Anna (42), Maria (15)

May 31, 2022, Bratislava. Day 96 of war.

Maria showed me a poem she had written about her native Ukraine and the war raging there. She is only 15 years old and her mind is occupied by things that no child should think about. The day after she and her mother managed to leave Krematorsk by train, the Russians attacked the railway station in the city. 62 people died in the place where they stood just 24 hours before, including Anna's colleague. They hope to be able to return home soon. They thank everyone in Slovakia and wish them to know the war only from their stories. 

“My name is Anna, I am from Krematorsk, and I came here on July 4, 2022 because of the raging war in our area. I was at the hospital where I work as a nurse on February 24. Our shifts lasted usually 24 hours, so I came to work at 8:00 on the 23rd and was supposed to be there for the next 24 hours. A state of emergency was declared already on that day, because Russian troops came significantly closer to our borders. There was nervousness in the air, but no one expected anything to happen. It was a mistake! Already at 5 in the morning we heard the first explosions. After the second explosion, we knew it was no accident and that they were bombing nearby military posts. We quickly evacuated the patients to the basement and stayed there until 8 in the morning. We waited for the hospital management to come to tell us what to do next. We didn't know what was going to happen. The warning sirens did not work, hence we could not be warned of next possible attack. That's how it all started.” 

"We survived the year 2014, when we were also under occupation. We remembered what the bombing was, the shelling of the city, the exploded bus with 10 victims. On February 10, 2015, when I was working in the children's ward, rockets hit the adjacent building of the hospital. The warning siren did not work, we quickly tried to evacuate the children. I heard whizzing rockets and felt the building shake under my feet. 10 people died. One mother threw herself on top of her child during the explosion to protect it from flying debris. Unfortunately, she was one of the ten victims, but the child survived. Fortunately, we were liberated on July 5, 2014, and the city was part of Ukraine again. When it started again, we were afraid. They finally fixed the sirens, when they sounded, we ran down to the shelters 2-3 times a day, where we tried to calm the crying children. From the beginning, the situation there was not as bad as in Kharkiv or Kyiv, we did not experience heavy airstrikes. The situation was relatively calm, but with each passing day the combat actions escalated, and our city experienced the first significant damage, such as the destruction of the city boulevard, the shelling of several 8-story apartment buildings,... I'm not even talking about broken windows and injured people.” 

"Around the beginning of April, the mayor first asked us to leave the city, especially women with children, because the front was constantly getting closer to the city. We decided to leave on April 7. We boarded the evacuation train, which was completely overcrowded. Volunteers tried to guide people at the station, but panic reigned everywhere. The journey was not peaceful. We had to stop often, we constantly heard the sounds of air raid sirens. They shelled one of the stations in front of Kharkov. When we got there, it was half destroyed and full of terrified people. We let new people into the already overcrowded train. We couldn't leave them there after seeing the fear in their faces. We were lucky, the day after we left Krematorsk we learned about the attack on our station. In those places where we stood 24 hours ago, there were now 62 dead and 102 wounded. My fellow doctor was trying to evacuate his family and died in this attack.” 

"On the 9th, we were already in Slovakia, where we were welcomed with open arms. I am happy that there is a Slavic nation that supports us. We are fine here, they take good care of us. We are warm, we have things to eat. There is a lot of goodness and understanding around us. I wish that these people would never have to experience war in their lives.” 

“My mom, brother and husband stayed at home. They live in a village next to the city. On May 5, an explosion in a neighbouring street destroyed a shop. All humanitarian aid had to be transported to the cultural house, which, however, also became the target of attacks. The city is already surrounded from all sides. Members of my family live together in one house, hiding in the basement during attacks. The house is still standing. The surrounding houses are already missing windows, but by some miracle all the horror has escaped us for now. The most important thing for me was to protect my child, my daughter. Air raid alarm is not exactly what a teenage girl needs to listen to.” 

"Many people left Krematorsk. The local administration also actively took care of it, urging people to leave. Everyone expects that the entire Luhansk and Donetsk regions will be occupied. We hope our military will protect us. Many families have already lost their sons and husbands. My mom didn't want to leave, she has a husband there. Gardening season has begun, and since they're out of gas and soon will be out of food, they're trying to grow something. If you have a house, you know how to adapt, you make a fireplace, you have a well. But in an apartment? What do you do when you are disconnected from everything? Humanitarian aid is working so far, so people are not starving. Not only older people and men stayed in the city, but  for example also my colleague with 2 children. People try their best to secure their basements, strengthening them with sandbags, lining them with cement, digging a second exit so that in case of collapse there is a better chance to escape. While we were at home, we couldn't even sleep normally, we were constantly on the alert, waiting for something to fall on us. For the first time, we slept normally only here in Slovakia. We hope that it will end soon, that we will be Ukraine again and the war will never happen anywhere again.” 

