was in the process of annexing Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia with a German minority population. “Hitler’s main aim in this territory-grabbing is not to aid minorities, but to get the natural resources that the Sudeten area is so rich in,” said Hapala. “Why Hitler should stop with this small area is not an unanswerable question. He will not!”
Hapala’s prediction came true. Nazi troops invaded the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. Hungary annexed regions in the south of the country, and the province of Slovakia became an independent Catholic state with ties to Nazi Germany. By the end of 1939, the independent republic of Czechoslovakia had ceased to exist. In a letter to Beloit College President Irving Maurer, Milan’s father Vladimir wrote:
Credit: Beloit College Archives“Though my boy has always written with great enthusiasm about his stay at your College, you will not find it hard to understand that my wife and I were eagerly looking forward to the reunion after a year’s absence. But now, in the changed circumstances, it is impossible for my son to come back. As I am not in the position to support him in Amerika [sic] from my own resources, I beg to ask of you the favour of granting him his present scholarship for another year’s study. I am not able to express my gratitude in any other way except by simply saying: Most sincere thanks to you and to your College for the helping hand you have offered and still may offer to a young member of a nation which is in great trial.”
President Maurer responded, “I think it may relieve your parental mind when I say to you that I have had the young man in and have told him that if he should wish to spend the second year at Beloit, I will do everything possible to make it available to him … I run into him constantly. He seems well and while, of course, worried, is doing good work and commands the respect of his schoolmates and teachers.” Maurer appealed to the Federation of Czech Societies and to the Institute of International Education, which had funds to help Czech students, and the college arranged for Hapala to resume his studies in September 1939.
His parents thanked President Maurer, noting that “our life is very hard and full of anxiety as regards the future.” Just how hard, Hapala described in a letter to Maurer at the start of the next semester: “Letters received from home tell me about the injustice and the brutal persecution of the Czech people in my country. Although there are a few Germans willing to co-operate with the Czechs, the conditions of life are becoming unbearable. Hundreds of Czechs are subjected to unbelievable torture in concentration camps. The wildest stretch of imagination cannot grasp the full significance of the horrors of the Gestapo …. Nevertheless, such terror and pressure is creating new opposition and new determination on the part of the Czechs to resist all Nazi efforts to suppress them.”
Milan Hapala graduated in 1940 with Phi Beta Kappa honors. President Maurer wrote that he was “one of the outstanding students of this year’s graduating class.” Hapala went on to earn a master’s degree at the University of Nebraska in 1941, and began a doctoral program at Duke University. He suspended his studies during World War II to serve his adopted country for three years in the Army Air Corps, and became a U.S. citizen. After the war, he resumed his studies, joined the faculty at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1947, and received his doctorate from Duke in 1956. He taught government and economics at Sweet Briar College for 43 years, becoming a nationally known expert on Asia.
In the spring of 1940, he wrote to his parents from Beloit, “I shall never forget that I have found at this place my second home.” Milan Hapala passed away in 1992. His obituary noted his keen intellect, subtle wit, and warm spirit, describing him as an energetic and engaged teacher, “everything a professor at a liberal arts college should be.” He remained a proud Beloiter throughout his life and was awarded the Distinguished Service Citation in 1970.
From Fridays with Fred, published online Nov. 4, 2010.
