For children growing up during war and conflict, memories of school are often intertwined with uncertainty and disruption. Yet within these memories are also teachers who offered encouragement, created moments of normalcy, shared knowledge under extraordinary circumstances, or simply remained present when so much else was changing.

Across the War Childhood Museum’s collection are stories in which teachers appear in different ways — sometimes at the center of a memory, sometimes in a seemingly small moment that stayed with a child for years.

On World Teachers’ Day, we share some of these stories and remember the teachers who became part of childhoods shaped by war.

A Send-off

The classes in the “Skender Kulenović” primary school, where I attended second grade, were held in poor conditions. They took place in an apartment building, which our teacher Elvedina Fazlić, with great effort, had turned into the most beautiful classroom we could imagine.  

This photograph was taken in 1995, in front of the entryway to the building where the classes were held. My teacher and my friends from class gave me this photo, along with a letter, as a parting gift when I left for a different school in another part of the city.

Azra, born 1987

Bosnia and Herzegovina

My First, Red Report Card

The war’s beginning “forced” me to hurry up and finish the first grade. As a real geek, of course, I had all A’s and positive reviews from the teachers’ council written into my beautiful red report card. Vacation had ended, but the war was still raging. I started second grade in a makeshift classroom in a former billiard club. Improvised schools, classrooms—and report cards. At the end of the year, I begged my teachers to write my grades into my beautiful red report card— but they would not do it! We got small, sad looking, paper report cards that looked like pages that had been pulled out of our usual report cards! And that continued into third, fourth, and fifth grades. Although the school had its “official” paper report card, I continued to scribble my grades into my red report card so that they would all be in one place. I kept doing this until fourth grade. I lost my second-grade report card in the intermittent years. Now, this red one is my only reminder of the one subject in my eight years of schooling that I did not finish with an A. It was in second grade, in a makeshift classroom, and the teacher was testing my times tables: “How much is 9×9?” “89,” I said. Then I corrected my answer to “87,” and finally to “81.” It was already too late—“Sit, B!”

Merima, born 1984

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Miraculous Medal

In sixth grade, my history teacher told us the story of the Virgin Mary’s apparition to Sister Catherine Labouré in Paris. The Virgin gave Catherine clear instructions on how to mint the medal and told her that whoever wore it around their neck would be protected. At that time, my home city, Beirut, was gripped by civil war. 

Believing in the medal’s protective power, I went home and asked my mom for one. She eventually found this silver version and gifted it to me. I have worn it ever since. It has been with me through countless escapes to the shelter, days of missed school, and the loss of many typical teenage experiences.  

Over the years, I have gifted many more Miraculous Medals to my friends and family, but this first medal stayed with me as a symbol of faith, hope, and resilience. Now, it finds a new home at the War Childhood Museum.

Lina, born 1976

Lebanon

Certificate of Appreciation

When the shelling was heavy, our neighbour took us to his house. We stayed there for two days. Then, we joined my grandfather in a camp in Lebanon. Now, we live in a tent.

This is the first Certificate of Appreciation that I have ever received. I got it after midterms because I had good grades. It’s such an important thing to me. My little brother ripped it. When I told my teacher about what happened, she gave me a new certificate. I like the teachers in my school because they are nice, and the school is very colourful.

Whenever I needed to feel proud or to encourage myself to do something difficult, I would just take the certificate out of my drawer and look at it. It gave me strength.

Maha, born 2004

Syria

The Youngest Student

Even during wartime, we attended school. One day, a shell fell near our classroom. The shrapnel shattered the windows but the glass fragments were stopped by the curtains. The blackboard was pierced by shrapnel. We, the children, ducked for cover and waited, motionless. When the dust settled, the teacher said simply: “It’s over, we are moving on!” Then she picked up the chalk, wiped the shrapnel-ridden blackboard, and continued with the lesson. 

Besides school, we participated in extracurricular activities. That is how I, at 12 years of age, became the youngest student of the Sarajevan Foreign Language Center at Obala. It was the city’s oldest foreign language center, and had continued operating even during the war. Thanks to that course, and my great affinity for languages, I now work as a freelance English language translator.

