Sent to Siberia  

By Barbara Sofer

Readers who, like me, grew up in the West during the Cold War remember our fear that the Russians were coming to get us. The 1966 movie, a comedy, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, about a Soviet submarine running aground in my native New England, was funny because it resonated with our genuine worries.

Back in Colchester, Connecticut, we had scary school bombing drills for which we had to crouch under desks. I still recall the helpless feeling I had as a young teen, working as a junior lifeguard at a lakeside day camp, when a plane swooped low over us. I immediately assumed this civilian plane was the Russians coming, and I couldn't protect the guppy-level swimmers in the water from attack.

By the end of high school, I was marching for Soviet Jewry at the State Capital in Hartford. I never connected the Russians we wanted to help leave with those we feared would come.