My whole life I lived in Sloviansk. I married there and had ten beautiful children. My oldest daughter is married now and has her own son. They live close to our house. When the war started I was scared to leave Sloviansk – life there is all we had and all we knew. I am responsible for a huge family and my youngest son is only three. Like many, I didn’t know where to run, what to do. I decided to stay in the known environment until the war showed its face way too close. One night we woke up from the loudest tremble I have ever heard – the house down the street was smashed by a rocket. At that moment I prayed and I thought to myself that it doesn’t matter where we wake up tomorrow and what I will do during the day, it’s important that my children and I wake up in the first place.
On the 30th of March we found a volunteer program and moved to Germany. The safety felt new and even uncomfortable at first. We had a wonderful elderly couple hosting us, my kids went to school, and I was grateful – my children lived a normal life. All was great until a couple of months had passed. Although the fear has faded down, the trauma didn’t. My kids could not acclimate, they couldn’t sleep well, and the eldest could not learn German and performed badly at school. My sons were bullied in class and every day I saw them crying and begging me to return home. Weird, but being in complete safety with such a great deal of assistance offered to us, I had the same sentiment as my children – I wanted to be home, I wanted to be in Ukraine. It was the hardest decision, but I couldn’t see my children cry and I didn’t know how to help them acclimate. We left Germany and wanted to stay in the West of Ukraine. We moved to Lviv, spent weeks trying to find a place, but didn’t manage. Returning to Germany was not an option. We went back to Sloviansk.
When I tell you this, it might seem like a mad and irresponsible decision – and I agree. I am a mother and I know that I have put my children at great risk. The Sloviansk we returned to wasn’t the same Sloviansk that we left. The bombing was harder, the water and heating systems were not operating anymore, the shops were barely running. I surely made a mistake. If I was with my late husband, it might have been easier, but on my own the weight of this war and migration back and forth has put me down. I felt sick, my head was spinning, I couldn’t help myself, and I had to take care of my children as well.
Luckily volunteers helped us again and now we stay in Dnipro. I reminisce a lot on our journey and I wonder what one should do in this situation. Logical thinking seems a privilege when the pain and weight of not being home is turning you upside down, when I hear my children beg to return home, when my nine-year-old daughter says she prefers to die in her own room to spending one more day going to classes she doesn’t understand.
There is no right answer to that. I blame myself for returning my family to Sloviansk, but I am grateful we all made it out safely and have settled in Dnipro. The future is uncertain, but one thing I know for sure, as soon as the war ends – we will go back. There is no place like home.