Bucharest.
Born on the run, learned to laugh again in a foreign country: stories of Ukrainian children and their mothers who receive a lot of help.
Larissa and Daniil, Yulia, Xenia, Aleks, Lilya or Kira, all these children. At home in Odessa, Cherson, Kharkiv, Mikolajiv, in all these cities in the Ukraine that the West often only got to know through the war. They fled from there, and many found refuge with their mothers just across the safe border: in the neighboring countries of Romania and Moldova. We tell their stories for the Christmas donation campaign of WAZ and Kindernothilfe.
Svetlana gave birth to twins while trying to escape
Svetlana from Kharkiv was pregnant when the Russians came. She waited a few more days, heard the bombs hitting her street – until the gynecologist told her she would have to have her children in the bunker. They fled in their old Dacia, Svetlana, her two older children, ten and twelve years old, the three-year-old and Andrei, her husband: he was allowed to come with them because fathers of at least three children are allowed to leave the Ukraine. You have never traveled and certainly not abroad.
They had just crossed the Romanian border when labor began. Four weeks too early, Svetlana says: because of the stress. Andrei stopped and asked a policeman: Where can one have children here? Svetlana was taken to the hospital with a siren and her family to the sickroom next door, Georgi and Leonid were born. The twins are now eight months old. Citizens of the border town brought gifts, and Svetlana is infinitely grateful.
Because she got so much help herself, even now in Bucharest, she and her husband left their house in Kharkiv to another family that was bombed out. All she took with her was a document folder and passports. “The Russians are destroying everything,” says the 35-year-old sadly, the hospital she chose to give birth no longer exists. But everything will end well, she’s sure of it. For the time being, Andrei has found a job as a car painter, the older children go to school. And Yuri, the ten-year-old, plays soccer, he’s the striker in the Romanian team. The people of Bucharest, says Svetlana, “have a big heart”. It only hurts again and again when she calls home. “The children want to go home.”
Nika doesn’t want to go back home
Nika She didn’t want to leave Odessa, she was sure “everything would be fine with us”. She held out for eight months, but the 33-year-old says the bombs kept getting louder, the economic situation worsened, and the future for her children became increasingly difficult. Her children: Sascha, the ten-year-old who didn’t want to go to the playground anymore because all his friends were gone. Yulia and Xenia, the two-year-olds, who haven’t spoken for a long time, not a word. The tension, the noise, the sirens, Nika suspects, while trying not to let the children feel her worries.
They didn’t want to leave their house, neither did their parents, but now that they’re away from Ukraine, no place in the world can be far enough away for them. Nika and her husband Ivan, 35, don’t think they will ever return home. “We’re starting from scratch,” says Nika, and they’ll be fine. Nika is good at baking, Ivan “can do everything”. For the time being, the five were stranded in Bucharest, Romania. In the shelter of Kindernothilfe’s partner Concordia, they put two mattresses together to sleep. The children play with hand puppets, and even the taciturn Sascha is doing well, after a school year with Corona, half a year with war and now no school at all: “As long as the family is around him.”
There is always a hustle and bustle in the house, but Nika finds this second stopover after the refugee camp “relaxing”. In Bucharest, she says, planes in the sky are normal. In Odessa they brought the war.
Natalia’s car with the daughters in it was shot at while trying to escape
Natalia I hadn’t reckoned with the war, and when it came she stayed for two more months in a cellar. She says she hadn’t really thought about it: her parents are also in Cherson, her husband is fighting at the front, you don’t leave then, do you? There was no food, no more medicine to buy and it took weeks to get bread again, but then this bomb attack came, very close. “Something had to happen.” Natalia, 35, panicked and took “our last chance”: a corridor outside, they had fifteen minutes. She threw socks, underwear, sports clothes in a bag and a couple of sandwiches for the two daughters – the Russians took them away from her at the first check.
It was still cold in April, the escape route wasn’t safe, Natalia knew that. But it got even worse: near Mikolayiv, her car was shot at with Sofia, 6, and Aleksandra, 10, in it. They pushed it to a garage and they changed the tires. Only in Odessa there were also new discs. It took a week for the three to reach the Romanian border. “What do you have against the Russians?” Natalia was asked, she doesn’t remember what she answered.
Natalia, the baker, Sofia and Aleksandra are now in Bucharest, they have found a tiny apartment: with a bed, table, fridge and iron. Today the helpers from Kindernothilfe’s partner Concordia bring a voucher that they can exchange for something to eat. And two backpacks for the girls: with notebooks, pens, coloring books, ink cartridges. Little Sofia spreads everything out on the bed and sits in the middle, “how much is that, billions”?
Natalia rejoices with her, but she thinks a lot about her parents. Sometimes she has no contact for days, “there is no one there to help you”. She can’t do it herself either, from Romania. “If you see her every day, you underestimate her. Now we understand what is valuable in life.” The children also miss grandma and grandpa. And the dad. And the cat: her name is Christmas tree.
>>HOW YOU CAN HELP
Until Christmas, the readers of the WAZ already unbelievable 450,000 euros given to their newspaper and Kindernothilfe for this year’s fundraising campaign. Thank you very much!
Many refugees from Ukraine have come to Germany in the past few months, but many more have reached the Republic of Moldova and Romania: over the next safe frontier. Aid organizations, which otherwise take care of young people on the fringes of society, immediately got involved there: They provide accommodation, food, clothing, but now also care and education for the children. A few days after the start of the war, Kindernothilfe also established contacts in Kharkiv in the Ukraine. Through her partners she has has since reached 20,000 children.
Here you, dear readers, can continue to help, the small families often lack the essentials, only they have much homesickness and sorrow. The bank details of WAZ Christmas fundraiser 2022 is the same as in previous years:
Kindernothilfe eV
Key word: Ukraine aid
IBAN: DE4335 0601 9000 0031 0310
BIC: GENODED1DKD (Bank for Church and Diaconia)
More articles from this category can be found here: Rhine and Ruhr
