Armao on the Brink: Escaping Russia in 1973

Given the current issues in the US and abroad regarding immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, democracy, and anti-semitism, Katy Meilleur, a nurse scientist who works on drugs for neurological disorders, recently published her father’s memoirs. Lev Perlov escaped from Communist Russia with his wife and two daughters in 1973 tricking the KGB and slipping out despite rules meant to thwart Jewish emigrants. The daughter tells us that his story of survival and human triumph against all odds, is hopeful and inspiring.

Katy Meilleur is a nurse scientist with a BA in biology from the University of Maryland, a master’s in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in nursing from Johns Hopkins University. She works in the biotech industry developing drugs for rare, neurological disorders. Born in the 1970’s in communist Russia, she narrowly escaped to the US with her parents when she was an infant. She recently translated, added to, found photos for, and published her father’s memoirs about that escape in a book entitled The Flight: How My Family Outsmarted the KGB.