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Luba Miller was born in Russia in 1925 to Bella and Boris (Benny) Shulman. Wealthy Capitalists, per Luba, the Shulmans found themselves forced to flee Russia in 1929 upon the urging of Benny's brother, an editor for Pravda, with whom they lost contact completely after their emigration. Bella's family was already in Montreal, while Benny's other siblings had settled in Baltimore. Ms. Miller recounts having her governess, whom she called Dana, bringing her to the ship in Paris, as well as her family leaving with, "four forks, four spoons, four knives, there were four of us!" Luba's older brother, Chaim, born in 1921, had already faced difficulty entering school under his own name due to the Bolsheviks, and Stalin's rise to power only hastened the difficulties that the Shulmans were facing. Ms. Miller tells the story, told to her by their mother, of her parents attempt to leave Russia, in which, at the border, they were stopped as Bella was still wearing her diamond earrings. A border guard told her to remove them, or he would shoot her husband and say that he had tried to cross the border without approval.
The Shulmans arrived in November of 1929, anticipating meeting Benny's siblings in Baltimore. However, in an unhappy twist of fate, their arrival was the day after the American stock market crash of 1929, and the American borders were closed to arrivals. Their ship was rerouted to Montreal, where they were able to connect with Bella's family. Here, the Shulmans found it difficult to reestablish themselves, as they had arrived with nothing and spoke neither English nor French. Benny took a job in a butcher shop, but found the work difficult and unstimulating. Luba married at 16 in order to alleviate some of her parents' financial concerns.
In another ironic turn of events, the Shulmans, who had fled Russia to avoid Communism found themselves turning to it for comfort once settled in Montreal, even ending up on an American no-entry list for being subscribers to Fred Rose's newspaper.

Solomon Mikhoels was a Latvian born Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II.