Voices of refugees

I was shattered when the war began. I still am. I was silenced. It was as if all the worst nightmares suddenly came to life. Dwarfed by the events, I was watching an unstoppable wave of a disaster rolling upon me. Never before I’d felt so useless and cornered.

My mom is from St. Petersburg, Russia, and my dad was from Mariupol, Ukraine. And now my motherland is in a deadly fight with my fatherland.

I knew I needed to do something in order to stay sane. The best I could do was give a voice to those who suffer most. That’s my job, after all. In 2023 I’m celebrating my 10 years in humanitarian photography.

I collected refugee evidence stories in Ukraine in 2015, ISIS refugees stories in Jordan, and I never stop gathering WWII memories, so just two weeks into the war I found myself documenting the refugee crisis on the borders of Ukraine, in Hungary, Moldova, and Romania. There I was documenting disaster response, taking pictures and filming interviews on the assignment of the JDC.

I came back home broken and inspired at the same time. Broken by all the sufferings of Ukrainian people whose stories aren’t much different from those of the 2nd World War survivors. Inspired I was by the amount and quality of kind, strong, selfless volunteers who jumped into their cars or took the nearest flight to the Ukrainian borders to offer their help.

One day in Siret, a huge disaster relief hub next to the Romanian-Ukrainian border, an influx of refugees paused for a few hours. I had a chance to take a breath and look around. I had to admit that it felt great to be there, surrounded by hundreds of people from all corners of the world, who were there to fight the evil with kindness.

I gathered dozens of refugee testimonies whose lives were saved thanks to the JDC’s efforts. Here I’d like to share with you a tiny bit of the first-hand pieces of evidence.

Siret, Romania, right next to the Ukrainian border. The buses are allowed to make a short stop there but must leave after 5 min to avoid clogging the border crossing. JDC volunteers use this time interval to quickly provide refugees with food, hygienic products, medicines. I used this time to quickly film interviews. This one - with a family who miraculously escaped from Mariupol.

Palanca, Moldova-Ukraine border crossing. A farmer dropped off her child in Poland and returns home to take care of her farm near Mykolaiv.

Chisinau, Moldova. JDC-operated improvised transportation hub for Ukrainian refugees. The story of a family who fled Kharkiv

Chisinau, Moldova. JDC-operated refugee shelter in the Jewish community center. A family of refugees from Chernihiv.

Hungary, Záhony. Ukraine border crossing. A boy reflects on his journey from Ukraine.

Nursed and being nursed

Among all the amazing people who get help from the JDC in the former Soviet Union there is an extraordinary category: nurses. They spent their lives helping others and then found themselves in need of nursing.

When I was a kid, I was under the impression that all healthcare workers are protected from any diseases by virtue of their miraculous profession. Later I realized that they are as vulnerable as anyone else. The ongoing COVID crisis showed that they are way more vulnerable, risking their lives on the front lines of their peaceful job.

I want to share with you several stories of the nurses that are currently under the JDC’s protection. These stories simply must be told to honor the heroes.

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Sonya

Kazakhstan, Almaty

On this picture from 2014 Sonya is 90 years old

“I experienced famine before the war, including Ukrainian Holodomor in 1930s, then the starvation of war, then famine again. During the war I was working as a diesel generator technician. I was the only woman there, but I could gear the generator although it required a lot of physical power. I was constantly hungry and weak. One day when I already felt like I gonna die of hunger, one woman who barely knew me, shared with me her potato. Just a half potato, but who knows, maybe it saved my life!

After the war I began working as a nurse. I had about ten addresses to visit all over the district each morning. When I saw a patient that beyond a medical procedure needed lighting a fire in a stove or bringing a bucket of water from a well, I didn’t think twice and always helped.”

Up to now Sonya, as well as many others from her generation, has special relations with food. She tries to eat as little as possible, always saving something for the future and for the others. “Bring me just a cup of boiling water, please” she asks a helper during the lunch at the JDC charity canteen.

Sonya lives alone in a tiny and shabby private house. She needs help all the time now. “Without a homecare worker, I’d already be dead”, she says. Even essential tasks such as opening a tin-can turn into a challenge for her.

