Consider This from NPR - Love, Loss And Resilience - Stories From A Kindergarten Class In Ukraine

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

Millions of children have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion. They have relocated across the country and the globe. And while these children are survivors, for many the emotional scars are difficult to heal.A team of NPR journalists spent months following the stories of 27 kindergarten students - 6-year-olds - who were forced to leave their homes and school in the northeast city of Kharkiv in Ukraine when Russian troops invaded. Two of the children, Aurora and Daniel, were best friends. Always together in class - inseparable – until they were forced apart by war. Daniel and his family fled to New York. Aurora and her parents ended up in Spain.Host Elissa Nadworny speaks with the children and their parents about how they are learning to live without each other in a world where they have already lost so much. And a psychologist discusses the strength and resilience of kids in the face of trauma.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. Last August, I visited a kindergarten in Ukraine, in the northeast city of Kharkiv. There weren't any students there. Schools have been closed since the war started. The building was under repair. It had been hit by Russian artillery and two teacher's aides were injured. The head of the school, Yana Sayenko, toured me around the colorful classrooms.

Windows were broken. There was dust and debris everywhere. But underneath, there was a hint at life before. A row of lockers, still filled with clothes and shoes. As I was leaving, Yana said to me, It's not the damage to the school that I'm mourning, it's the destruction of childhood. Like millions of children from Ukraine, the kids who once learned in this kindergarten are scattered across Ukraine and the world. Over the next weeks and months, I set out to find them. Hello.

Hello. Thank you for meeting us. What do you remember from your kindergarten? We have very many flowers. Consider this. How did two six-year-olds, best friends, learn to live without each other in a world where they have already lost so much? That's coming up.

From NPR, I'm Alyssa Nadwarny. It's Saturday, April 15th. I spent months following the stories of 27 kindergarten students, forced to leave their homes and school in the northeast city of Kharkiv in Ukraine. One pair of six-year-olds was best friends, inseparable, until they were forced to separate by the Russian invasion. Now they are living an ocean apart. Their story starts with their teacher. The two friends met in Irina Sahan's bright green kindergarten class in the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. This is young love, Irina says, pointing to a yearbook photo where two blonde children are holding hands, smiling at the camera.

Daniel Bezev and Aurora Demchenko. Aurora, headstrong with a big personality. Daniel, a good listener. They'd sit next to each other and giggle, sometimes distracting the other students. In the yellow yearbook Irina holds on her lap, they're in every photo together. That friendship, Irina's whole kindergarten class, came to an abrupt stop when Russia invaded Ukraine last February. Most of Irina's students are now scattered across Ukraine and the world. Those two best friends, Daniel and Aurora, they'd gone the farthest from home and from each other.

Aurora in Spain and Daniel in America. I had so many questions. Were they still in touch? Did they remember each other? Had they made new friends? It's our pleasure to welcome you to Westchester County. Producer Lauren Magaki and I visited Daniel first. He now lives with his parents and two brothers in a white two-story house about an hour from New York City. A little six months Daniel's been in the States, his English has flourished. He'd started learning years ago. His parents, mom Kristina and dad Evgeny,

had been planning to emigrate to the U.S. since before Daniel was born. When the war happened, they moved up their timeline. Because we wanted to save our lives and the lives of our children. So for us, it was obvious to leave. The house is pretty empty. They didn't take much with them. And Daniel's been missing his bedroom back in Kharkiv. There were so many books, so many stories. He's been making his own hand-drawn picture books to fill the space. This book is about monsters scared of the night. He does have one

special book he wants to show us. This is me, and this is me, and this is me. It's a version of that yearbook Irina Sahan showed us in Harkiv. His mom got digital proofs and printed the book. Where's Aurora? He points to a picture of the two of them. They're holding a basket together, smiling at each other. What's happening in that photo? Just standing next to her. What do you remember about her? She likes to play soccer. Daniel loves her because she's not so girlish. He likes to play with cars. Yeah. His mom, Christina, pulls out her phone and scrolls to a video Daniel sent Aurora last summer. Yeah, here it is.