Naida, born 1981

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict has taken different forms and affected generations of children and families across the country. Through its work in Colombia, WCM is collecting personal stories and objects that shed light on childhood experiences from 1948 to the present day—from the emergence of guerrilla movements and the period marked by drug cartels, through the expansion of paramilitary violence, to the peace agreement and conflicts of recent years.

“Each year, we continue to develop our research activities in order to include as many diverse stories as possible in our collection. While every conflict is different, the impact on childhood carries common threads across time and place. Including stories from Colombia is important to the WCM’s mission of ensuring that more children’s experiences of war are being heard,” said Aynura Akbaš, Research Manager at the War Childhood Museum.

Documenting Experiences Across Colombia

In July, Monroy conducted field research in Barrancabermeja, where he documented the experiences of people who were forcibly recruited into guerrilla groups as children. During his stay, he also visited the House of Memory and the Human Rights of Women, an organization with a long-standing commitment to human rights, memory, and the experiences of women affected by violence.

“These stories serve as an insight into some of the underlying issues behind the Colombian armed conflict, serving as a tool for non-repetition of violent acts against society,” said Monroy.

The research process seeks to create space for participants to share their experiences on their own terms, recognizing that memories of conflict are deeply personal and that there is no single way to tell a story about childhood and war.

“The Museum’s Colombian collection brings together personal stories and objects connected to childhoods shaped by armed conflict, spanning the period from 1948 to the present day. Each story offers an individual perspective on how armed conflict has shaped childhood in Colombia,” says Aynura Akbaš, Research Manager at the War Childhood Museum.

Creating Space for Children and Young People to Share Their Stories

At the end of July, WCM supported the organization of a workshop in Bogotá for children and young people whose family members had been kidnapped by guerrilla groups. Using artistic methods, participants were invited to explore and communicate their experiences in ways that felt most appropriate to them. Some chose to contribute stories and personal objects with the Museum, becoming contributors to its growing Colombian collection.

The workshop reflects an important principle of WCM’s research and documentation methodology: children and young people should have agency over how, when, and whether they share their experiences. Objects, drawings, photographs, memories, and personal stories can all become ways of communicating experiences that may be difficult to capture through conventional forms of testimony.

The work underway in Colombia is part of the War Childhood Museum’s broader commitment to preserving the voices and experiences of children affected by armed conflict worldwide. As the Colombian collection continues to grow, the Museum aims to document the diversity and complexity of these experiences while respecting each contributor’s dignity and their right to tell their story in their own way.

Read some of them below. 

Humanitarian Aid Packaging Collection

I wanted to keep a memento of something completely new to Yugoslavia—humanitarian aid. We laughed about it at the time, thinking: Come on, by Monday everything will be back to normal. That’s the real reason why I kept that first tin. But the crisis wasn’t over by Monday, and more tins followed. Soon we were eating things that had never been seen before in Yugoslavia. It was an excellent reason to collect all those wrappers and tins.

At one point as I was forming this collection I had to ask myself how long I would continue to do so. That’s when I decided to keep collecting either until I made it into the Guinness World Records or until the war ended and we stopped receiving aid. Thanks to the journalists who visited Sarajevo, I was able to send a letter to Guinness. I continued collecting wrappers as I awaited their response. Even though my collection made it into the record book, the number of wrappers is actually greater than the one listed by several hundred.

We even erected a monument to ICAR in Sarajevo, but few remember that there were actually three different types of ICAR tin. Because of details like that one, collecting proved to be a good way to preserve our collective memory of that period.

Filip, b. 1981, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Magic Wand

This magic wand was part of a New Year’s care package filled with colorful knickknacks from a humanitarian organization that was active at the time. The New Year’s celebrations included a recital. Each child received a magic wand: we hoped that by playing “abracadabra” we could make the war end.

Unfortunately, it took a long time for the war to end. I held on to that magic wand, occasionally lending it to younger children to make their own wishes, provided that they return it to its rightful owner.

