Over 33,000 works of art and historical artifacts had been stolen from local museums in the fall of 2022, just before the city was liberated from Russian occupation by the Ukrainian military.I went to Kherson thinking that I had already seen so much horror, human tragedy, and pain during two years of the full-scale invasion that I could hardly be affected by the sight of looted museum halls. But when I entered the local history museum, for a few minutes, everything inside me went numb.The large exhibition halls were completely empty, and the display cases that once housed artifacts from the Scythians, Goths, Romans, and Greeks were shattered. The museum director led me to a hall that had been especially significant to the staff and guests.