Ben+Za's+Oral+History+Questions+and+Responses

For Mom: What kinds of anti-American propaganda did you experience as a child in the Soviet union? How were you exposed to it?

Everything we were exposed to as citizens of the Soviet Union was anti-American propaganda. You couldn't open the newspaper or turn on the TV that had only one official party channel without seeing or hearing how Americans were described as racist, money obsessed, soulless, war-starting imperialists. I always liked reading, but you had to know which newspaper to pick up, because if you picked up the official "party line" newspaper, you would be absolutely sure that America was a horrible, less than human nation.

For Mom: How did the Soviet Union incorporate anti-American propaganda into its educational system? How well do you think it worked out? From day one in Pre-Kindergarten, we had weekly political overview lessons where each one of us was supposed to present what happened in the world and describe all the horrors that poor kids in Capitalist countries had to go through on a daily basis to survive, and how much better to live in the communist Soviet Union. In order to do well in school, you had to join several political organizations throughout your youth. The first one was the октябрята, or October Scouts, which we had to join in first grade. The second was the "Young Pioneers", which you could join starting in 4th grade, but in order to do that you had to have good grades and present during several political classes about the incredible horrors of capitalism. Eventually, everyone became a young pioneer, but it was a big honor to join as early as possible. Young pioneers had to teach little kids about the honor of the October Revolution in 1917, go to communist Saturdays where he had to do a lot of community service, and also Young Pioneers could go to a special camp during the summer, where in addition to having normal summertime fun, we had to have political lessons, gather near the campfire and sing communist songs, march in pretend military formations, and yell out patriotic slogans. I think it worked out really well because the majority of Soviet kids were sure that America was evil, and was going to attack us any moment,

For Mom: Did you ever feel the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia? What was the general feeling towards the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s when you were growing up?

I used to wake up in the middle of the night, hear civil planes flying over my hometown, and be absolutely 100 percent sure that they were military American planes bringing bombs to kill us. At school he had to go through military preparedness class, where he had to put on chemical gas masks, to protect us in case of fallout, and also practice running down into the basement, where he had cement cells for each grade to congregate and wait for further instructions, in case of war. We also had to go through marching sessions, where we sang songs that proclaimed how the Soviet Union was the best. We had to learn how to learn how to assemble and disassemble automatic rifles, and load and unload them and keep them in working condition. All that was done in case of eminent war with the capitalist West. The general population of the Soviet Union thought of the U.S. as the main enemy that had to be kept under constant check. My grandpa was the assistant principal of a college that prepared political workers that had to go around the country and give lectures of the dangers of imperialism. He sometimes spoke for hours, giving presentations about how horrible life in Western societies were, while at the same time, we was trying to listen to the prohibited Voice of America, just to know what our enemies were saying about us. He was adamant that moving to the United States equalled becoming a traitor to your motherland. When his son with his family moved to California in 1977, he refused to ever say his son's name and said that he never really had a son to begin with. He actually lost his position, and he was made to go into retirement, because he couldn't be trusted anymore, even if we wanted nothing to do with his son.

For Mom: In 1977, the Luskins, your family, were made enemies of the state because your uncle moved to America. As a young girl, what did you understand about the situation, how did it affect your life in the short term, and how did it affect you in the long term?

As I said before, when my uncle left the U.S.S.R., my grandpa denied his son, and my uncle couldn't send us letters to our home address, so he had to send it to the central post office, where they had to be picked up with proper I.D., and your name was recorded by the KGB. When my uncle left the Soviet Union, our prestigious downtown apartment was taken away, and we were made to move into a very blue-collar uneducated inner-city like part of town, where I was the only Jew in my class. The school where you went to was determined by where you lived, and so if you lived in a nice, educated neighborhood, you could socialize with interesting people. But because we were sent to such a bad neighborhood, I spent my childhood hiding the fact that I had relatives overseas, even from my very best friend. My grandma attempted to call my brother by my uncle's name, and I had to invent a story for my best friend to explain why she always used the wrong name for my brother, because I couldn't tell her it was the name of my American uncle. I was literally afraid to tell anyone that my relatives lived in the United States, for fear of being called a traitor. In my family we always held beliefs that were complete opposites to the official party line, but they could only be discussed in the privacy of your own home, with only the closest friends, and only after making sure there were no listening devices anywhere in your apartment. When people were permanently leaving the 'Soviet Union, the KGB agents took pictures of everyone who came to say goodbye at the train station, and then the names of those people, along with the pictures, were sent to the places where the people worked, and often times, it resulted in the loss of good paying jobs, demotion, or disciplinary hearings at work. A lot of our friends left the Soviet Union during 1977-1979, and in many instances my mom used to take me to say goodbye to her friends. when you said goodbye, it was like you were attending a funeral; you never expected to see your loved one again. It was always my parents dream to leave the Soviet Union, but my mom could never imagine leaving her parents, my grandparents, there alone, and my grandpa would never in a million years consider moving to the West. Until his last day, he was an unwavering communist.