Denisa, b. 1981, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Letters for First Graders

During the Siege of Sarajevo, we had our classes in improvized basement classrooms. When we were in first grade, on one occasion, we received humanitarian aid care packages that contained toys and letters from our peers from other countries.

I kept mine to this day because they reminded me of the wonderful feeling of knowing that, even in the most difficult times, there was someone out there thinking about us.

Alma, b. 1988, Bosnia and Herzegovina

A Box for Play

I got this box in early 1999 from an English humanitarian organization. When the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began that same year, and when the air-raid sirens sounded for the first time, it was the first thing I brought down to the basement with me. I would play with this box’s contents during all 78 days of the bombing.  I spent the time in the basement together with my mom and my younger brother, while dad who was in the army was often at the military airport. Whenever dad was home we would read the “Zabavnik” children’s magazine or play games from the box. During my time in the basement, I also discovered books and comic books. These things comforted me and brought me fun, but today they remind me of the fear and danger I felt.

Maja, b. 1990, Serbia

Reward for an Important Task

Occasionally, we received humanitarian food aid, which was distributed based on the number of “heads” in a household. My family would receive one loaf of bread and one end piece. The bread was distributed near my grandmother’s building, in a place hidden from shelling, so we children were allowed to go out and stand in line for bread. 

Once, while waiting in line, I was given the “important task” of going behind the counter to help the local community representatives with cutting and distributing bread. For a job well done, I earned two loaves of bread and 10 dinars. I never spent those 10 dinars. I kept them, alongside this ration card for bread distribution.

Naida, b. 1981, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Red Cross Letters

When I was in seventh grade, I was forced to leave behind my neighborhood, Ilidža, my school, and my friends—they stayed “on the other side,” and I longed to get in touch with them again. By chance, I learned that it was possible to exchange messages through the Red Cross and that those messages really did reach their intended recipients.

I wrote the first of these at the end of 1993. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the letters would reach their intended recipients, so when I got the replies, I jumped for joy! Today, the content of these letters always brings a smile to my face and makes me laugh. We mostly talked to each other about our everyday lives—what we looked like, what we listened to, what we ate. Although the war was a part of that everyday life, we rarely mentioned it.

Alma, born 1978

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Food Without Flavor

My friends Ziyad, Mousa, and I grew up together in the same neighborhood in Gaza. After school, we were always at each other’s houses, sharing meals and laughter. Food was at the heart of our friendship. 

When the war began, I fled to Egypt. Ziyad and Mousa stayed behind. I learned through social media that they were killed. 

Now, whenever I eat, I remember Gaza. I remember my friends. I feel as if I can no longer taste my food without feeling grief.

Khalid, born 2014

Gaza, Palestine

 “The First Orange, After Eleven Months”

A friend of mine got a hold of some oranges, which he shared with us. Of course, we got an orange each.

I brought my orange home so that I could share it between the five of us. I still remember that happiness because it was the first orange I’d seen in eleven months. Don’t even get me started on the taste!

The orange was so important to me that I glued a piece of it to my journal and wrote, in all capital letters: “THE FIRST ORANGE, AFTER ELEVEN MONTHS.” I remember its taste to this day.

Medina, born 1977

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Seashells from Gaza

Before the war in Gaza, the sea was my favorite place. I spent all my free time there with my friends. 

Then the war began. We had to leave our home and move to our relatives’ house in a safer area. We lived crowded together with no privacy and nowhere comfortable to sleep. 

Life there was hard. Whenever I could, I escaped to the sea for a moment of calm. The other girls and I would stay there until we saw the military boats. Then we would run back. 

Eventually, I fled to Egypt with my parents. My extended family and many of my friends are still in Gaza. I think about them and their safety every day. 

Before leaving, I went to the sea one last time. A big wave came and left many seashells on the shore. My friends and I collected as many as we could. These are some of them.

