When the war started in Ukraine, I asked my friends what we can do. From “no answer” to “I’m making my entire house available”, everything was included. We didn’t realize at the time that the support wouldn’t stop once the people were here.
Around 5,000 unaccompanied children and young people were taken in in North Rhine-Westphalia alone last year after fleeing from the Ukraine and Syria. It is unimaginable what parents and children must have gone through, are still going through, to take such a measure: sending their adolescent children off on their own. In an unclear situation, just hoping that everything is better than staying at home. What dangers the children face – cannot be imagined.
In our case – namely in the case that girlfriends had a whole house or an empty apartment at this point in time – all the children came together with their mothers, small children and adolescents. They came quite quickly after the start of the war and they were referred to me much more quickly. In this case by the organization “BeAnAngel”, to Berlin. We prepared the empty house that was actually for sale for several women with children, furnished it with donated things and donated money.
The willingness to help was overwhelming: We raised a lot of money, but also things that we needed. Side note: Unfortunately, things also came that we didn’t need and that were otherwise useless. Of course, I disposed of them right away, as the noble donors should have done, because we didn’t want to set up a garbage dump, but a cozy house for refugees. I knew from the start that this action would take a lot of empathy and patience. But also humor – and so I rather laughed at the old men’s underpants that were sent to me and the various e-waste than to get angry, forget it.
We then picked up the women at various meeting points, some came directly to our house. We were very excited. Certainly not as excited as the women who came, but we knew something was coming, something we don’t know is going to take us all. We just wanted to help. Our neighbors who were in a terrible situation. It should be uncomplicated. There was room for five to seven women and just as many children in the house, then there were the other apartments and rooms that were temporarily made available. Some of the women who came to us had already met while fleeing or had even started out as friends.
It quickly became clear that all women could do something, had something anyway, because it was courageous to leave home and leave everything behind. They came with carry-on suitcases and a handbag. Hamsters and belongings had to stay at home. I stood in my living room that evening and thought about what I would pack in my trolley. I consoled myself with the thought that we would escape in at least one car and could have a little more with us. Still, the idea of ??someone bombing my home, of others entering my apartment with hostile intent and ripping it apart, taking what suits them, looting everything you hold dear and destroying the rest, shook me as a person, things likes and appreciates.
We set house rules for our new friends – no alcohol, no cigarettes inside, no men – that should make it easier to get along, we thought, and from then on each of us was entrusted with different tasks. Mine was the caretaker’s.
We all became very close to the women and children, and we didn’t realize that at first. Their fates touched us more than we thought, their future was burning under our nails. They should learn German as quickly as possible, feel welcome, live their lives as best they can. We did things together a few times, went out for pizza, romped with the kids and encouraged them to join forces with others in the same situation. We didn’t know how long it would all take or how to deal with it.
At some point it was then – also for us helpers – to get down to business. We were exhausted, but we also knew that we will continue to help. The worst: the offices. Money, registrations, school, job center, German courses – a jungle of paragraphs and paper. It is clear that the employees in the offices and authorities are not to blame for the misery – most of them helped and are actively helping where they can.
We split up according to ability, and fortunately among my friends there are some lawyers, doctors, legal experts, patient ones, former teachers, sorters, have too much and generally well-meaning people who participated in many places. But over the course of the year, whenever I held out my hand to raise funds, there were also a few who let you know that it was good for now. “With what?” I asked and the answer here and there was a slightly annoyed look, which should say: Now they should see for themselves how they get along. Cultural differences, traumata, fear of loss, things that have already been lost, dead relatives and friends – that simply shouldn’t matter anymore, because Germany also wanted to go on vacation again.
Understandable, after Corona we weren’t exactly spoiled either. But at a distance – let’s say Berlin – Nice is just as far or near as Berlin – Kyiv – a war is raging, a massacre, an antediluvian behavior, triggered by a man with a fart in his brain, with fantasies of power and a sense of entitlement that erupts the unshakable will and perseverance of a people cracked – still cracks – that no one had thought possible.
Summer came, summer went, the children had to go to school or kindergarten, the places that were found in a district were by no means guaranteed apartments if our refugees were to move. The transfer from one job center to another was a ride on a razor blade, money stopped flowing at first, persistence was the order of the day. We finally found apartments for the women, we found schools, everything in our huge network and everything like in the bazaar, only without baksheesh: “Do you have a place for me at school if I can offer you a room in a shared apartment?” “Do you know a holiday camp that takes another child, I have one bike too many.” Without this network, without the contacts and above all without our constant helping each other, none of this would have been possible. The women would have ended up in shelters like so many others who now have to wonder what their future holds. Without my old friends, our new friends would have gotten lost in the jungle of authorities – because what’s going on there, you can hardly understand, even as a native.
My friends, they eventually became Danielitschka, Birginsky, or “Angel” like Engel, helped rescue some women with their children from the Ukraine. I am very grateful to them. As did my colleagues who gave generously and also those who “only” donated money. The rescued, refugee women are also very grateful, we are always given food and homemade things.
My friends wouldn’t want me to praise them to the bone, they found and still find it normal to help others. But it is not. And in view of the reports in which little boys become pashas, ??and the majority of the “blame” lies with them or their parents, but in no case with “us”, our system and our politics, I had to briefly share this good news summarize, because one thing is clear: we are not alone, there are many good people who lend a hand when they see that something is unfair or needs to be changed. You have to keep at it.
Incidentally, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst does not see integration problems in Germany as limited to people with a migration background. He believes that the phenomenon of children’s disrespect for teachers is not limited to just one group of people. Of course there are integration tasks, and the fact that children in elementary school are not able to understand German also has something to do with the fact that they were not given enough support beforehand. There is absolutely no point in saying that children have “this or that background”. “These are our children,” emphasizes Wüst. “These children are our future, we don’t have any other.”
I wish you a peaceful weekend. If you want to continue to help, please support the organizations “Be An Angel e.V.” and “
