Consider This from NPR - Ukrainian Kindergartners And The Lasting Impact of War

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Millions of Ukrainian children had their schooling interrupted by Russia's invasion. The war has also shaped their childhood in lasting ways. NPR's Elissa Nadworny visited a kindergarten classroom in Kharkiv, Ukraine, that was hit by Russian artillery last August. She set out to find out what happened to the children who had been students there.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] 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. In the city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, there's a kindergarten classroom with yellow and green walls, little beds and little chairs. Once, this was a magical place where children played chess and grew flowers and learned and laughed. Where each day started with a hug for 27 little six-year-olds. But in an instant, on a Wednesday in February of last year, war came to Kharkiv. Russian forces are invading Ukraine.

And everything changed for those six-year-olds. And Piers Alyssa Nadwarny first saw that bright green classroom in August last year. It was covered in broken glass. The school building had just been hit by Russian artillery. No students were there, but two teacher's aides were injured. The head of the school, Yana Sayenko, gave Alyssa a tour around the colorful school. Under the layers of dust and debris, this green classroom was filled with things that hinted at life before, like a chess game, the pieces still spread out mid-match, the little beds with stuffed animals on the pillows, and the lunch menu from the day of the invasion.

It still hung on the wall. Buckwheat soup and cabbage that were never served. It's not the damage to the school that I'm mourning, Sayenko said. It's the destruction of childhood. Consider this. How does a six-year-old figure out how to live and learn and be a kid while their home is at war? After the break, NPR's Alyssa Nadwarny shares her journey to find the children who once learned at that school and reports on a generation forced to grow up too quickly. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

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It's Consider This from NPR. The students from that kindergarten class in Kharkiv, Ukraine are now scattered around the world in Germany and Poland. What do you remember from your kindergarten? We have very many flowers. In Spain. Hola, Aurora! Hola. And in the United States.

I have friends, three of them. NPR's Alyssa Nadwerny reports on the story of two children who stayed in Ukraine, including one who remained in the city of Kharkiv. What's your name? Are you back in the woods? Sophia. In September, translator

Hanna Palomarenko and I returned there to meet Sofia Kuzmina on the playground that separates her family's apartment building from the kindergarten. Sofia is confident and tall. She wears half her blonde hair in a knot at the top of her head.

She bypasses the brightly colored wooden seesaw and the metal merry-go-round and heads for a row of bushes, where she begins to collect leaves and sticks. The playground is no fun when you're all alone, and Kharkiv, with nightly shelling, is pretty empty. Her mom, Natalia, is watching on a nearby bench. Who do you think she's talking to? She's talking to herself, her mom says. During the war, Sofia's had to get used to playing on her own. Sofia hands her mom a pile of leaves. Natalia says despite the danger, she can't even imagine moving and living elsewhere.

For Sofia, now in the first grade, school is all online, and it's completely different from her beloved kindergarten. Are the colors different? I don't know the color of walls in school. Yeah, because you can't see them. Natalia explains that before the invasion, Sofia was social, calm, a leader. And the war, it's really taken a toll on her. She's overly emotional, acting out, argumentative.

And Natalia's been doing everything she can to shield her. They don't even talk about the war. Her job is to put Sofia to bed before the nightly attacks, so she sleeps through it. And she'll lie if she has to. That explosion? Oh, that's just a car. That's construction. Natalia and the other 26 families in Sofia's kindergarten class are having to make really hard decisions every day. How much do they talk to their kids about the war? How do they manage changes in their children's behavior? She tells me they share these questions in a group text chat started well before the war.

My kid is scared, they text. My kid is sad. My kid misses the kindergarten. Bogdan Simonova's mom, Victoria, is an active member of that chat, frequently sending videos of her son. We took the train across the country to visit them, far from the front line in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the border with Poland. And Bogdan's family, they've taken a very different approach from Sofia's. My children know everything, Victoria explains, as she sits on the couch with Bogdan, quizzing him.

