Olena is a journalist, writer, and employee of the Sholom-Aleichem Museum. It seemed that she was ready for the great war – she had been travelling to Donbas since 2014 to make journalistic films. But when the terrible “it started” came, no amount of preparation helped. When she was leaving Kyiv, one picture stuck in her mind forever: a platform littered with abandoned suitcases. People were leaving things behind to save their lives. Olena also left – first to Vinnytsia, then to Uzhhorod. There, in order to stay afloat, she started going to the library and archives, plunged back into work, and during this time wrote two books. Today she is already in Kyiv. She returned with a dream to continue writing. Because words, like memory, are her way of holding on to life and sharing it with others.