EAST WINDSOR, N.J. – The gas masks given to me and other Soviet first graders in 1987 were hand-me-downs from World War II, made of stiff rubber and too big for our faces. They trapped moisture and reduced the world to two blurry circles bouncing in front of my face. Our teacher didn’t tell us about the gas mask drill ahead of time — she simply handed out the masks, and we blindly paraded around the school before going back to our lessons. None of us bothered to ask why we were training. There was no need.
By the time my classmates and I entered first grade, we already knew that the United States and its Western allies were planning to harm us, the children of School No. 3 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The only thing left to do was to put on the gas masks.