Lilian, born 2011

Gaza, Palestina

My Favorite Napkin

My friends and I used to collect paper napkins. We kept them, very carefully, in cardboard boxes, and traded them regularly. The most valuable were the so-called “Japanese napkins”, which were prettily patterned and made with fine paper. My favorite, however, was the “Pamucki” napkin, which I treated with the utmost care and wouldn’t trade for any other, not even a Japanese one. Even though it became pretty decrepit by the end, I decided to keep it as a memento of those hours spent with my neighborhood friends, in cold basements and building entryways.

Emina, born 1985

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Today, almost 90 years after the war began, these testimonies are becoming increasingly rare. Through interviews, research, exhibitions, and public programs, the Museum helps ensure that these stories remain part of public memory and contribute to broader conversations about children’s war experiences.

Collecting Stories Nearly 90 Years Ago

Working with witnesses to World War II is increasingly challenging, as the number of living witnesses dwindles each year. War Childhood Museum Ukraine currently has 59 stories related to World War II in its collection.

“We want to preserve the childhood experiences of people who survived World War II, because there are very few witnesses left. From our archive, we learned that even after more than 80 years, for many respondents this is still the first time they have spoken publicly about their childhood during the war,” says Svitlana Osipchuk, WCM Ukraine Program Director.

These interviews are not only a way to preserve individual memories, but also an opportunity to better understand how children experienced the war beyond the confines of military events and official narratives. “Oral testimonies allow us to communicate with people who never intended to document their memories, never kept diaries or wrote memoirs. While it is still possible to interview living witnesses, it is important to do so in a way that the picture we reconstruct through testimonies becomes more complete,” explains researcher Oleksandra Domorosla.

Between Memory and History

Working with these stories requires researchers to consider not only what happened, but also how people remember, interpret and give meaning to events many decades later.

“We collect oral testimonies not just to verify historical facts. We record them to understand how people themselves processed their experiences throughout their lives. When we tell our stories, we create a narrative that helps us understand what happened to us,” says Osipchuk.

These testimonies complement archival documents and official records, drawing attention to experiences that are often absent from institutional collections. They provide insights into everyday life during the war and illuminate aspects of childhood that have historically received little attention.

“Testimonies help researchers go beyond what can be found in archives and official records. They reveal everyday experiences, survival strategies, and aspects of childhood that have often been ignored or excluded from dominant narratives about the war,” says Domorosla.

Sharing stories with the public

Collecting stories is only one part of WCM Ukraine’s work. The team is also exploring ways to present these experiences through exhibitions, educational events, and public programs that make personal stories accessible to a wider audience.

“One of every museum’s functions is to provide a broader perspective on events and experiences. Exhibitions and public programs help to place individual stories in a broader historical context, while ensuring the visibility of children’s experiences,” says Osipchuk.

In 2025, the exhibition “War Childhood: Experiences of World War II” was held in Lviv, in which the Museum team demonstrated how personal testimonies and objects can help visitors get acquainted with the experiences of children who survived World War II. By bringing individual stories into public spaces, the Museum creates opportunities for dialogue between generations and encourages reflection on how war shapes childhood, both in the past and today.

“By telling stories about childhood during World War II, we not only acknowledge this experience, but also observe its long-term impact on our identity and memory. This evidence is valuable material for understanding both the past and the present,” adds Domorosla.

Testimonies from World War II occupy a special place in the War Childhood Museum Ukraine’s collection. While they document a conflict that ended almost 80 years ago, they also offer valuable perspectives on the long-term impact of war on children’s lives and on how society remembers and interprets a traumatic past.

“Wars end, but the experience of growing up during war stays with people for the rest of their lives,” says Domorosła. “The emotions described by witnesses of World War II often resonate with the experiences of children experiencing war today.”

As opportunities to communicate with witnesses become increasingly rare, the work of collecting, preserving, and developing these stories becomes essential. Through this work, the Museum helps to bring children’s experiences to light and use them as a source for understanding the present.

“The preservation of this historical perspective is extremely important. “Museums help society see itself through time, connecting past and present experiences, rather than allowing them to disappear from public memory,” emphasizes Osipchuk.

