"I am 100% Jewish, grown up in Russian culture. I have always kept this distance which explicitly took shape im 2014. Still, for me this war is a personal catastrophe. There is no way I could imagine this was ever possible and there is a distinct feeling of inner reality breaking apart.

 

Do I feel resposible? Rather helpless. In 2011 we still thought, that, probably, it would somehow change to the better. But when did it start? When was the point of no return?

 

In 2014 I realized I could not live there any longer. My form of protest was to leave. I left because I didn’t want to be responsible for that and yet, paradoxically, I am held responsible now - for having left.

 

I am helping at the main train station in Berlin. On the first day I spent there 12 hours, it reminded of tetris game, when the new figures were just falling and falling before the “game over” sign appears. Mine was a positive COVID test so I had to stop for some time.

 

I was putting my daughter to sleep the other night thinking, thanks God she is safe. But on the other hand, there is this feeling that anything can happen any time, to any of us".