Repentance overwhelms her a year after the deadly Hamas attack. The young woman from Ukraine, Vlada Potapov, managed to survive after the tragedy, only regretting one thing.
The young woman reveals that she would have liked to save more people that day and that the wound in her soul still hasn’t healed.
Vlada became known as the “woman in red” after the camera captured her running in panic that day when Hamas gunmen stormed the Nova music festival, slaughtering more than 360 people. About 40 of the attendees were taken hostage.
No one knew what had become of the young woman starring in the video: Vlada was then wearing a red shawl over her shoulders and running in panic across the desert to save herself from Hamas terrorists. Weeks later, many were left wondering whether she was alive or dead until a Daily Mail reporter spotted her. To him she revealed the horrors of her life.
After a year, the Ukrainian mother spoke about the events that changed her life forever and still haunt her to this day.
Back home, the wedding planner spoke about the nightmare experience she had on October 7, 2023, and the guilt she still has because she wishes she had saved more people: “If I had one wish, it would have been to tell everyone at the festival an hour before Hamas attacked that something was happening. Then everyone could have gotten away.”
“I survived, but others were not so lucky. I think about that. It weighs on my mind. I’m still shocked by what happened, even though a year has passed. I have been to a therapist like many of the others who were there and I find that talking to people helps me deal with what happened that day.
“But sometimes I think who could help me when all this is still happening around us and the fear is here, real.” Vlada, 26, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTDS) and feels guilty that she is alive while others are not.
She explains that while the music festival was in progress, armed terrorists landed in the area with paragliders to join armed men on motorcycles and trucks in a very carefully planned assassination mission.
Today, Vlada revealed that all she could think about at that moment when terror was overwhelming her was staying alive for the sake of her three-year-old daughter.
“When I remember that day a year ago, everything seems so vivid to me. the only thing I could think of at that moment was staying alive for my daughter Romi and I say a big thank you for that every day. In a few days, Romy will be four years old, which means that a quarter of her life is just experiencing war.”
“It’s terrible for us, but many countries don’t seem to accept or understand what we live here,” the young Ukrainian woman argued.
Vlada decided to go to the Nova festival at the last minute with her beloved Matan and a friend, Mai. Suddenly she lost sight of her partner and saw her friends be killed in cold blood as armed terrorists began firing indiscriminately. It was nearly 24 hours before she was able to hold her then three-year-old Romy in her arms on her return home.
She admitted she has grown very close to those who helped save her, but wants to mark the anniversary quietly at home with her family.
“We cannot let the terrorists win. We cannot be weak we must remain strong for Israel and for the hostages still in Gaza. But at the same time, it is so frightening here right now for us to be receiving rockets from Gaza, rockets from Lebanon, and now rockets from Iran… It seems like this war never stops.”
Speaking about her daily life, Vlada, who resides in the coastal city of Ashdod south of Tel Aviv, adds: “And then there are terrorist attacks, one after another, the latest one happened last week. You don’t feel safe leaving your home, but as I said, you have to be strong, you can’t let the terrorists win… These people who are attacking Israel should imagine what it is like for us here to hear the sirens and live in fear of a terrorist attack. For example, I could leave the house to go to the shops and someone could attack me. But it’s the hostages that I still feel sad for and especially their families as well.”
“Who would have thought we would still be in this situation a year later?” he asks.
“I thought it would be a few weeks, maybe even a few months, but it’s been a year now and it seems that with the situation in Lebanon, things are going to get worse.”
It should be noted that, in the October 7, 2023 attacks, 1,200 people were killed in cold blood by Hamas gunfire.
Of the 251 captured by the Palestinian Sunni organization – some of whom were already dead and whose bodies were used as bargaining chips – some 120 people remain hostages still in Gaza. It is believed that 41 hostages are believed to have been killed by Hamas terrorists.
Vlada also revealed that she has kept in touch with other young people who attended the festival saying: “I still talk to friends who were there and the people who saved me, we are in a WhatsApp group, and none of us can believe that we were there at this tragic event… Events are being held to mark the sad anniversary but I won’t be going because the most important thing for me is to be with my daughter Rommie and my partner Matan.”
“When my daughter Romi hears the sirens she is so scared she starts crying. On this anniversary I don’t like to let her go to preschool, so I’m going to stay home, just because you don’t know if the terrorists will strike again.”
Vlada’s presence on social media highlights her desire to return to as normal a life as possible. Her most recent post a few days ago shows her four-year-old daughter smiling and playing during a night out to the sounds of singer Cindy Loper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”.
Other images show Vlada enjoying sunbathing on the beach with her beau Matan by her side.
Last December, Vlada first described the painful moments of her assault for the first time. At some points, the young Ukrainian broke down in tears describing what she experienced: “I have not really talked about what happened to anyone, it is still very painful for me, I shared with my family the horror of that day and I still thank God every morning that I am still alive.”
After Vlada arrived with Matan and Mai at the festival site – a few miles from Gaza – they spent the evening talking, a chance to unwind from a busy business week. “The strange thing is that I didn’t want to go to the festival. It was just something I decided at the last minute. Matan got some tickets and we went with a friend, but I felt something was wrong when we left on Friday afternoon.
“My daughter Romi was so quiet, even though she usually makes noise with her toys, however on that day she was calm and I’m sure she felt something terrible was about to happen.”
“I remember the atmosphere was very strange, people were having fun and dancing, but for me there was no energy and I wasn’t dancing as much as I usually do when I go to these festivals. I thought at the time that it was strange to hold a music festival so close to the Gaza border and have rocket missiles being fired now and then, but I thought the organizers thought it was safe or they wouldn’t have done it.”
At 3 a.m., Vlada lay down on a rug to sleep but woke up at 6:30 a.m. when an air raid alert app rang on her phone.
“I looked for Matan and Mai and heard gunshots. They were loud and very close to us. For a few seconds I didn’t know what was happening and then Matan just screamed saying we should run to the car. “The missiles started coming towards us and in the area, the civilians were running in panic, then we realized we had to evacuate the area immediately… people just started running towards their cars.
“I think at first people thought it was just one of those ordinary rocket attacks from Gaza, and a little later when we looked at our phones, we realized it was an invasion and that the Hamas terrorists wanted to kill us,” the 26-year-old recalls sadly a year after the massacre.