Around the Lamp

In the early mornings, they would gather together to embroider. The whole corner was bustling with young girls. Some embroidered pillowcases, some towels for themselves. They also used to spin. They would sit around the lamp and embroider.

The boys would come and stir up some mischief. They didn’t embroider; they would come from the hamlet to court the girls.

Many used to gather. I didn’t participate, I didn’t do embroidery. How old was I then? This was my older sister. 

Hanna, b. 1938 

Vaskivtsi, Chernihiv region

As coordinator of the Bosnia and Herzegovina part in a research cluster within the SCVN project, the War Childhood Museum facilitated the collaboration, moderating the conversations between Furmark and Salihović, a contributor to the Museum’s collection, while helping ensure that the survivor’s voice remained at the center of the creative process.

This article explores how that collaboration took shape, and what it meant for both the survivor who shared her story and the artist entrusted with bringing it to the page.

Keeping the Story Authentic

For Almasa Salihović, taking part in the project meant accepting the emotional difficulty of revisiting the past in order to ensure that her experience would be preserved and understood.

“Returning to those memories is never simple. Every conversation means reliving moments that you spend a lifetime learning to carry. But I have always believed that it is more important to speak than to remain silent, because testimony has the power to preserve the truth.”

Rather than focusing solely on violence and loss, Salihović wanted the graphic novel to preserve the people, relationships, and everyday life that existed before the genocide.

“The most important thing to me was that the story remained authentic—that it spoke not only about my family’s tragedy and our loss, but also about my brother as I remember him, about our dignity as survivors, and about our strength to keep going despite everything. I wanted people, as they turned the pages of the graphic novel, to understand and imagine that behind every number is a person’s life; that behind every face is an individual, a family, and dreams that were never realized because they were cut short.”

For Salihović, the project also demonstrates the unique role art can play alongside historical documentation, helping readers connect with individual experiences on an emotional level.

“Historical facts are unquestionable and they are the foundation of our understanding of the past. But a graphic novel can help people feel the human dimension of those events. It allows us to empathize through shared moments.”

She believes this emotional connection is particularly important for younger generations, who may encounter the history of Srebrenica for the first time through formats such as graphic novels.

“I believe that younger generations, in particular, can more easily connect with the story through this format, ask questions, and develop empathy. If art can inspire someone to learn more about Srebrenica and understand why it is important to preserve the truth, then I will be even prouder to have been part of this project.”

Drawing Another Person’s Memory

For Anneli Furmark, illustrating As Long As We Are Together meant navigating the delicate balance between imagination and responsibility.

Translating lived experience into a visual narrative meant confronting the limits of personal experience. While Salihović’s testimony guided every page, Furmark also had to consider how an artist depicts emotions and situations she has never experienced firsthand.

“When you draw, you inevitably draw your own embodied memories of emotions like loss, fear, and exhaustion. My own experiences are present in the drawings too, while the experiences I haven’t had myself—extreme hunger, for example—I’ve had to imagine as best I could.”

She believes graphic novels possess a unique ability to communicate across both words and images.

“Graphic novels can reach you through more than one sense. I sometimes think of them as being like a song: the lyrics are one thing, the music another, but together they create something third. Something with a greater chance of breaking through your psychological defenses.”

That combination of text and image, she suggests, can create an emotional openness that allows readers to engage with difficult histories in ways that conventional formats sometimes cannot.

A Collaboration That Changes Everyone Involved

The creative process became an exchange that affected both collaborators. While Salihović entrusted Furmark with her memories, Furmark left the project with a different understanding of war and its lasting impact.

“Meeting Almasa and the other people I met in Bosnia has been very meaningful to me. I’ve come to know people with first-hand experience of war. My mother is one of them too, but the distance in time has made her story feel more abstract to me. Now it has become much more real.”

The collaboration demonstrates what survivor-centered storytelling can make possible when survivors remain active participants in how their own stories are told. Rather than treating testimony simply as source material, the creative process became an ongoing dialogue about memory, representation, and responsibility.

