It is a little more than two years since Yahidne, in Chernihiv Oblast, has been liberated. You can read about it all you want, nothing can really prepare you to the sentiment of dread and loss once you set foot in that basement. It is cold, wet, and sinister. It is dark, and smells like mould. The distinctive stench of death has disappeared but somehow death is still everywhere.
Olena, Yahidne’s mayor, tells us that under Russian occupation, the entire population of around 300 people, adults and children, including a month and a half old baby, was detained in the school’s basement for 27 days.
Ivan (pic 3) was one of the captives, and he came back today to tell his story and share in which conditions people were kept there.
It was cold, colder than today, and terribly humid, with no electricity, heating, ventilation or toilets. The hooks visible on picture show where people were hanging their clothes when they were trying to rid them of the moist, to no avail.
People were starving, allowed in the best days to have a meagre amount of food, the equivalent of half a plastic cup, and diseases started to spread.
On a picture, you see one out of the 3 military rations that were distributed to the 168 people kept in the basement.
The elderly, some over 90, started to die, one by one, but Russian soldiers didn’t allow the corpses to be removed for many days.
Children were asking what had happened to them – parents told them they were asleep, until finally the captives were allowed to bring the corpses outside and bury them.
Mothers couldn’t do anything to keep their children healthy, feed them, protect them.
The inscriptions on the wall of the smallest room show on the left a list of names of those executed by the occupier, and on the right the names of the people who died because of the conditions of captivity. On the door, a calendar shows the days spent in the basement. The dates underlined mark the days when people thought they would die: for example, when they were summoned outside to dig a hole, which they thought would be their grave.
During those 27 days, 7 people were executed, and 10 people died from the terrible conditions they endured in the basement.
Both Olena and Ivan want the world to know that they will never forgive and never forget the horror they witnessed.
