“The most important thing in our lives right now is life itself. We don’t know if we’ll still be alive tomorrow, so we’re making the most of our lives here and now. We try not to put life off until tomorrow, because we don’t know if we’ll even have a chance tomorrow.” Hanna Tarkovska, deputy principal and teacher at a high school in Kyiv, spoke these words in an interview with the Arolsen Archives. She and her students are participating in the #StolenMemory campaign.

Arolsen Archives: What made you decide to join the #StolenMemory campaign?
Hanna Tarkovska: We met some colleagues from Dębica at a workshop for teachers in Krzyżowa, Poland, and decided to explore ways for our high schools to work together. Our original plan was to organize a youth exchange and various educational projects. But then the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and got in the way of our plans.

And then the war started…
Yes, but the war didn’t stop our colleagues in Poland from helping us. They invited us to work with them anyway. We heard about the #StolenMemory project in 2023, when two Polish high schools in Dębica and Pustków and the vocational school in Bad Oldesloe, Germany, which has been involved in the project since 2020, invited us to join in as volunteers for the first time. Throughout those years, we had a regular youth group with members from Bad Oldesloe, Dębica, Pustków, and Kyiv.

Despite the difficult situation you’re facing in Ukraine, you’ve been working tirelessly on behalf of the victims of World War II. That can’t have been easy.
We received a lot of support from Anna Meier-Osiński from the Arolsen Archives. She was deeply concerned about what was happening in Ukraine, about the Ukrainian people, and especially about us – the students and staff at our school. I can remember our first meeting in Trebnitz. Anna and many of the other participants were wearing the colors of the Ukrainian national flag as a symbol of support. She was also wearing a traditional Ukrainian shawl, and she had tears in her eyes when she hugged us.

But your involvement isn’t limited to the educational project.
That’s right. Thanks to Anna’s initiative, we’re now a #StolenMemory exhibition partner as well. Because of the security situation, we can’t really plan anything in advance – not even what we’re doing this evening. But we took the risk, and it paid off. We’d originally planned to open the exhibition in February at the Zabolotnyi State Architecture and Construction Library, but Kyiv was experiencing particularly harsh winter weather, so we were forced to postpone the opening until the end of March. To make up for the late start, we extended the duration of the exhibition to let as many people as possible see it.

How did people respond to the exhibition? What kind of feedback did you get?
Many people found the exhibition deeply moving. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the director of the library, Ms. Natalia Svitla, for agreeing to host the exhibition and for helping us make this important project happen. Representatives from social organizations affiliated with the Association of Poles in Ukraine also attended the opening. The most important support for the project came from the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kyiv, and in particular from Consul Paweł Owad and Vice Consul Anna Babiak-Owad.

What’s it like to live in Ukraine right now? How do young people manage to study under such terrible conditions?
The most important thing in our lives right now is life itself. We don’t know if we’ll still be alive tomorrow, so we’re making the most of our lives here and now. We try not to put life off until tomorrow, because we don’t know if we’ll even have a chance tomorrow. You can get used to anything. We’ve developed routines for dealing with just about any situation you can think of. If there’s an air-raid alert in the night, we know the students will probably be late for school the next day. The teachers who live close to the school go to work a little earlier, because those who live on the other side of town can have a hard time getting there. If there’s shelling or an air-raid alert, the subway can’t cross bridges. That means we often have to teach students who aren’t normally in our classes. When the siren goes off, the students calmly gather their belongings and head for the shelter. Then we continue the lesson there. Sometimes we spend the whole day in the air-raid shelter. When the power goes out, we use batteries. But sometimes the batteries run out too. Then we go back to our cold, dark apartments, where there might not be any electricity either. We’re really happy when the power comes back on. We quickly cook something to eat, clean up, charge all our devices, heat some water for bathing and washing dishes, and run the washing machine.

That sounds incredibly difficult…
Living like this has taught us to recognize and appreciate opportunities and to do things as quickly as possible. But those are just minor inconveniences, annoyances. Other things are much more important. When we say goodbye to someone, we never know if we’ll see them again. But who even thinks about that anymore? Hardly anyone. We certainly don’t. There could be shelling during the night, and then you don’t know if you’ll see each other again the next day. When there’s an empty desk in a classroom, when a child never comes back to school because they’ve been killed by the Russians… I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. It’s already happened at neighboring schools. We knew these children. Kyiv may be a big city, but we often call it a “big village.” If one person suffers, we all suffer.

What’s it like to work with students who, unlike you, aren’t prepared for war? Teenagers whose youth has been shaped by war, fear, and hours on end spent sitting in air-raid shelters?
To be perfectly honest, no one is really prepared to face aggression, death, fear, and war – with the possible exception of professional soldiers. I don’t think anyone knows how they’ll react in a dangerous situation until they find themselves in one. These children have spent half their lives under stress. Some students who didn’t join us until after the war broke out have already taken their final exams. They had almost all of their lessons in air-raid shelters. But that’s not everything. We lead active lives. Every morning at 9 a.m., the whole country observes a minute of silence to honor those who have been killed. And then, well… then we take part in projects and competitions, win academic contests, and write research papers. We get on with our lives. For ourselves and for those who are no longer with us. We thank our military for fighting for us and defending us. And we thank our allies for their help and support. The most difficult task ahead is for our psychologists. They have a lot of work to do, both with students and with adults. This situation has forced many of us to become refugees, because everyone experiences things differently, and we all have our own limits when it comes to how much we can endure.