For the War Childhood Museum, this approach reflects a broader commitment to preserving childhood memories of war in ways that remain faithful to lived experience while making them accessible to new audiences. As the graphic novel reaches readers across different countries and languages, it carries with it not only one survivor’s memories, but also an invitation to reflect on the importance of remembrance, empathy, and the responsibility each generation bears in safeguarding human dignity.

As Salihović puts it, remembrance is never only about the past.

“Memory is never completely turned toward the past. It always contains lessons—and a glimpse of the future. Young people need to understand that they, too, have a responsibility to defend a future that is more just, more peaceful, and more humane.”

This question lies at the heart of Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives (SCVN), an international research and artistic collaboration that documents the experiences of survivors of genocide and mass atrocities through graphic novels and other visual forms of storytelling. Bringing together survivors, researchers, artists and cultural institutions from different parts of the world, the project explores how art can help preserve testimony while placing survivors’ voices, agency and wellbeing at the center of the creative process.

As part of the project, the War Childhood Museum coordinated the part about Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Yugoslav Wars research cluster, centered on the story of Almasa Salihović—a survivor of the Srebrenica genocide, contributor to the Museum’s collection, and spokesperson for the Srebrenica Memorial Center.

Almasa Salihović and Anneli Furmark in conversation

Memories of Srebrenica

Over a series of conversations held throughout 2023 and 2024, Almasa shared memories of her childhood in the village of Skejići, her family’s flight to Srebrenica in 1993, life inside the besieged enclave, and the events surrounding the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Rather than serving as a conventional interview, these conversations formed the foundation of a collaborative creative process rooted in trust, careful listening and respect for lived experience.

The conversations were held between Almasa and Swedish graphic novelist Anneli Furmark, moderated by WCM’s Ajnura Akbaš. Drawing on these testimonies, Furmark created the graphic novel As Long As We Are Together, transforming Almasa’s memories into a visual narrative while remaining faithful to her voice and experiences.

Beyond the Graphic Novel

Their collaboration was also featured in the SCVN documentary short film “Almasa’s Story”, directed by filmmaker Bojan Hadžiabdić. The film follows Almasa as she revisits the physical and emotional geography of her past: the fields and hillsides of Skejići, the escape routes families took, and the places where survivors gather each year to commemorate the genocide. The film traces Almasa and Anneli’s conversations, revealing how Anneli approached transforming Almasa’s memories into visual form. The trailer is available to watch on SCVN’s YouTube.

The Yugoslav Wars research cluster is one of five research clusters working with survivors, including the Holocaust, Rwanda, Iraq/Syria, and Turtle Island, where the SCVN project explores survivor-centred, trauma-informed approaches to visual storytelling. Rather than illustrating historical events alone, the project seeks to document individual memories with care, recognizing survivors as active collaborators in the creation of their own narratives.

A panel from the graphic book

Visual Storytelling

Graphic novels have increasingly become an important medium for engaging readers with complex historical subjects. Combining testimony, illustration and sequential storytelling, they offer a way of approaching difficult histories that is both emotionally resonant and accessible, particularly for younger audiences encountering these events for the first time.

For the War Childhood Museum, participation in the project reflects our ongoing commitment to preserving childhood memories of war through diverse forms of storytelling and making those stories accessible across generations and cultures. The graphic novel “As Long As We Are Together” will be released in German by Avant Verlag in October and in English by University of Toronto Press in early 2027.

We spoke with the Museum’s collection manager, Oksana Lepesiienko, about the specifics of her work with children’s experiences and gained deeper insight into the Museum’s archiving practices. 

Read more below.

What does the process of acquiring and cataloging a new object for the WCM Ukraine collection look like?

The process begins during the interview, when participants donate personal objects to our researchers. Each object is assigned a unique ID in our digital system, where I record its description, dimensions, materials, and condition.

Physical objects are photographed, labeled, and packed using archival-grade materials: Tyvek for 3D objects and acid-free envelopes for 2D items. They are then stored in coded boxes for precise tracking (cabinet, shelf). Digital objects are kept in organized cloud storage. Ultimately, every object receives a comprehensive digital “passport,” allowing us to locate it within the collection instantly.

