Introduction- Why I´m Writing

I write to you not as an institution, but as a person - someone who, like you, exists within the fragile and inescapable web of human plurality. At this moment, I am in Dnipro, Ukraine, on call for my next medical evacuation. I volunteered to serve here as a paramedic - an act that did not feel heroic, but simply necessary. My education and training allow me to offer care; my personal history binds me to this place.

When I was fourteen, I lived here in Dnipro with the Otriazha family and attended the local Waldorf school. It was a formative chapter in my life. I was met with generosity, warmth, and the ineffable kindness that often defines true hospitality. I learned Russian then - once the common tongue - and grew into myself in a country that embraced me.

The Transformation Of a City and People Through War

But today, the world has shifted. russian is now replaced by Ukrainian in daily life, a linguistic metamorphosis that mirrors the deeper scars etched into the lives of the people. I choose not to render judgment; I only observe. Each day I witness wounds that words cannot contain. A young man missing a leg. A mother without her son. A child who flinches at the sound of wind, mistaking it for incoming artillery. These are the visible injuries. The internal ones - grief, fear, longing - are no less devastating, only less easily measured.Life persists despite it all. Yet I am painfully aware of my privilege. I can leave. I will eventually escape the nights punctuated by the buzz of drones and the scream of missiles. I will return to a safe, warm bed in a quiet country. The people I’ve come to know here cannot. And so, my responsibility is not just to witness - but to remember, and to ensure that you, too, may see them through my eyes.

Reunion and Resistance Through Art

A few weeks ago, I reunited with Nadiia Otriazha - one of the daughters of my host family - after nearly fifteen years. She remains in Dnipro, living with her mother Galina and Fedir Bushmanov, her partner in life and art, in the same apartment where I once stayed. The rest of her family is scattered, displaced by war. Their absence is both sorrow and solace: they are missed, yet they are safe.

Memory, as Arendt suggests, exists outside the index of time. Forgetting relegates suffering to the past; remembering demands our present attention.

Nadiia is an artist, so is Fedir.  In a small studio in the heart of Dnipro - geographically and spiritually - they create sculptures that give form to absence. Their art is a quiet, radical act. They sculpt not only the injured bodies of war, but the strength and dignity that persist within them. Limbs may be missing, but their figures stand. They live. They endure. Their work speaks not only of what has been lost, but of what remains.

Their art is memory made tangible. It is rooted, as Arendt once wrote, in soil that has been washed away - but it reaches nonetheless toward meaning.

Call to Action

And so, I turn to you with a request that goes beyond charity. I seek solidarity. I seek participation in the act of remembrance and in the preservation of human dignity.

We are raising funds to provide prosthetics for wounded Ukrainian - those whose bodies have been irrevocably altered by this brutal war. Nadiia’s and Fedir´s sculptures are offered for sale, with proceeds directed toward this purpose. Each figure is a testament to resilience; each purchase is a gesture of care.

Support, in this case, is not symbolic. It is literal restoration: the return of mobility, of autonomy, of hope. We cannot undo the violence. But we can stand beside those who bear its weight.

If you can help -whether by acquiring a sculpture, donating to the cause, or simply sharing this story - know that you are not merely responding to suffering. You are affirming the shared human bond that makes such care possible.

With gratitude and unwavering hope,

Katharina Sauer