We then came to the Soviet Union. One day we were walking and carrying our banner and distributing a few leaflets in Russian to people, and we met two women on the road.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We were fortunate to have the Russians as our childhood enemies. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they had the temerity to drop a nuclear weapon.
I was proud of my Soviet country, of wearing Young Pioneer uniform, bombarded by my mother's Communist propaganda.
I went to Moscow and met some slightly powerful and scary people.
There was something about the idea of Russia that I found very intriguing, and I think I had romanticized it a lot.
My own kids were with me in Berlin when Germany was reunited, and they were with me in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. We talked about these things at the dinner table, at their schools, with their friends.
I wanted - and still want - to tell my mother's story. She fled Stalin's army in 1944, leaving Latvia, which was to be occupied by the Soviets for the next 50 years, and arrived to the U.S. when she was 11.
I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.
To fly into Moscow was a joy. I was trying to understand what people were thinking and how to earn money. In the end, I stayed.
So I left with Jean Claude and went to Paris, so when the Russians came to Prague, I was in Paris.
In the first day of the Soviet Army's arrival, I and the other comrades were isolated and then found ourselves here, not knowing anything... I can only conjecture what could have happened.