Olena Batman’s granddaughter was born in Mariupol on the third day of the invasion. Olena, her daughter, and the infant managed to leave the maternity hospital just before it became a target of russian shelling. That very day, Olena recalls, several mothers and doctors were killed.

The Batman family reunited — Olena’s older daughter also lived in Mariupol with her two-year-old son. They all hid in the basement of a multi-story building. But life there became a constant struggle for survival. A nursing infant and a toddler — both vulnerable and defenseless — faced daily horrors that turned existence into a living curse. There was a lack of food, water — even oxygen.

Olena’s son-in-law kept trying to find a way out of the occupied city. Each time, he risked his life just to learn about possible evacuation routes. By some miracle, their car had survived — and eventually, under shelling, the family left Mariupol. They moved silently through a city that looked like a scene from an apocalyptic film. The daughters shielded the children with their own bodies while Olena repeated the Lord's Prayer without stopping.

The family found refuge in Odesa. And though somewhere among the ruins of Mariupol their past remains, Olena knows their strength lies in their family — in bonds too strong to break.