‘Children describe hell’: an interview with Khrystia Khranovska in the project of the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation

A public interview with Khrystia Khranovska took place in Kyiv as part of the documentary project Diaries of the Peaceful: Voices of Survivors and Non-Survivors by the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. The topic of the meeting: 'War diaries: what are Ukrainian children writing about?

Khrystia Khranovska is a well-known philanthropist who has implemented many social, educational and cultural initiatives. Among the most recent is the creation of a travelling exhibition, War Diaries: Unheard Voices of Ukrainian Children. The conversation was moderated by Nataliya Yemchenko, SCM's Communications Director and member of the Foundation's Supervisory Board.

The exhibition has already been shown in 6 European cities and 2 US cities. It is based on the diaries of 14 children aged 7 to 16 from different regions of Ukraine. No one expected that the children's thoughts on the war, which were used in the project, would become a powerful diplomatic tool. Fragments of the ego-documents were quoted at the UN General Assembly. 

‘The aim of the project is to show the international community the pain that the younger generation of Ukrainians is experiencing. To tell everything in their words, actions and deeds that they record. The exhibition is called War Diaries: Untold Stories of Ukrainian Children, but it includes not only diaries, but also videos, drawings, and artefacts of their deceased parents,’ explains Khrystia Khranovska.

She emphasised that the world did not fully understand what Ukrainians were experiencing every day.
‘People do not realise the scale of the horror. Therefore, the project's mission is to show the international community how Ukrainians live during the war. In their diaries, children describe hell and talk about their childish emotions in a very simple, unbiased way,’ the philanthropist adds.

The idea to create the project came to Christ under the influence of the film The Diary of Anne Frank. This story unfolded 80 years ago, and it still impresses with its drama. Ukrainian children are going through the same thing right now, and the world needs to know about it.

Khrystia shared the stories of children who donated their notes, drawings and belongings of their deceased parents to the exhibition: tokens and phones, letters written for their parents at the front. Children gave these things with a request to show them to the world to tell about the sacrifices of their loved ones.

‘When a child handed over a diary or a thing of their deceased father, I asked: ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ And the children answered: ‘Yes, I want the whole world to know about my dad’. This is a huge responsibility for us,’ says the philanthropist.

She adds that the War Diaries project demonstrates the importance of documenting tragedies to preserve memory. It helps the world understand the realities of war through the personal stories of children living in its shadow.

Nataliya Yemchenko also emphasises the importance of documenting personal experiences of war.

'The Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has already collected over 120,000 testimonies, including diaries. We have diaries from Mariupol that are as powerful as the testimony of Anne Frank,’ Nataliya emphasised.

The documentary project Diaries of the Peaceful: Voices of Survivors and Non-Survivors is located on the ground floor of the Kyiv City History Museum (7 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street).

The public interviews are part of a series of cultural events by the Museum of Civilian Voices aimed at preserving the memory of the war. Follow the announcements of the events on the social media of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation and on the Museum's website https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/