“My husband is working in the garden these days. He cannot leave, if there is a 4th wave of mobilization, he will have to go to the front to fight. He already experienced one war in Yugoslavia, he is a war veteran, but even if he had the opportunity to leave, he didn't want to. He said that if necessary, he will protect his homeland.” 

"Our region is all Russian-speaking. We use Ukrainian only in official communication or at schools. I have never noticed our society to have a bad attitude towards Russian-speaking people. On the contrary, we had a relatively large level of freedom, and maybe that was a mistake. This probably encouraged the emergence of separatist groups and ideas. Our region has always been strongly connected with Russia, mainly by blood. My father was also Russian, he came from St. Petersburg. I don't know why Putin got the idea that fascists and Nazis live there. It is completely natural that each country has its own language and traditions, but that does not pose a threat to another country! People understand that it is Putin's war. Who does he want to free us from? Russian-speaking people, nurses in maternity hospitals, teachers and children in kindergartens? From who? It seems foolish to us now that we didn't believe all the warnings we heard from all sides. Ordinary people have to die for nothing. It is interesting how they are trying to destroy our culture, parks, museums, schools, theaters, zoos were destroyed in the city.” 

(Daughter) "I just finished the 9th grade. I like literature and write poems about Ukraine and war. I think this war is pointless. On the 24th, I woke up to the first explosions. My mother called me not to go to school. We watched the news and found out that the Russians had attacked the whole country, that Putin had declared a "special operation". He can't even call it true words. I think the Russians avoid the word war so that they don't have to bear the consequences after it's over. Many of my friends left our city, about 7 of them stayed at home. I am often in contact with them, but we don't want to talk much about the war. They talk about air raid sirens and how they live every day.” 

"Everyone experiences war differently. I was very afraid of warning sirens, but there are also those who, despite everything, get into the car and go where they need to go. We were hoping for diplomatic solutions, but that is probably no longer possible, especially in a situation where foreign soldiers came to our land with weapons in hand. Putin talks about denazification, he wants us to lay down our arms, but that is not possible. When he decided to kill us, we have to fight back. Who knows where he would stop if we gave up. Even in Russia, people are against the war and many are sabotaging it, setting fire to warehouses, etc. If they don't come to their senses in Russia, we will have to win. Even at the cost of terrible losses, there is no war without losses.” 

"We are not in contact with our family in St. Petersburg, because they have their own opinion on the matter, which is the result of intensive Russian propaganda. They think they are right and that they know better how we should live. We experienced this already in 2014, when no one believed us. Fortunately, we were then able to expel the rebels and drive them far enough away from our city. However, the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics are not enough for the Russians, the entire east of Ukraine is rich in deposits of coal, gas, and iron ore, and there is a developed industry there. The economy has practically stagnated for 8 years. What worked well is now destroyed. People risk their lives even when they go to work.” 

"We hope that the situation will calm down soon and that we will be able to return. We thank every country that helps us. At the border in Slovakia, we cried with happiness, because we did not expect such a reception. Evacuation is not so terrible. It gives a nation the chance to survive and preserve its culture. We take our children and our customs with us, and this is how the nation survives. My daughter did not want to leave at first, she said that we have to stay, that it is our country. However, when the situation worsened, she finally suggested that we leave. By then, there were already convoys of cars trying to leave the city and a full train station of people waiting for the salvation train. When we got to the train station, we didn't know if we were going to leave or if they were going to send us home. Fortunately, we succeeded. We didn't take many things, even the mayor warned us to take a maximum of one piece of luggage so that there would be more space on the train. We had so little clothes that when we arrived in Slovakia and it started snowing, the volunteers gave us warm clothes so that we would have something to wear. We like it here because there are good people here. Even if we don't know the language, they try to help us. There is very nice architecture, people are calm, they are not in a hurry. My daughter has a friend here from Krematorsk who was evacuated on the same day as us. We didn't know where we were going. We traveled to Uzhhorod for more than 30 hours. We were lucky. Only two trains left from Krematorsk on that day, one going to Lviv and the other to Uzhgorod. The one going to Lviv was shelled, 10 people died in it, they had to return to Krematorsk. There were a lot of people in Uzhhorod. Volunteers were finding out who wanted to go where. We learned about the bus that was going to Slovakia, so we decided to get on it. We knew we would be safe and close to home. We already feel much better than when we arrived, we can sleep normally, we don't hear warning sirens, psychologists come to see us, we feel help from all sides. Many thanks to Slovakia for what it does for us. I hope you will know war only from our stories and never from your own experience!”