When the house shatters, the family becomes the walls

Published: December 6, 2024

Sofia remembers the morning the first missile was fired from Russia.

Sofia was only ten when the war began—a young Ukrainian girl who enjoyed shopping, exploring parks, and making TikToks with the many friends she surrounded herself with. A young girl who looked forward to celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day and New Year’s. A girl who had read stories by children’s book writer Lina Kostenko and loved math. 

When the war began, the world around her had turned upside down, becoming anything but normal for a child to endure. Yet, her mind clung to the routines of life, eager to grasp any remaining fragments of peace she could find.  

As the first snow began to cover Prague’s streets, Sofia, who’s now twelve, smiles as she enters the second floor of Anglo-American University, elaborately decorated with a crystal chandelier casting golden hues. Her older brother escorts her in when she sits across from me as the wave of college students dies down. Her brother sits beside her to translate when Sofia reflects on the past few years of her life, describing the realities refugee children endure and emphasizing their fight for normalcy.  

Sofia’s hometown, Dnipro, lies in the eastern half of Ukraine, with the Dnieper River weaving through its modern buildings. The possibility that Russia might one day strike her country was always in the back of her mind, yet it never seemed tangible enough to be something she feared. Her brother described how Ukraine was divided into two mindsets: those certain Putin would attack and those who believed it impossible.  

On a freezing February morning, Sofia and her family were vacationing in western Ukraine when they were interrupted by the horrifying news of an attack in the north. 

Tears. Confusion. Fear. How could an innocent child make sense of such a reality?

Sofia’s story is not an isolated event but one shared by over a million Ukrainian children who now hold the status of “refugee.”  

At a small school in Prague called Barrandov Elementary School and Kindergarten, English teacher Martina Soukupová speaks of her experience with the sudden influx of Ukrainian children. 

This year, Martina is teaching three Ukrainian children displaced by the war alongside 27 other students of Czech or other nationalities. Emotional breakdowns and sudden bursts of aggression were common among the Ukrainian teenagers. “They are always sad and missing their home,” Martina said.  

One of Martina’s students arrived from Ukraine shortly after the war began and spent her first few weeks at the Czech school running up and down the halls, finding hiding places. She cried and screamed. She was scared and thrown into a new world.

Martina, too, was abruptly thrust into this position, with no choice but to reorganize her teaching methods to accommodate the emotional challenges some refugee children brought. “I helped them all the time. I translated everything for them, and nothing changed for a year,” she said. 

Immediately after Kyiv was struck, Sofia’s family began considering leaving the country. Thoughts of exile and safety consumed them as they returned home to empty streets and a destressing shift of atmosphere. Eventually, they relocated 70 kilometers away to a small village that became their temporary neighborhood for the next four months.  

After six months of online schooling, some classes returned to campus under unusual circumstances: the two top floors remained closed while the ground floor was deemed safe enough for the children, allowing quick access to an underground bomb shelter during missile threats.  

On a single day, Sofia could find herself entering the bomb shelter up to fifteen times. 

In the most matter-of-fact tone, Sofia explains that weekdays had fewer shelter visits, while weekends saw the most activity— she describes almost as if she were talking about an American sports bar.  

After three months, the school decided to make use of the hours spent in the shelter by setting up chairs so the children could continue their studies. These shelters, unkept, rotting, and cold, became their classrooms.  

Another haunting morning began with the bombing of a nearby hospital. Her house became the bomb shelter, and her family the walls. As the strikes hit, they embraced each other for protection while the ground shook, the windows shattered, and the noise carried their thoughts westward—eventually leading them to the decision to move to the Czech Republic in April 2024.

Barely a thousand miles away, children sit at sunlit desks under Martina’s instruction, learning their second or third language.  

Because of the sudden increase in international students, the school began dedicating days to celebrating world cultures, giving students the chance to share and educate others about their traditions.  

Unlike other international students from Germany, Serbia, or the Dominican Republic, who celebrated their new Czech identities and participated in showcasing Czech traditions, the Ukrainian students steered away from participating in anything to do with Czech culture. Martina explained that the Ukrainian children felt strongly about their identity that they even refused to eat Czech food at these events.

“They really miss their culture,” Martina said.  

The identity of a refugee child quietly transforms into a strange reflection of yourself once your familiar life is stripped away. A face stares into a mirror and sees a once hopeful child who thrived on learning and growing within the stability of a life protected by basic human dignity and care. Now, the reflection reveals a wounded soul from having their sense of future torn away. Sometimes it happens in an instant; other times, it unravels slowly over a prolonged and painful journey.

For Sofia, the process was sudden and jarring. As the chandelier shines above her, she bowed her head, pinching the arch of her eyebrows tightly. Tears follow—a reminder that she could no longer cling to the peace she had fought so hard to preserve.  

Her brother moves to sit behind her, embracing her with his arms when she sits up and dries her tears with her pink sweater.

Sofia shares a similar struggle to many of Martina’s Ukrainian children: the struggle of entering a community and being accepted by them. 

A Ukrainian boy recently found refuge in Prague and began Martina’s English courses in September. His behavior became increasingly disruptive and instead of Martina parenting him, she asked a Ukrainian student who arrived two years ago to give advice to the boy: “Don’t expect the Czech children to start speaking Ukrainian.”  

The advice is both literal and metaphorical: learning the language is key to integration but so is adapting to Czech customs rather than expecting others to conform to Ukrainian norms. Learning to adjust is acknowledging the painful reality that you are not like everyone else and need to put in extra effort to fit in. Yet it is a vital task. 

Martina has found that it is best when kids come to this understanding not by being told, but by experiencing that transformation by themselves. 

“It’s not easy from both sides,” Martina is aware of the complications that arise when giving attention to one child and omitting help to another. She recognizes the struggle of Ukrainian children and acknowledges the effort her Czech students have put in to help the Ukrainians assimilate.

Google translate became Sofia’s most reliable companion as she arrived in April, without an ounce of Czech language in her pallet or a friend to confide in. Prague was beautiful in her eyes; it has big shopping malls and green parks. But these views were only reachable when she came here on vacation before the war. Now, despite Prague still holding its beauty, it has become distorted through Sofia’s eyes.

Upon moving to Prague this populous city dimmed her child-like innocence and curiosity of the world as her brother said he noticed her behavior became more reserved and closed off. 

The three-year Ukrainian diaspora spread her friends all over the continent, simultaneously shifting the realities of these young girls and boys. They share a common struggle and yet are divided by borders. 

Martina shared that it is common for the Ukrainian students to be doing both full-time school in the Czech Republic and online courses in Ukraine. This means they must pass the entrance exam in the Czech language and complete courses at their home school which are typically not taken as seriously. 

“Some children know they will stay forever, but some are still not sure.” The uncertainty of a consistent home base impacts the children’s ability to perform well in educational contexts. Some hold on to the hope that this has all been merely a fever dream, and some have accepted their lives in Czech.

Martina’s struggles have slowly morphed into resilience; she feels like it is greatly rewarding to be helping children beyond teaching them English.

Sofia’s older brother leans in to hug her and whispers something in Ukrainian. She looks up and with a smile tells me that her heart is set on returning to Ukraine.

Her identity is not being altered by the new borders she is living in; she is Ukrainian, and she is proud of it.