What are the main challenges of working with the collection in wartime?

Safety is our priority: we focus on physical preservation, digital security, and reliable backups. While these are standard archival practices, they have become vital in Kyiv today.

Faced with frequent Russian shellings and power outages, our team strives for maximum autonomy to ensure work continues regardless of external factors. Archiving in wartime requires a constant balance between professional standards and daily adaptation. Because the Museum documents the very war it is living through, we feel a profound motivation to protect this history despite the instability.

Name three of the most unusual conservation challenges in your collection.

From a conservation perspective, the most unusual challenges are food items: a poppy seed bun, a Snickers bar, and a small bag of dried bread rings (sushky).

These objects require special storage conditions to protect the rest of the collection. For instance, the Snickers wrapper is no longer airtight due to a damaged seam. To ensure their preservation, we keep such items in isolated, transparent, airtight packaging and inspect them regularly.

Which objects were the most difficult to archive?

The process is simple but time-consuming, especially when archiving entire personal collections. Large digital sets, such as dozens of photos, videos, and scans, or numerous small physical items, like tokens or seashells, require the most effort. However, these collections are the most engaging to work with, as they demand a thoughtful approach to systematizing them as a cohesive whole.

At the moment, War Childhood Museum Ukraine has an exhibition open in Chernivtsi, in the South-West of Ukraine, titled “Books That Walk With You Through War,” featuring 15 stories of children and adolescents for whom books became a way to cope with the experience of full-scale invasion.

In our collection, children and young people across different conflicts have described how reading helped them endure moments of isolation, displacement, and danger. We invite you to read some of these stories below.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

I learned to read because of the war. I devoured books, one after the next. Ironically, the war, and the time spent in our basement shelter, led to my love affair with the written word. I guess it was an escape from the reality of war because life in books was happier and safer than the one we were living. I imagined my friends and myself as the characters in these books. Each hour spent reading was an hour spent without war… Even if it was only in my head!

Azra, b. 1982, Bosnia and Herzegovina

There Was Only a Book

I woke up on the 24th at 7:30, saying to my mom, “Let’s get ready for school, we are going to be late. Class starts already at 8.” She said, “There will be no more school. There’s a war.” The shooting started, and I heard a machine gun. It frightened me. I would lay in bed, not knowing what to do. Later, we went to my grandfather’s basement. There was a TV, a kettle, a sofa – it was a cool basement. Our cat Glasha was with us in the basement.

In the spring we moved to western Ukraine. My father’s sister lives there. We read this book on the sleeper train on the way there. They had given these out to us at school not long before this. Such an awesome book! While we were on the way, I read it from start to finish – it’s 95 pages. At home, I read it a couple more times – I didn’t want to lose any battery life. There was no internet anyway, so there was only this book.

Nastya, b. 2011 , Ukraine

My World, as Discovered in Books

The war began when people wearing camouflage uniforms rang our doorbell and said my dad had to come with them. I was in the living room, watching them through the glass panel door as they gave my dad instructions on what he can and can’t bring with him. Those stern men, who wore trench coats and took dad away on that day, marked the beginning of the war for me. It was in 1999 already – when dad was drafted for the second time – that a great fear of death got hold of me. At that moment, everyone had their own way of surviving—the books were my escape. Since everyday life wasn’t so colorful and full of possibilities, I immersed myself in books and all the worlds I could explore through them. I worried deeply that I would never get to visit London and Paris, and see that world I discovered in books. I kept a lot of objects from that period—my diaries, notebooks with a lock, scented stickers, letters, Barbie dolls. This drawing, which I did in art class, shows my imaginary room—a room I wanted to play in. Back then, playtime was, next to books, my only escape, and a lifeline.

Bojana, b. 1983, Serbia

Love Stories and Poems

Poems and stories were a form of escapism from the wartime activities happening all around us. I borrowed scrapbooks and notebooks from older children in the neighborhood and copied what was in them into this notebook, which I received in a humanitarian aid package. I filled the pages with the usual doodles, but I would also paste in various pictures cut from old magazines, pre-war cassette tape and record sleeves, and wrappers from chocolates we used to buy at the market. Instead of glue, I used old nail polish or a mixture of flour and water – confirmed to be the best improvised glue we had access to!