How do the schools in the capital manage to function during the war? We keep hearing that Kyiv is constantly under very heavy attack. Things were especially bad last winter, when Putin took advantage of the cold weather.
Each school is different. When there was shelling at night and no one could sleep, some schools decided to hold their scheduled classes online, while others held them in school and accepted that students would be late. All schools have educational platforms which they can use to work with their students. Teachers upload homework assignments and recordings of lessons there. Sometimes parents would rather have their child go to school and spend the day with the teachers in the shelter than stay at home on the 16th floor of a tower block. Then they don’t have to be constantly worrying about whether missiles or drones are flying around somewhere. They don’t have to worry so much about the child. Most schools now have batteries, generators, and air-raid shelters. Unfortunately, not all of them, because the design of some buildings doesn’t allow for an air-raid shelter. The secondary school my son attended didn’t have one, for example.

How do you keep students safe in a situation like that?
A subway station near my son’s school provides shelter. When the alarm goes off, the students go down to the subway with their teachers and have their lessons there. Our school has its own shelter, and we hold all our lessons in rooms without windows. It’s nice and warm in the winter because the schools are equipped with generators and batteries. The conditions at school are actually better than what some children experience at home. Until the next shelling at least. Everything might be fine in the evening, but by the next morning, things can look very different. You fix what you can, but then the battery dies. Batteries need fuel too. Last winter, I spent a lot of time at work because I didn’t have any fuel at home. My daughter moved in with her grandmother because she has a gas stove and they could cook themselves hot meals. But the room they slept in was still freezing cold. There came a point when we just couldn’t take it anymore, so we moved to our garden outside the city because at least there’s a stove there. But then we had to travel into Kyiv every morning for work. Families with young children couldn’t cope with the situation and fled. It’s hard enough for us adults, but going through all of this with children is almost impossible.

What role do projects that focus on World War II – like #StolenMemory – play in situations like this?
The most important thing to remember is that Ukrainians are now seeing for themselves what it may have been like to live through World War II – “live and in color” so to speak. They understand only too well how it was possible for entire areas to be occupied from one day to the next and how the people who lived there had to learn to cope. They learn how and why people had their homes and belongings taken away, how families were separated, and how people were detained in camps. Even today, hardly anyone knows anything about what happened to these people. We’re very aware that projects like this may become increasingly relevant in the coming years. That’s why it’s important for the Ukrainian participants to tell their Polish and German friends about the current situation and the challenges they’re facing. Young people understand that evil can present itself with a veneer of respectability. Many Russians look completely ordinary, but they’re occupiers and criminals all the same. The Nazis looked completely ordinary as well, but they were occupiers and criminals too.

It’s often difficult for others to understand how Ukrainians can still find the time and energy to take part in international projects. Why’s this so important now?
We’re taking part precisely because we want people in other countries to learn about the current situation from ordinary people, not just from the media. I always tell my students that when they take part in projects and educational trips, they’re acting as ambassadors for Ukraine. They have the opportunity to tell other young people what’s going on. I hope that many German and Polish families will support our country. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts. Right now, it’s very important to understand the past and recognize the patterns that keep repeating themselves. We have to do all we can to make sure things like this don’t happen again.

What is Polish Saturday School and what role does it play in this project?
Working with the Kyiv Saturday School run by the Association of Poles in Ukraine gives me the opportunity to work with children and share some of what I know with them. I’ve organized and run the “Daffodils” campaign twice. That’s a nationwide initiative launched by POLIN, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, to remember the fate of Jewish children during World War II. Students from my high school and the Polish Saturday school in Kyiv can learn more about history, support the initiative, and pass on what they’ve learned. #StolenMemory works in a similar way. The #StolenMemory volunteers from our school can also attend the Polish Saturday school. We involved students in the exhibition, organized guided tours for them, and shared information about the project. The more people know about it and the more they get involved, the better it is for us. My knowledge of Polish made it possible for us to get involved in this project. Although English is the working language within the project, the students are coping well. We communicated with the organizers in Polish.

Apart from the current political situation, do you also have family reasons for taking part in this project?
I was already involved in #StolenMemory and had begun engaging with these difficult topics when I attended a seminar for history teachers and other educators in Krzyżowa. My colleague Grzegorz, a Polish teacher, told me about the POLIN Museum and the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow. Later, I was also invited to a seminar and a conference at the POLIN. Then I organized the “Daffodils” campaign, attended a TOLI seminar, and soon I’ll be taking the first module of the “Context of Holocaust Education” seminar at the Galicia Museum. I’ve taken Roman Kent’s eleventh commandment to heart: “You should never, never be a bystander.” We can’t afford to be bystanders; the cost is too high. We can’t all be heroes, but each of us can do our part. That’s why I’m involved in this work. I usually tell the story of the Polish side of my family, my mother’s side. But today I want to talk about my great-grandfather on my father’s side. His family moved from Germany to the Russian Empire in the 19th century. They were gardeners, and they were invited to create and tend gardens there. When World War II broke out, my great-grandfather Frydrych Szyling paid a lot of money for a new passport – a Russian one this time – in the name of Fedor Schylin. Although that saved his family, it destroyed his identity. Projects like #StolenMemory teach us to value the past and to recognize the importance of remembrance, but also to appreciate the importance of standing up to xenophobia and Nazism. So no one ever has to lose their identity again. By returning items that were taken from people in the camps, we can help families to find their identity again.

Where do you find the strength and energy to keep doing all of this?
I draw strength from my students, from family and friends, and from colleagues who understand. If we don’t step up, who will? We have to be strong.

The #StolenMemory campaign and the exhibitions it includes are funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
The international #StolenMemory seminars are funded as part of a long-standing partnership between the Arolsen Archives and the German-Polish Youth Office.