Who made you leave Kharkiv, she asks. Who made Ukrainians leave their home, she asks. And what are we doing now? We are punching them in the teeth, Bogdan says. They left Kharkiv in a panic last winter. Bogdan's dad stayed behind assisting the military in their defense. The rest of the family is now living in a friend's apartment here in Lviv. They say it's the safest place to be still in Ukraine. Bogdan grew up in an instant, his mom says. We didn't have time for filtering things. He was anxious, started to regress, biting things, sucking things. Unlike Sofia's mom, Victoria felt telling him everything, that might help him get some power, some control back.

So has sharing his new life with his kindergarten friends from Kharkiv. He's been sending videos to that group chat. What is this one? That was the first day of school. Unlike Sofia, Bogdan's new school in Lviv is in person. It's closer to normal, at least on days when learning is not interrupted by power outages, air raid sirens, or missile attacks. Bogdan shows us the shelter. Today, there was a drill, and in just five minutes, all 500 students made it down here.

Over the next several months, translator Hanna Palamarenko and I stayed in touch with these families. Yeah, hi, wanted to call you back. Here is the message from Victoria Semenukha, Baghdan's mom. There was a massive missile attack. The lights went off and they could hear the messages from Natalia Kuzmina. She says, good evening, we're still in Kharkiv. We have power cuts, usually without warning. He says, our soldiers are brave. I returned to Ukraine in January, and things in Kharkiv had gotten better. A counteroffensive in the fall pushed back Russian forces. But constant missile attacks to the country's power grid remain a big challenge.

When we visit Sofia's apartment, there's no power, so we have to take the stairs to the 10th floor. There are battery-powered Christmas lights strung up in the entryway. It's so pretty. They are practical and beautiful, Natalia says. They've gotten used to the power outages. There are flashlights in all their pockets. They don't use the fridge or freezer. They boil water and keep it in a thermos. During our visit, Sofia is scheduled to be in her first grade class online.

But like many days, the power outage means it's not happening. Even after all this time, that green kindergarten class is the school she thinks about. Her mom tells us she still talks about it in the present tense. When do you think about kindergarten? I think about the kindergarten before I fall asleep at night. I remember how it was, and I dream about what it would be if we were all back. Sophia, I want to in his new classroom. So what would you say to your friends around the world who wonder how you're doing and what your life is like?

I would tell them to come back, she says, because I'm bored. But she's actually a lot less bored than she was six months ago, when she made that salad on the empty playground. Singing lessons have resumed in person. And so have dance lessons. Sofia is surrounded by a dozen girls in tights practicing splits and spins. Even after all this time, her mom Natalia is still shielding her from the war. I've heard that parents who tell their children everything about the war

are now looking for a psychologist, she tells us. Of course, Sofia sees some things, but I'm doing my best to isolate her so she doesn't know about the news. Me, I just look out the window, she says, and see the smoke. I'm still thinking about that two weeks later, when we're all the way across Ukraine, driving home from school with Bogdan and his mom. An air raid siren goes off, and Bogdan leans forward in his car seat and asks his mom, Does that mean there are missiles above us? I don't think so, she tells him. But what if they can get us, he squeaks.

Victoria reassures him it's okay. She often does this when he gets anxious or stressed. But she's also adamant that Bogdan doesn't forget what's happening in his country. A few blocks from their apartment, we stop at the Lichakiv Cemetery. The family comes here frequently to honor those who have died in the war. We walk along the rows of freshly dug graves, the mounds of dirt covered in ribbons with pictures and flowers, a slight dusting of snow lingering on the petals. I want my son to see

this, Victoria says, to feel this sacrifice. With Bogdan in tow, they approach a family here, standing at the end of one of the grave sites. At their feet, a portrait of a young man in uniform. Victoria and Bogdan stand with the family for a moment. Bogdan holds his mom's hand. He's quiet as we walk back to the car. His mom is in tears. You see how many people are there. They're somebody's sons, husbands, fathers. Bogdan says somebody's grandchildren, grandsons. It makes Victoria feel hopeless. She doesn't want to shield him from this pain, from this hate that she feels. She thinks of Bogdan as classmates,

children who may not get a say in their future, a generation shaped by war. That was NPR's Alyssa Nadmorny. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org