Isabella (43)

December 30, 2023, Pruske. 675th day of the war.

When we met, she was just preparing food for her daughter. I had already been in the monastery where the Franciscans had provided shelter for dozens of people fleeing the war since the beginning. Many of the people who found refuge here have already returned home. Those who stayed have nowhere else to go or cannot return because the trauma of war is too strong. I encountered her during the last days in Slovakia before she moved further west. She didn't know where she was going yet. She had a job, a place to live, but between the lines, I understood that she didn't feel very well here anymore. That she felt she wasn't welcome. She decided to move on, to find a better place for herself and her daughter.

"I am a professional chef. I come from Uzhhorod, where my three children were born. My sons are already adults, and my daughter is 13. I also have two brothers, one of them is fighting on the side of Ukraine, and the other on the side of Russia."

"When the war started, no one understood how it could happen. That morning, I was getting ready for work. I had the morning shift at the hotel where I worked, and like every morning, I checked Facebook and the news to know what was happening in the world. Already then, around four in the morning, the first information started to appear that there were explosions in Kyiv, and probably the war had begun. Later at work, a waiter from Kharkiv came to me. He kept holding his head and screaming that where were his wife and child, everything was burning and exploding. The only thing he could think of was how to get to Kharkiv and take them to safety. That's when I started to realize the seriousness of the situation. Our hotel had a capacity for 200 people, but on the third day of the war, we had more than 400 people accommodated. Entire families with children and grandparents often crowded into one room for four people. We were all in such shock that we started to accommodate people even in the hotel corridors. Its owner, a local entrepreneur, did not ask them for money. We let them stay for free. Life began to change. The streets filled with fear, and even children stopped going to school because no one knew what could happen. In three months of working at the hotel, I met many who came to us in an unimaginably impoverished state. Some had hidden in basements for months and were emaciated to the bone. They were people from Kharkiv, Kyiv, or Odessa. They helped us in the kitchen, where each of them told us their terrible stories. It all leaves a mark on you. After a while, I fell into depression too.”

"Soon, my brother also came to us; he was injured. He told me to take my daughter and leave Ukraine; it was difficult to estimate how it all might end. I didn't think for long. By that time, due to martial law, it was almost impossible to go to work, and movement on the streets was strictly controlled. A friend advised me to come to Pruske; she was already here, and it's not far from Uzhhorod. I packed myself and my daughter and left."

"My daughter knew why we were leaving. She understood what was happening; going to school was impossible, and online learning also began to falter. Everyone talked only about war, and even the children had it in their eyes. Everyone felt it; the whole society was saturated with fear. Even our pets, a dog and a cat, knew that something was happening. In Ukraine, there is no person untouched by the war. Today, the situation has changed. When I go home for a visit, I am not as afraid anymore. I got used to the war. But at the beginning, it was crazy; every night, I fell asleep with fear, especially since we lived next to the airport. Airports were the first targets of attacks. I even spread sand all over the floor in the entire apartment so that we wouldn't catch fire."

"When you have a family, children, a disabled mother, and father, you have to move on and be strong. Mom and dad stayed at home. My father - stepfather, because my biological father died when I was young, has a problem with his legs and needs treatment. In our case, the situation at home is even more complicated because half of the family lives in Russia. After the conflict began, I can no longer call these people relatives because we are ideologically fighting against each other. They say they see in the news that there is a civil war in Ukraine, and we are shooting into our own ranks. You can't convince them otherwise. You block each other on the phone, and it's the end of the family. I really don't understand how strong the propaganda in Russia must be when your own family doesn't believe you. None of our relatives in Russia supported us; unfortunately, they are all completely influenced by propaganda."

"My brother has been wounded three times. He is riddled and patched through and through. He fought near Kharkiv, in the Donetsk region, and in Bakhmut. And he still fights on. However, he told me that the situation is really critical. They hardly receive any weapons from the government, and what he earns is spent on buying ammunition and protective gear. According to him, without that, he wouldn't have been alive for a long time. If at the beginning of the war, I still believed, now I'm starting to have doubts. Many countries are gradually turning their backs on us and ceasing to help us. Even America, which helped us so much, unfortunately, has started to focus more on Israel, and our people feel it. I know this because, like my brother, many of my friends volunteered to fight.”

"I am fortunate that my children are here in Slovakia. My sons are in Bratislava; I went to them because I wanted to find a job. It was tougher to find one here in Pruske. People here were kind to me and supportive, but in Bratislava, where I currently work, I feel various emotions. I see that some Slovaks are tired of us and even accuse us of taking their jobs. When I first came to visit my sons in the capital, an unknown woman approached me and started shouting unpleasant things. At that moment, you feel like it's your fault that you're from Ukraine. I don't understand such people; may they never have to experience what war is like! Most people support us, but there are also negative examples like these. You don't know what tomorrow will bring, and you can only hope that everything will return to the pre-war state. However, that is no longer possible. The country is destroyed, many friends are dead, and others have permanently moved away. The trauma has engraved itself under our skin, and I believe that none of us, neither children nor grandchildren, will ever forgive Russia for this war."

"You know, today, I hardly feel anything anymore. At the beginning, I was afraid and wanted to do something, but over time, you understand that you can't change anything. I have come to terms with what is happening and try to live on and hope. My brother is in a worse situation, he doesn't even have hope anymore. His friends are dying before his eyes, and every day, he faces death. And his own brother fights for the other side. When I asked him what he would do if they met, he told me they would probably kill each other. It's an unimaginable and incomprehensible situation. Do these people have a future? Hard to say. You constantly have death in front of you, and this is the fate of almost every family in Ukraine. Almost everyone has someone at the front, a large number of men and even women. A friend decided to go to the front at the beginning of the war and she is still fighting there. She has three children and part of the family in Russia, and despite that, she took up arms. In Zakarpattia, there was great enthusiasm in the first days of the war, and many voluntarily joined the ranks of the army. They wanted to resist Russian aggression. Today, I estimate that about 60-70% of all my acquaintances who went to the front are either dead or disappeared without a trace. But others are still fighting!"

"It was terrible; you were afraid to go out on the street and didn't know if a rocket would fall on you. Sirens were constantly blaring, but you get used to it, and it almost becomes indifferent to you. People don't complain anymore. My mother works in a pharmacy in a large hospital, where she meets wounded soldiers. Many of them are missing limbs, and there are even those who want to fight in such a condition. When you ask them how they are, the answer you sometimes get is surprisingly positive, but it's not true. It's just their defense mechanism. I, too, initially hoped it was just a bad dream, and one day I would wake up, and everything would be as it was before. Unfortunately, even dreams couldn't provide refuge because you couldn't fall asleep out of fear. I still believe that it will turn out well. That the world will understand that we need continuous help. If everyone could feel, even for a moment, the emotions of having war under their skin, they would never give up!"