Volnovakha.City journalists continue collecting testimonies from residents of Volnovakha district about the events of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This time, displaced person from Volnovakha Zoya Tokma shared her war story.
"Shelling was conducted from aircraft and everything possible"
Before the Russian invasion, Ms. Zoya worked as an educator at Preschool Educational Institution (nursery-kindergarten) No. 8. The woman recalls that she also spent the first day of the full-scale war at work.
"February 24, 2022, despite loud shelling, we all went to work in the morning. I remember that several parents even brought their children, but we sent them home. From that day, I didn't go to work anymore...
It was hard to stay at home alone, so the next day I went to relatives who lived in a private house near the 'Summer Park.' There we experienced brutal shelling and terrible hell. It turned out that enemy paratroopers were landing near us, and Russian troops were 'clearing' their path with all types of weapons...
It was dangerous to leave the shelter. The ground was shaking, everything around was humming and rumbling. Shelling was conducted from aircraft and everything possible. So we would jump out of the basement for a maximum of 15 minutes, just to get some water, some firewood, some food for the children, and to care for my paralyzed grandmother, my mother-in-law, who was in the cold house all this time. The poor woman's heart couldn't take it and stopped on the morning of March 2. We washed and dressed her under shelling. Because the garage was cooler than the house, we decided to move her there for some time, and we went back down to the basement.
And then we hear someone knocking. We go to the door, look, and there's a Ukrainian soldier standing there. Our warriors were standing there near the house, we saw them. He said he saw that people live here and offered to evacuate us to a safer shelter. We weren't against it, but didn't know how long it would take to pack things. When the soldier learned there were children here, he said he was giving us 5 minutes to pack and would only leave the house with us.
So in our fright, we only grabbed purses with documents and diapers for the little one. The military guys took us to the bomb shelter at the district hospital," the woman recalls.
Later, Ms. Zoya learned that there was a direct hit on the garage with her mother-in-law's body. The remains of her loved one were buried by acquaintances.
Evacuation
Zoya Tokma stayed with her family in the bomb shelter of Volnovakha Central District Hospital for 2 days. And although there was no bathroom there, and people had to sleep on the floor on mattresses brought down from the wards, according to the woman, being there was calmer for them than in the basement of the house they had left. Thanks to the thick walls that partially absorbed the sounds of combat operations taking place outside.
Many different people, staying together in a cramped space, treated others with respect and helped each other. Military personnel opened stores and pharmacies, and some residents took products and medicines from there and brought everything to the shelter, sharing with everyone. Ms. Zoya especially remembered the kindness of nurses who prepared soup for all the children.
According to the woman, from some people who were in the shelter, one could hear enemy narratives that evacuation supposedly always ends in death, and this was told by people who never showed their noses outside the bomb shelter.
"There were many people who scared others so they wouldn't go anywhere. 'Don't leave, as soon as you go, you'll be shelled immediately,' they said. But we still dared to," the displaced person recounts.
Ms. Zoya and her family were evacuated on March 4 by Ukrainian military. They were taken to Valeryanivka, and then by evacuation bus to Pokrovsk. Then volunteers delivered them to Dnipro. Later, Ms. Zoya evacuated to her sister in Ternopil region, where she stayed for about a year. However, her evacuation journey didn't stop there — her heart missed the children who had evacuated to Germany at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. So the woman went to them and remains there to this day.
The woman states that Germany receives refugees very well — people are provided with rented housing, given social payments, and language courses are paid for. And all of this at the state's expense.
"It's nice and peaceful here. Friendly people. The state helps refugees a lot, but no matter what, you want to go home. And I will definitely return there after Victory," Ms. Zoya concludes.