Aurora, I love her very much and please call me i want to see you kisses for you so is he still kind of hung up on her i think so yes because he has a bear big bear it's a stuffed bear that he sleeps with each night he says says, I pretend that it's Aurora and I just hug her and I'm like, okay. So yeah, it's hard. I just couldn't imagine what's going on in his head and in his soul. Christina and her husband, they're not sure exactly how to handle this. Daniel hasn't seen Aurora in a year, and now they live on different continents. Should we keep talking about her or just quit this topic at all?

Aurora and her family, they never answered that video message Daniel sent. Was it too painful to stay in touch? Or had they just gotten busy adjusting to life in a new country? Nearly 4,000 miles away in Valencia, Spain, Aurora Demchenko now lives in a high-rise apartment with her parents and her three energetic brothers. When we meet Aurora,

we were expecting that big personality her Kharkiv teacher described. But instead, she's shy and timid. I'm Alyssa. What's your name? Aurora. Life right now, it's a bit overwhelming. She's learning English at school and in the afternoons. She takes Zoom lessons in Ukrainian and Spanish. The apartment has a familiar emptiness, like Daniel's home. But there are a few reminders of Kharkiv, a painting in Ukrainian colors, and that yellow yearbook from the kindergarten. Aurora and her mom Marina spread out on the bed and leaf through the book.

A friend of the kindergarten teacher, Irina Sahan, had brought it to Spain. The family drove two hours just to pick it up. As they look through, Marina points out pictures of Aurora and Daniel. Do you remember you always saved a seat for him? No. I don't remember, Aurora says. You were inseparable. I don't remember, Aurora says. You were inseparable.

I don't remember, Aurora says. Remember when your teacher would scold you for being too silly? Aurora shakes her head. No, Aurora repeats. It didn't happen. You have forgotten about this, haven't you? Marina says. She's surprised how much Aurora insists she doesn't remember. But research shows blocking out painful memories is one of the ways the brain tries to cope with trauma. Over homemade bowls of rezolnik, a dill and pickle soup, the family tells us about when they first came to Valencia. Like many Ukrainian refugees, they've been granted temporary protection to live in Europe.

Aurora's dad, Alex, remembers it was during Las Fallas, Valencia's week-long fire festival, filled with loud music, parties, and fireworks in the street. It's a bar, bar, bar, bar, and it's happening in the city center. Aurora, who had just fled different types of explosions, asked her parents, has the war come to Spain? With so much change and uncertainty, the family has clung to reminders of home, like that yearbook, and a single fork her 13-year-old brother Sasha brought from their kitchen in Harkiv. I accidentally put it in.

Because I use the same backpack for school, so I accidentally took this in my bag. Now everyone fights over it. For much of our visit, Aurora is glued to her big brother Sasha's side. I joined them on the floor playing Legos. Did you remember your classroom? Yes.

While we build, I show Aurora photos of us visiting her kindergarten classroom in Kharkiv. This is a baby school. This is a baby class. I try again to ask about Daniel, showing her photos of our trip to New York. Oh, I know that Daniel is in the U.S., she exclaims in Russian. He's a good artist, too, just like you. you. We scroll to a photo of Daniel's homemade book about monsters. I made two books. You did? Yeah.

But those books are still in Kharkiv, she says, her eyes drifting, losing interest. Sasha leans over and whispers to her. Would you like to meet up with Daniel? Aurora is clearly uncomfortable, mumbling first in Russian, and then she stands up and storms off. I turn to translator Hanna Palmarenko. When he asks about Daniel, that's all. The interview's over.

I ask Sasha what he thinks is going on. I don't know, maybe because of the problems within Ukraine, maybe. I asked Sasha what he thinks is going on. What is clear is that Aurora is processing all this in a very different way than Daniel, who's been going to sleep each night thinking of Aurora. After Spain, we wanted to check back in on Daniel. I just got a text message from Christina, Daniel's mom. Our visit in November, where we looked through the yearbook with him, it left him in tears for days. She says, happy to have you visit us, but please don't remind Daniel about Aurora.

When we arrive in early February, it's just before dinner time, and Daniel and his brother Adam are playing in the living room. Their littlest brother Leo runs around in his diaper. Daniel's been taking breakdancing lessons after school and is demonstrating a headstand. That's how it makes it spin. These last several months, they've been filled with activities like breakdancing and soccer and swimming. As I'm interviewing Daniel, his dad arrives home from working in New York City and he heads straight to me. Please don't mention, you know.

