Keeping My Promise: How I Found Safety for My Family and Started Helping Others
My name is Yuliia. I am from Ukraine, from the city of Dnipro. I worked at the Menorah Cultural and Business Center, which is the largest Jewish center in the world. The museum located there is the largest in Ukraine dedicated to Jewish history and the tragedy of the Holocaust. The museum has a lot of signs that explain the exhibits, videos, and pictures there. The last time I visited, I noticed that many of them talk about how together we can conquer all challenges, like epidemics, but war is the biggest challenge for all people.
One month later, the war began. I saw it in a museum, and then I saw it in real life.
I could see the war going on from my balcony, and it was massive. Sometimes I felt like I was in a horrible movie. Everyone was thinking about their family. With my family, it was like we were frozen. We did nothing. My first thought was that we should not panic and threaten the safety of my 75 year-old mother and my son Pasha, who has special needs. We knew the infrastructure, we had basements in our buildings to keep us safe.
My workplace became a shelter for people who were closer to the center of the war. They stayed there short-term to figure out what to do next. We helped with clothes, with food, with different stuff. Access to transportation in our city helped a lot of people to escape the war. We took in a family of six from Mariupol. We were strangers when we first met, and now they are like a second family to us. They decided it was safer to stay in Ukraine because their parents were elderly and had a lot of health problems. Honestly, if my mother had told me to “stay” I probably would have made a different choice. Maybe I would have stayed, too.
My mother, my son, and I were forced to leave for the Netherlands for several months due to a work project related to my son. When the project was completed, on January 13, 2023, my mother’s birthday, we returned home. It was a horrible time because it was a blackout. The next day I was with my son getting my car serviced when people started calling and asking, “Are you okay?”. When I asked why they told me that a bomb had hit my apartment building. My brother called, asking me where my mom was. She was still at home. I was 25 minutes away. I don’t even know what car I took because my car didn’t have tires on it yet.
I parked two blocks from my house. I could see fire and everything was destroyed. My building was the biggest one in the area. About 2000 people lived there. It takes up 12 blocks and has 9 stories. It is a very big community. Even with all of the people outside, we met with my brother outside of the building. I could see that the block was not destroyed compared to the epicenter of the bombing. The epicenter was just 25 meters away. When we reached the door of our house, my mom was frozen. She didn’t understand what happened. The impact of the bomb had smacked her into the wall and she was confused. She said, “We are all together. The house next door was bombed.” And I said “No, mom, not the next house. Our house was destroyed.”
When my house was destroyed, something broke in my mind. I lost the feeling of being whole. It’s a very strange feeling.
It took us five hours to evacuate. We brought my mother and son to safety and then returned to help on site. The evacuation of the building lasted for three days. In one day 46 people lost their lives, 11 are still considered missing, and about 400 were injured. My son Pasha saw and heard everything. He was scared. He couldn’t sleep alone. If he heard a noise, he would say, “Mom, we need to go to the shelter.” Even now, if he hears a noise, he thinks we need to run to safety. That is why it’s important that he is able to explain his emotions. This is why I continue to work for Ukraine even though I live in the US.
I promised myself that if we got out safely, I would continue to help kids with special needs or whoever needed help.
After three days, my friend Elena in Utah called me. She and I had worked in the same department for five years together. She is also from Ukraine. She was watching the news and recognized my house in footage of the bombings. She asked how I was and we had some small talk. I was really frustrated. I could support my mom and my son, but if something happened to me, what would happen to my son? When we were done with small talk, I said, “Okay, maybe it’s time to move to America. This will now be the best solution for my son, taking into account his special needs and psychological state.”
Five more days went by and I got to talk to her friend Jyll. She said, “We made a decision to help your family if you’re ready. You need to move immediately. It’s a chance for Pasha, and for you. You make the decision that’s best for you.” I didn’t have a lot of time to decide.
We moved in May 2023, and I started my life from ground zero. It was difficult because of the language. My son Pasha said people in the US had the same features and appearance as him, but they spoke a different language. It was very hard for him, because he didn’t understand what the teachers said to him, and they didn’t understand him. I stayed with him to help translate. When I was with him at school, it was all right: we studied, we gained knowledge, and his behavior was perfect. But when I left the school, maybe for an hour, he became frustrated and scared and threw books. Maybe from the noises in the school. This behavior started after the war: there were very big noises and he didn’t understand what happened.
My friends Anna and Tracy gave me good advice about a special class for Pasha, not a general class. They told me it would be better for him with smaller classes and two or three additional teachers. Now he feels independent when the bus picks him up and he goes to school.
He feels confident, and that makes me so happy, because that was my goal–for him to be safe, have the opportunity to develop skills, and be in a social atmosphere.
When I looked for a job in the US, it was really difficult. Even though I have a master’s degree, my English isn’t very good, and I found it difficult to get a job. It’s my goal, first to support my family, next to take on a different project to support other people. That’s why I work part time for the Utah Ukrainian Association. It helped me realize my goal of helping people.
I also continue to work for the same Ukrainian company as the head of their marketing department. The company is 25,000 square meters and consists of two hotels, the museum, and conference center, conference service stays, gym, and more. My role is project development, marketing strategy development, and advertising. But when the war started, my company took on a social project. Our platform supports people who stay in Ukraine and who are professionals, helping them to find jobs.
When I moved to the US, I had all that was necessary because Lifting Hands International helped me. Then there was Jyll. She and her company in Utah have sponsored over five families from Ukraine. Jyll is my close friend–no, not friend, she’s part of my family. If I feel something or I need advice, I call my friends and they always invest time. And honestly it’s always touched my heart. And I explain to my Ukrainian colleagues and friends that America, especially the people, give a huge amount of support.
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