Odarka Altaravnekh awoke to the smell of smoke and someone knocking on the door around 3 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 7.

Their apartment building on Simms Street in St. John's was burning, and there was no time to gather important items.

Altaravnekh said she and her husband quickly rushed outside with their two kids.

“It's like you wake up but you think it's a dream. It's not really realistic,” said Altaravnekh reflecting on that night, three weeks after.

The family didn’t realize at the time they wouldn’t have a chance to go back inside to gather documents, which for Altaravnekh, a refugee from Ukraine, are items that the Association for New Canadians helped her put together.

“We lost passports, work permit, … documents for school, everything, diplomas, everything. We lost it here,”

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