The woman portrayed in this photograph is called Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova. She died in a Mariupol basement at ninety-one. She was weakened, dehydrated, after having suffered from an unbearable cold for weeks, the lack of water, the bombings. Victim – it was written to remind her – of the twenty-first century war that engulfed the city where Vanda was born on December 8, 1930. In October 1941 – she was almost eleven – the Nazis who entered Mariupol looked for the Jews house by house. Vanda’s mother was taken away, she managed to save herself by hiding in a cellar: as she was forced to do again at the end of her life. But this time Vanda was not saved. “Mom loved Mariupol,” her daughter told her.
He never wanted to leave. And she didn’t deserve to die like that.