The Voice of Witness education team mentored high school student Leah Tabakh as she completed her senior project: a collection of oral histories about the war in Ukraine.
Leah was inspired to begin the project after taking an oral history-based course offered at her school, which featured narratives from VOW’s human rights book series. With the encouragement of her teacher, Leah reached out to the VOW education staff for support as she completed her project.
As the child of a Ukrainian immigrant, Leah wanted her project to use personal narratives to document and bring attention to the experiences of people affected by Russia’s invasion. According to Leah, her project helped her “feeling of hopelessness slowly diminish.” With the support of VOW staff, she learned methods for interviewing narrators with difficult and traumatic experiences. During both the interviewing and editing process, Leah referenced VOW’s ethical storytelling principles to ensure her narrators felt safe, respected, and accurately represented.
The final collection, titled Berehynya (Ukrainian for caregiver), features four narrators who fled Ukraine for the United States to escape the ongoing war, which began in 2014. The first-person accounts span generations and amplify unheard stories of the violence as well as the aftermath, resettling and beginning life in a new country. The breadth of experiences included in the collection, in Leah’s words, “reminds us of the humanity within every statistic.”
The stories in Berehynya reflect frank realities of the war’s effects. One narrator, Arina, notes, “It’s easy to give advice, move on, or distract yourself when you’re not in an active war zone. But when you’re sitting under the shooting, it’s completely different.” The narratives also reflect hope for the future. High schooler Nazar says in his oral history, “I hope all the conflicts in the world don’t turn into a world war… I really hope all of these conflicts end and there are no more wars. I just want peace. That’s all.”
Leah hopes her collection will raise awareness and inspire action, stating:
“In oral history, all stories have value, even those documented by people who are only seniors in high school… I hope this collection teaches you about perseverance, family, and finding joy in times of hardship. I hope you are reminded to read each statistic with empathy, to value every story you hear, and to ask others about their experiences.”
She is submitting Berehynya to the Youth in Action for Human Rights Awards. She also encourages readers inspired by the collection to donate to Caritas Ukraine, Help Ukraine Center, or Voices of Children. “To forget is a privilege,” Leah writes, and her oral history project reminds us that remembering is our collective responsibility.
