Iryna Polyushkina
Ukraine, Mariupol
Israel, Haifa
“Mariupol is one of the cities that suffered the worst shelling in Ukraine. The city where I spent some of my happiest years was reduced to rubbles. For weeks, we lived under constant Russian bombardment, and sadly, many people I knew were killed.
I quickly realized that if I didn’t take responsibility for my family and neighbors, we wouldn’t make it. I had to ensure we had food, water, and medicine every day just to get through each day. The war pushed me to my limits, but fortunately, I found the strength to survive it.
During the Russian attack, the hardest part for me was that my daughter wasn’t with me in those initial days. She was trapped in another part of the city, and I couldn’t protect her. Every mother wants to keep her children safe, and at the beginning of the war, I was powerless to do that. It was a devastating feeling. Fortunately, after a few days, we managed to reunite and eventually escape the city.
One of the moments when I had to mobilize myself, was organizing a rescue operation for my mother, a Holocaust survivor, who was trapped in a building that had suffered a direct hit. Because she was not healthy and had difficulty walking, we had to evacuate her by ourselves. Without a stretcher or an ambulance bed, we used a big blanket to move her from the destroyed building. We managed to rescue her, and after a few weeks, we escaped to Israel. Unfortunately, the traumatic events and the physical strain of the escape took a toll on her health, and she passed away a few weeks later in Israel.
I feel that Israel is my home, and I intend to stay here even though there are wars here too. Unlike Ukraine, Israel has boom shelters and air defense systems, which are lacking in Ukraine, where you just pray that missiles don’t hit your building. It’s hard to believe that in the past two years, I’ve found myself in two different wars, but this is the reality I face. Despite everything I’ve endured, I remain optimistic because I believe that life is stronger than anything.”