For Mom: In the Soviet Union, the Jewish people were heavily persecuted and stereotyped. What kind of persecution did you experience as a child and how did it affect you?

It is a well known fact in the West that Jewish people were persecuted by anti-Semitic general masses, as well as by the official party in the Soviet Union. My brother and I were called "dirty Jews" and other horrible names that I cannot mention here, on a daily basis. The worst curse that someone would use, even toward a non-Jewish person, was calling someone a Jew. Each classroom had a list of all students, that along with normal information, such as address, birthdate, parents' names, had your nationality, and it was very uncomfortable to be the only Jewish person in the classroom. Being Jewish did not mean your religious beliefs, it meant your nationality, almost your race, similar to how the Nazis classified Jews. There was an unspoken rule that only a certain number of Jewish people could be accepted into good colleges, for example, there could never be more than one percent of Jewish students in a medical school. Some universities were completely off limits to Jewish people, such as anything dealing with international relationships or foreign affairs. All that persecution worked in the opposite direction, making Jewish people work ten times harder than non-Jews, to achieve the same level of grades or social status. All that name calling and extra work that I had to do, resulted in severe undiagnosed depression that i had to live through when I was a teenager. Like I said, all Jewish people had to work extra hard, and in my grade, out of over 200 people who graduated with me, there were three gold medals for academic achievement, and all three went to Jewish people, including myself. I had one very anti-Semitic chemistry teacher who would never give me an A or B for A-level work while my desk-neighbor, who always copied my answers (cheating), got A's for the exact same answers, and there was nothing we could do to change that.

For Grandma: Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, died in 1953. What was the reaction of both you and the rest of the country?

People believe in God, but in the Soviet Union, the official line was Atheism. And because people still had to believe in something, they chose Stalin as their God figure. When Stalin passed away on March 5th, 1953, my brother who later left for the U.S., fell on his bed and started crying hysterically and uncontrollably. I also cried, as well as all the people around us. Everyone questioned the future, saying "What will happen to us?". I was a young communist then, and we had to stand in military style salute near the statue of Stalin that was standing in every courtyard, school, and streets. We went to school for about a week and didn't have any lessons, we just had group crying sessions. There were lots of people, probably hundreds, maybe even thousands, who stampeded and died in an attempt to get closer and see Stalin's coffin. There were very few people who understood the true nation of Stalin's regime, and my family was not one of them.

For Grandma: The Vietnam War and the Korean War are both viewed mostly from an American perspective. What did the government tell you about the wars and their purpose, and what did the public think of the wars?

The official story from the Communist Party was that American Imperialists were trying to invade these countries to make them into capitalist, and that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with those wars, even though they were supplying both of these countries with arms and ammunition. The public usually followed what was told to them in newspaper and TV. In the Soviet Union, especially before the 1960s and 1970s, people believed everything that was told to them by the government.

For Grandma: Your husband was involved in the 1956 invasion of Hungary. What was the purpose of it, what did the government tell you about it, and what did he experience there?

The government was silent about it, nobody talked about it on TV or in the newspapers. They invaded Hungary because the Hungarian people were tired of communism and wanted a free, non-Soviet controlled government. The Soviet Union sent tanks and the army to stop the movement. My husband was conscripted into the Soviet army, which was mandatory for all Soviet youth 18 years of age. They were taken to a train station and sent somewhere without any prior knowledge of where they were going. When they were in Hungary, everyone in his tank got killed except for him. He never wanted to talk about it, because first of all it was hard to remember, but mostly because they signed confidentiality papers that said not to talk about it.

For Grandma: How did you feel about America during your life in the Soviet Union, what influenced your decision to come to America, and how did you feel when the U.S.S.R. broke up?

When I was little, and there was the Iron Curtain, we were all under the impression that the American people were the worst enemy. There was official propaganda throughout my youth, and only in the 1970's when he started to get additional information about life in the West from people who were leaving the Soviet Union did I start to dream about having my kids grow up in a proper society. It was incredibly hard to be Jewish in the Soviet Union, and we originally considered moving to Israel, but decided that America was a safer place. I felt the Soviet Union had to break up sooner or later, because it the country was built on oppression, terror, fear, and a lack of democracy.