He's making sure I got Kristina's message. Aurora, the kindergarten, it's off the table. He's still probably in love with her. Since we visited in November, Kristina sought out a psychologist at an event for Ukrainian refugees. So I asked about the situation of Aurora. And she said that it's fine to talk when he set up this conversation, not you.

Just don't remind him about that. And so they've been avoiding it, and we do too. Instead, we talk about football. Daniel is now a Bills fan. I think I know this. And he's gotten some new books in Russian and Ukrainian to fill those empty shelves. Oh my goodness. That looks like so creepy.

What does it say? Oh, I can't read in Russian and Ukrainian. Yeah, it's kind of weird. This new strategy, staying busy, Kristina says it's actually been working. It took time for him to understand that we are not going to see each other for a while. Daniel's really happy, she tells me, a number of times. Now he talks about her less and less.

Maybe someday, she hopes, Daniel and Aurora will be reunited. Maybe when the war in Ukraine is over and they can share their new lives and new friends, and neither of them will be sad. Coming up. So oftentimes we're drawn to these stories that are just so weighed down in the negative that it doesn't balance out the reality of people's lives. A child psychologist on the resilience of children.

That's when we return. Once you leave your home, you're leaving all of these established elements of your life, relationships, connections. Miriam Kia Keating is a clinical psychologist and a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And she feels a special connection to stories like Daniel's and Aurora's. When she was about their age, Kia Keating and her family immigrated to the U.S. from Iran during a turbulent time in the country. She hopes that their story will not simply provoke sympathy from listeners, but empathy as well. I think these stories are so important. The primary element that I think

is so important is around building compassion and connection in these stories, despite the fact that probably much of the audience can't relate in the details of they were never a child in Ukraine in kindergarten leaving the war. But at the same time, everybody was a child in kindergarten. Everybody's been in a new situation and known how challenging that can be. Everybody's lost something or left behind something in their life. And by finding these pieces of connection, I think it develops a sense of compassion because you can imagine, even if you haven't experienced exactly the same experience as these children,

you can imagine yourself, what would it be like? What would I be going through? Do you think that there's kind of a larger lesson that we can learn from this kind of experience of trauma that ripples across? I mean, I'm thinking even just like in the past year when 8 million people have left Ukraine. I mean, is there some sort of like larger lesson that these six-year-old stories can kind of tell about children who have experienced trauma? In some ways, they are

archetypes for the way, you know, pathways that trajectories that might occur after a traumatic event or after a war. Each one has their own elements, and I think that's why these stories are so fascinating because even though they were all in the same kindergarten classroom, even though they all left because of the same war or their lives changed because of the war, they all followed different paths after that moment. And I think that that helps us understand that no person's

experience is the same. And I really like this analogy of, you know, we're all in the same storm, but we're all in different boats. And so if you imagine an ocean that's turbulent and there's giant waves, and then you realize that oftentimes when we think we all experience the same thing, it's a really big difference if you're in a tiny rowboat versus in a giant cruise ship, right? You're going to experience those waves differently. And in recognizing that, I think, again, it goes back to compassion and realizing that instead of judging one another, we can work towards better understanding and appreciation for each other's experiences. One thing I'm now kind of left with after this conversation is you don't worry about them. Is that a fair takeaway from this conversation?

Like, I feel like your approach to their future and kind of their resilience is like you have optimism and hope. Is that true? Is that what I'm hearing? Well, you know, I think there's people who always say like, oh, you know, how do you work with children who've experienced trauma? And I think a really important part of that is holding on to hope and optimism and knowing that there is quite a lot of possibility for healing to happen. And even I think some of the kindest, most intuitive, compassionate, giving, purposeful people in the world are those who've suffered more.

Because they have used that suffering to then make meaning and purpose in their own lives and in the pursuits that they have and in how they view the world and the things that they can see that other people might miss. So I think there's this powerful opportunity for children to go forward in a way that is actually to the benefit of everybody. That was Mariam Kia Keating. She's a clinical psychologist and a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Producer Lauren Magaki, photographer Claire Harbaj, and fixer, interpreter, translator Hannah Palamarenko contributed to the story of Daniel and Aurora. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Alyssa Nadwarny.

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