Amina, b. 1980, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Grandfather’s Memento

This Quran has a long and storied family history, having once belonged to my grandfather. He was forcibly expelled from his home and village. When the soldiers broke into his home, this book was among the very few things he managed to grab before he was expelled. 

After my grandfather’s passing, the Quran remained within our family, serving as a memento of him and a reminder of our ancestral village. 

These days, I often feel scared of something bad happening to me, but my family, particularly my mom and dad, comfort me and help me feel safe.

Salwa, b. 2006, Palestine

Among the 6,000 personal objects and stories from more than 20 conflict-affected contexts in our collection are many memories children shared about their teachers. In honor of this year’s World Teachers’ Day, we invite you to explore some of these stories.

Frightened Teacher

I learned to write during war. I started elementary school in September 1992. The classes didn’t take place inside a classroom, but in the Šehić family grocery store. Shelling was an everyday thing. On one such day, I was finishing a drawing on the theme of “Happy Family Away from War” and then came the call to evacuate. Half-way on the path to safety, I managed to free my hand from the teacher’s. I was dead sure that on my feet were magic slippers that would help me outrun shells and sniper fire, and so I went straight back to the store to grab my notebook, because I wanted to finish the drawing. Nobody would ever yell at me the way that frightened teacher did when she was trying to explain to me that I don’t have magic slippers and that my reckless escape could have cost me my life.

Mersiha, born 1987, BiH

The Best Student

I was in the sixth grade of primary school, and the only student in my class who was of a different ethnicity. The other kids often got nasty; they would draw nationalist symbols on my notebooks and atlas or just taunt me directly. The teachers were the same, all of them aside from my Math teacher, Mara Torbica. She was always thoughtful, and in situations where I was in danger, she would send me home and write absence notes. 

In Geography class, we learned about the territories that were home to one people only, and on tests we praised the military successes and territorial expansion. Because of my immense desire to maintain all A’s, I would write the “correct” answers on tests—I was hoping that I would be declared the best student at the end of the year. At the end of the year, as we were standing in front of the teacher’s room, my teacher Mara hugged me tightly. She told me that, despite my good grades, I could not be declared the best publicly. It was only later that I cried my eyes out over it.

Ornela, born 1980, BiH

The Ugly Duckling

My grandma taught the Serbo-Croatian language, and my grandpa worked as a teacher. During the war, the two of them helped brighten up my childhood. In the evenings, when we had no electricity and could hear shooting outside, my grandma and I would read stories by candlelight. These were usually Grimm’s Fairy Tales, stories by Ivo Andrić and Branko Ćopić, or Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling.” Thanks to my grandma and her stories, as well as my grandpa who taught me how to read and write in wartime, and of course my parents, I grew up knowing that there would be happier and more beautiful times again.

Darija, born 1987, BiH

School Photograph

During the war I attended primary school in Srebrenica. Students from a few different grades attended classes in the same classroom, which was under constant threat of shelling. Despite that fear, our teacher always did the best he could.  

The photograph I’m giving to the War Childhood Museum is a memento of mine from the first grade of primary school. We didn’t have many opportunities to take pictures during the war, which makes this photo the first and only memento of my school days.

Dželaludina, born 1984, BiH

Ballet Online

I remember school stopped for two weeks. But not ballet. The full-scale war started on the 24th, and by the 27th we already had Zoom conferences where we practiced ballet. Our teacher stayed in Kyiv and didn’t go anywhere. She conducted classes online every day, and those who could, joined. We worked on our technique and did stretches.

These conferences weren’t just for our studio. Children from any city could join us. We would log in, talk a bit, ask how everyone was, where they were, if everything was alright. I remember one girl from Odesa; we were in the middle of a class when suddenly her lights went out.  We heard an explosion, and she, without turning off her camera, ran for the basement.They were shelling during our class.

Sofiia, born 2009, Ukraine