Cold War

My mom grew up in Russia during the Cold War. The impacts on her weren't that big, but they were still present. During the beginning of the Cold War, life for her family wasn't that bad: they went on fishing trips, had a color television (which was rare at the time) and traveled around the country. Even the poorest people in the country could afford to eat at posh restaurants and go see foreign movies. My grandpa was a high up military commander, which made things easier for the family due to the government giving the military a lot of the resources. This fact made lives of the family of a military officer easier. If you served in the military, you were given housing and a high salary. However, toward the end of the cold war, there was a big depression, during which things, such as food and clothing, were hard to get. My grandma and mom had to knit a lot of things in order to have new clothing. By the end of the depression, the Cold War ended and my family moved to the U.S.

Life in France during the Cold War

For this blog post, I decided to interview my dad to find out what life in Europe was like during the Cold War. I asked him what the single event in the Cold War that he most remembered, and why. His answer was the Six-day War between Israel and Egypt that in fact was one of the "hot wars" that were the products of the Cold War.

He said that the war seemed to be a localized conflict in the Middle East, but was in fact a manifestation of the Cold War that was going on between the USA and the USSR. In the Six Day War, the USA sided with Israel, and the USSR, with Egypt. During the entirety of the war, my dad's parents wouldn't speak to him at all, not even at family meals, because they were constantly listening to the radio, trying to find out the latest news regarding the conflict.

One reason for this may be the fact that people in France were very paranoid about a Communist invasion, not such much in the government, like the USA, but in a military sense. There was a widespread and widely believed rumor that it would only take East German tanks a total of 24 hours to drive from the Berlin Wall to Paris. Coupled to this was the fact that my dad grew up in the French region of Alsace-Lorraine, a region that had been invaded half a dozen times in the last century.

In conclusion, the main emotion of the Six Days' War, and the Cold War in general, was a sense of paranoia, and imminent crisis, because of Western Europe's proximity to the USSR. This feeling was probably even worse than that in the USA because the USA at least was isolated from the rest of the world by the oceans.

Cold War Oral History

So despite what mama Pugs told us, neither of my parents thought that they grew up during the cold war, so I had to do a rushed interview with my grandmother instead.

She was living in Southern California from the mid-50s on through the end of the war, and she said that the West Coast just seemed much less worried about impending doom than the East Coast.  I have never seen her worried about anything, and I could definitely see her shrugging off an alleged threat from halfway around the world.  The only way in which it affected her life was that when voting, her primary concern was attaining a lasting peace with the USSR.

Desperate to find something about Cold War paranoia, I asked about the weird cement foundation on their house in Portola Valley.  She told me that the people who had lived there before them had been insane about the war, and they had built a bomb shelter into the house.  They had a full food supply and independent gas lines and a generator, fearing the nuclear apocalypse.  But in general, the war didn't seem to worry her that much, and the only emotion I could get in the conversation was internally laughing at the crazy people who used to own their house.

My Parent's Experience During the Cold War

Even though my mom was only about five or six years old, she has a few memories about learning about the Cold War in school. She recalls that in school they were taught about the freedoms banished within the Soviet Union. Specifically, the bans on religion and rights. She recalls that they were also taught about the fear that the US had of the Soviets having an atomic bomb. She remembers that some buildings had signs that read "Fallout Shelters" a place that one was supposed to reside if an atomic bomb was dropped. She also remembers that people were most afraid of Cuba because it was right off the coast of Florida. This was because Cuba was communist and its weapons were supplied by the Soviet Union. She remembers having Civil Defense Drills in school twice a year in which they had to practice walking home from school. This was to prepare for a time that children couldn't contact their parents and streets weren't open because a bomb was dropped or an air raid occurred. My mom also remembers at the age of about 30, watching the Berlin Wall fall on tv. 

        My dad recalls his trip to the Soviet Union in 1979-1980 in an exchange program. He visited Moscow and Leningrad. He met other college students that said that they occasionally got to read Newsweek and Time which surprised my dad. He remembers seeing few cars on the street because of their poverty. And he remembers the gross food that they fed him because of their lack of money. He recalls that his friends traded his Levi jeans for a bunch of collectables because the Soviets were unable to buy jeans. When he returned from his trip, they were warned that the Soviets were going to check their luggage to make sure that they didn't take anything that they weren't allowed to. He and his friends got nervous that they were going to take some of things they had bought. While they were in the Soviet Union, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan and my father or no one else on the trip had learned of this until they had returned home. When my father was a kid during the Cold War, he remembers through his temple, sending Russian Jews religious items to celebrate their religion and money to help them get out of Russia and go to Israel.

Life in India during the Cold War

Both my parents grew up in India, a place that is not necessarily thought of when you think of the Cold War, and neither of my parents had personal experiences directly related to the Cold War. They said that this was because although India had actually allied with the USSR, the people of India were more focused on developing their country since they had just gained freedom in 1947. They were also more focused on the war with Pakistan than the war going on in the rest of the world. Consequently, the Cold War was not very relevant to their daily lives. But, my dad said that one of the most important effects the Cold War had on India and one of the things he remembers the most is India's development of nuclear weapons in 1974. This was a big deal for India since it made it the sixth nation to develop this technology and also increased its power in the world. But, it did also increase tensions with countries like the U.S., which surprisingly are not very prevalent today. While nuclear weapons are clearly not the best thing in the world, this development helped India to become the country it is today. Although it may still not be a global power, it does have way bigger role than it would have otherwise.

Safe House? Or Playhouse?

My parents were just kids during the Cold War, but they remember some things about the time. Both my parents lived in Washington, D.C., where everyone was afraid would be the target of an attack. Further, my dad lived near a naval base (his father was in the Navy). Not surprisingly, many of my parents' neighbors built bomb shelters in their homes. My mom remembers one of her neighbors' shelters. Thy built it in their basement, and it had a tiny door (like a playhouse, it was fit for a child) that cranked open like on a submarine. There were a few bunk beds and a manually operated generator that could power the lights. My mom and her neighbors' children were not old enough to fully understand the danger of the situation. In fact, what my mom remembers most is playing in the bomb shelter (as if it were a playhouse) with her friend (the neighbors' child), and that her friend's parents always got mad at them for it. It was a scary time--especially in Washington, D.C.--but my parents were both too young to fully grasp how important it was.

Grandpa's Trip to Berlin

My grandpa climbed up the steps of the Berlin Wall, something that others are shot at for attempting. Escorted by Russian soldiers, my grandpa crossed from West Berlin into East Berlin for a long two hours. Only days earlier, he was back at home in the United States. Even he was in fear of Russia and their threat of overpowering europe and potentially America as well. He was working for the Dupont Company. His boss was asked by President Kennedy to establish Radio Free Europe, a broadcast into Russia about good things happening in Western Europe. RFE was to interview refugees who came out of Russia. My grandpa traveled from Washington D.C. to Seattle to raise money for this broadcast and was also backed up by the CIA, who assured my grandpa that he would make it out of Berlin safely. So in the mid-1960's, he got on a plane and arrived in Germany, which he described as a very scary place. "West and East Berlin was like day and night." In West Berlin, where RFE headquarters were located, there were shops, cars, and people roaming the streets; it was a prosperous area. After he climbed the steps of the Berlin Wall, he saw nothing, literally. He describes East Berlin as being "vacant; no people, no cars, no shops, no life." In the Eastern part of the city, there was no freedom, food, or technology. The people were poor and helpless because Russia had bad ambitions. He returned from Berlin safely and continued working on the project, but for even at home, fear still existed. But nothing beats standing at the top of the Berlin Wall.