Olena, Kharkiv region, 31.03.2022

On the 17th of March of 2022 at 3:30, my school was destroyed, …, where around 700 students studied. The specificity of our school is that 90% of the teaching staff here are the alumni of this school.

The school was built 1936. During the occupation of…, in the years of German-Soviet war, the building of the school was used by the Germans as their headquarters, during the liberation battle for the school, the building was damaged. And only in 1956, the school building was restored.

I dreamt about a modern history classroom. My students, their parents, the residents of the community helped to win the project Modern History classroom – the basis of the youth’s knowledge, for a grant of 99800 hryvnias. The material and technical basis was fully restored and met the modern requirements of the time.

Children, together with their parents, were happy that they could realize their dreams.

But on March 17 2022, a missile hit the school and practically destroyed it. I received the first messages from the children already at 3:40 am. And at 9 am , they started to call me, started to write to me in Viber, they wrote that the school was destroyed, that our classroom was destroyed, and nothing is left other than memories. Many of the school’s graduates, who are now parents, grandparents, came to help to clean up the consequences of this event. And they were asking just one question: 'There is no school?' They are standing on the ruins and they do not want to accept that the school building is no longer there.

Over the week, my former students called me, those who studied at the school, in our class and they asked if there was no classroom, could not believe it was fully destroyed. Because for them it is connected to the memories of their youth, and not just the walls.

All of them say that we will rebuild it and our school will be even better after the war.

Our graduate Iehor said this: 'It is nothing that the school building is not there, but the teachers of this school are here, and this is not a small thing.'

My students of the 10th grade do not understand for what the school had to be destroyed, because there is no military infrastructure in our town. They put so much effort for the realization of the modern cabinet, they were proud of it and dreamt about graduation, entering universities choosing their future. In a day they approached me with a request for me to talk to the director of our school about them wanting to graduate only together, as one class group. It is still very emotional…