She repeated it to all those who immortalized her: “I never imagined that I would experience such a thing in my entire life.“Olena Kurilo, 52, a resident of Chuguev, in the suburbs of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, was seen everywhere, especially her face, bloody, streaked by shrapnel from an explosion, her blond hair squeezed in a makeshift bandage, under which peeps a clear, blue, striking gaze.A photo that all the newspapers in the world have published, and which has been shown on all the TVs, embodying the suddenness, the violent materiality of war.
A photo of Ukrainian teacher Olena Kurilo bloodied and bandaged after surviving a Russian missile strike, captured by @anadoluagency photo-journalist Wolfgang Schwan, became a symbol in the world media of the attack on her country. pic.twitter.com/0iS5FQxur9
— Serdar Karagöz (@serdarkaragoz) February 25, 2022
On Thursday April 24, a missile destroyed her house while she was inside, in a residential area of the city. Like others, she was blown away by the explosion, and, as reported the Timesto journalists who arrived a few minutes later, Olena Kurilo first said her joy to be alive: “C‘is incredible, I really must have a guardian angel, I was very lucky to have survived (…) when I opened my eyes, I just said to myself ‘Lord, I am not ready to die’.”
They ask her what she’s going to do, if she’s going to leave, but she calmly replies that “no”that she was born here, that she lives here, that Ukraine is her country and that she wants to resist”as much as possible to Putin’s invasion, I will pick myself up, and I will continue, I will do everything for my land, as long as I can, as long as I have the energy to do it.“
Bloodied Ukrainian whose image became symbol of war seen in pictures from life before Putin’s invasion https://t.co/gLDGHysvK1
—Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) February 25, 2022
And then, the days passed, his testimony grew. And she found herself overwhelmed, seeing her bloodied image absolutely everywhere. So to the umpteenth reporters who came to see her, she showed something else: photos of her before the war, of her life as a mother, as a teacher in primary school, in her garden surrounded by her flowers, of her in the among roses, daisies, bunches of grapes, in the light of fine weather. A dozen photos telling of a peaceful daily life where nothing foreshadowed a war. Olena Kurilo wants us to see this to regain her dignity, but also to show how much “this war makes no sense”to say that we need a ceasefire, and ultimately to win over this image, that of peace and sunny days.