1ST KOSOVO REFUGEES ARRIVE IN AMERICA.

Byline: Diana Jean Schemo The New York Times

With their families torn apart and their homes turned to ashes, the first 453 of 20,000 Albanian refugees arrived here from Macedonia on Wednesday, taking the first step toward rebuilding their lives away from the battlefield their homeland has become.

Arriving on a chartered Tower Air 747 jet on Wednesday afternoon, the refugees, many of them women, children and old people, were taken to a newly fenced-in section of the neighboring Fort Dix, where they were expected to remain for three to six weeks.

As the refugees filed past a receiving line on the runway, what they had been through could be read in the way they clustered together and the generations that were missing: A young woman walked with an old woman; a man alone carrying an infant; a mother shepherded a gaggle of children, with no husband; teen-agers came with their grandparents. Though beginning a new life, they carried no luggage.

They were welcomed to the gymnasium by Hillary Rodham Clinton. ``We know that your thoughts are thousands of miles away, with families or loved ones who are in Kosovo or in refugee camps,'' the first lady told them. ``We will not let Mr. Milosevic succeed in keeping you out of your home,'' she said, to the sustained applause of the newcomers. Above her was stretched a banner. ``Mirsevini ne Amerike,'' it said. ``Welcome to America.''

Though the United States had pledged to take in the refugees nearly a month ago, preparations to receive them here began in earnest just last Friday, after a renewed exodus from Kosovo brought 200,000 more people flooding into Macedonia over the last two weeks.

Since then, private contractors, reservists and soldiers have been working round-the-clock to outfit Fort Dix with bilingual signs, medical clinics, dormitories for families of varying sizes and children's playrooms. The stairwells, with high metal banisters, have been lined with sheets of Plexiglas to prevent little children from falling through the wide spaces, while gates now surround basement steps, also for safety.

Identity cards

On Wednesday night, officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service fingerprinted the newcomers and issued them identity cards, and gave them sweat suits and toiletries.

In the last 24 hours, approximately 8,000 Kosovar Albanians fled to Macedonia, said Marguerite Rivera Houze, undersecretary of state for population, refugees and migration. A main refugee camp at Stankovic was operating at triple capacity, Houze added. ``What we're trying to do is to get people moved out very quickly,'' she said.

Under pressure of the new outpouring, the Clinton administration scrapped plans to initially restrict the refugees coming here to those with relatives in the United States willing to sponsor them. Instead, it is accepting refugees after only a preliminary screening in Macedonia, and it allowed nonprofit relief agencies to sponsor them for resettlement.

Lucky ones

Houze said that those arriving here on Wednesday had suffered neither more nor less than the hundreds of thousands of other ethnic Albanians who remained behind.

Perhaps they were just luckier, or more eager. Those arriving on Wednesday ``were the ones who were already psychologically ready to move,'' said Roger Winter, executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Services of America, a private charity based in Washington.

Among them was one expectant woman who told relief workers she was only seven months pregnant but then appeared about to give birth en route to the United States. ``We asked if there was a doctor on the plane,'' Winter said. ``There were six.'' The woman, it turned out, was dehydrated, not in labor.

He said that when the plane touched down here, ending a journey that began 13 hours earlier in Skopje, the refugees erupted in cheers and applause.

While here, the refugees will undergo security, medical and immigration exams, which are usually conducted before refugees ever reach the United States. Afterward, nine nonprofit organizations that resettle refugees will channel the newcomers into apartments throughout the United States, said John Fredriksson, who is overseeing the effort for the Immigration and Refugee Services of America.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton greets the first group of Kosovo refugees to arrive at Guire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

Harry Hamburg/New York Daily News

(2 -- color) An Albanian girl flashes a victory sign after arriving in the U.S.

Mike Derer/Associated Press