A Life Amid Spies: The KGB

My first run in with Soviet intelligence was when I was in my 20s and went looking for my relatives in the Soviet Union. I had joined a citizen’s exchange group in 1969 that participated in dialogues with Russian citizens in different cities. One of those cities, Kharkiv, now in Ukraine, was of special interest because my grandmother Sarah’s relatives lived there after migrating from Lithuania in 1905.

I was close to Sarah as a child in the Bronx. I remember sitting next to her by the radio in her small, cramped apartment, listening to some kind of foreign station reporting the names of Jewish people murdered village by village in Lithuania and Ukraine. She would cry and light a yahrzeit, a Jewish memorial candle, when she recognized a name, and its glow would light up the room. Not hearing the names of her relatives meant they might still be alive.

I kept photos of three of them—her nephew Maxim Perlstein, a medical student to whom Sarah sent money when she could; and two twin girls, Dorina and Mary, both with black bangs, white angora collars, and sweet smiles.

In Kharkiv, I found no phone books, and directory assistance operators (common in America then) were not available to us. I was also told that looking for one’s relatives should be “above board,” so I approached the Intourist guide assigned to our group for help, even though it was known the official Soviet travel agency worked with the KGB.

“Could you please find out if there is a medical doctor in Kharkiv with the name Maxim Perlstein?” I asked. “He might be a relative.”

“I’ll inquire,” she said.

At the same time, I headed toward the main square of the city hoping I might meet Russians who could help me faster than Intourist, set up in 1929 to guide—and keep an eye on—foreigners visiting the USSR. At the time, there was a thaw in East-West relations and Russians were approaching tourists in the street without fear of arrest.

I chose a spot by a park to stand. Because of my distinct Western clothing, hairstyle, and jewelry, Russians began to stop and ask me questions about the West or practice their English. When an old man who spoke Yiddish came by and struck up a conversation, I felt I could trust him and handed him a slip of paper with