Sonya has just one daughter who is also JDC client with a whole bunch of health issues. Sonya would love to have more kids but due to her husband’s injury they couldn’t have more children. “I didn’t leave my spouse although I was dreaming all the time about having more children. I don’t betray my friends.”

This resonates with a global idea behind JDC organization: not leaving friends behind.

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Katya

Ukraine, Odessa

Katya with her husband and daughter in 2016

One freezing night in December 2013 a kitchen in Katya’s tiny old flat caught fire. Her husband woke up to the heavy smell of smoke. He rushed into the kitchen and tried to extinguish the fire but failed. He managed to get his family out of the house, but got severe burns which took months to treat.

The morning came. Katya’s flat was destroyed, her family couldn’t live there anymore, her husband was in the hospital. Everything suddenly fell apart. What Katya did in this situation? She just headed to work! She is a nurse at a hospital, people were waiting for her there and she had to be there for them.

Katya didn’t tell her colleagues about the disaster. It was only after they noticed the smell of smoke coming from her that she told about the fire in her house. The hospital where she was working offered a shelter for Katya and her family, and they lived there for weeks.

Katya’s burnt out kitchen. Yes, this is a kitchen, there’s no mistake. This 6 sq.m. unit had kitchen, bathroom and toilet squeezed into it.

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Tatiana

Moldova, Chisinau

On this picture from 2016 Tatiana is 98 years old

It takes a while for Tatiana to notice me shouting her name from her backyard: she barely hears. It takes quite a while for her to get to the front door: she can barely walk. It takes a few more minutes to figure out how to light up her completely dark house: Tatiana is blind and never switches the lights on.

Her tiny private house is now her only friend, her only reminder of difficult but happy young years. She built it herself with her late husband. They put money aside for years to finish the house, but all they could afford were the cheapest materials, and now the house is falling apart. The floors are full of huge cracks, the roof leaks.

Tatiana is someone who dedicated herself to saving lives. She took part in two wars – with Finland in 1939 and World War II. She was a nurse who dragged under the fire countless wounded soldiers from the battlefields. After the war she was working as a nurse at a hospital, and kept saving lives until her retirement. All she got from the country for her heroic efforts and hard work is a pension of 66 USD a month. Without JDC financial support and home care she wouldn’t be able to survive.

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Perel

Ukraine, Zhitomir

On this picture from 2016 Perel is 86 years old

Everyone knows Perel in her town of Zhitomir: all her life she was working as a delivery nurse and these hands helped bringing thousands of people into this world.

This didn’t stop her anti-Semitic neighbors from cutting the old lonely lady off water communications. One day Perel found herself without running water and even toilet. This was a result of a renovation of the neighbors’ part of the house.

For Perel the absence of immediate access to water is not only humiliating, it’s a disaster: as a hereditary medical worker she’s used to keep everything perfectly clean. Now even visiting a toilet turns into a nightmare: she has to use another neighbor’s restroom, every time asking permission to enter. She has to go to the JDC office to take a shower.

Ironically, in exactly same part of the house where Perel lives, used to live famous Jewish poet Khaim Byalik in his childhood. His memorial plaque had to be taken off the building’s wall and put for storage in the local Jewish museum out of fears of anti-Semitic vandalism coming from Perel’s neighbors.

The lifeline for her is home care service that she gets from JDC. Perel has a great, dedicated homecare worker who readily helps with everything. Most importantly, this woman every single day brings her water in buckets. "The nearest stand-pipe is some 300-400 meters away" tells homecare worker, “Usually I go there 5-10 times a day: Perel needs water to wash herself at least a little bit, to cook, to clean the floor, to make some laundry. I'm lucky if the nearest stand-pipe is functioning but often it’s broken, and then I have to go to the next one which is a kilometre away."

The only source of water is the bucket filled for Perel by a homecare worker.

As Perel tells about her life, she often gets back to the topic of JDC: this organization is now nursing her just the way she used to nurse her patients, providing support, confidence and loving care.

"It begins with a security guard who opens the front door of the office. He is so nice! I remember, I’d been sick for a while. After I recovered and came over to JDC, this young man asked me if I were feeling better! Turned out, he was aware of my illness! Now you understand the degree of attention we receive there? It's big deal! When I come there, I feel that I'm welcomed. I'm very sensitive to such matters. JDC is my real second home, and very cozy one."