Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka, ČTK/AP
A picture can paint a thousand words. This is certainly the case with the photograph of a pregnant woman being carried out on a stretcher by five paramedics from a Mariupol hospital, where a Russian bomb had just landed on March 9th 2022. This picture by Ukrainian photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka has become a symbol of the Russian war in Ukraine. It made such an impact on Czech writer Kateřina Tučková that, when a few days after the bombing, Czech Radio asked her for a short story about the war, she was in no doubt as to what the topic would be. She filled in with words the gaps left by the photo and thus tried to save the nameless war victims from disappearing into the annals of history. You can hear her short story Epitaph read by Czech actress Petra Bučková.
Listen to the story here.