Every so many hours, a train packed with children and their pets, mothers and elderly couples pulls into Berlin’s central station. From Prague, from Krakow, from Warsaw. Often those trains are delayed for hours, and the journey of half a day has taken much longer. Half of the passengers had to stand in the aisles or on the balconies. When a train arrives, the announcement is made in Ukrainian where passengers can report. On the crowded platforms, volunteers in yellow vests direct the Ukrainians down the escalators to the central reception hall, a space below the station.
There are long wooden tables. Families and very old women take sausage sandwiches from crates, greased by other volunteers. There are long lines for dispensing points for diapers, sanitary towels and baby food, as well as long lines for makeshift Deutsche Bahn counters where travel information is given and blank train tickets are stamped. Also in many trains westbound from Berlin it is difficult to get a seat these days.
An estimated 10,000 Ukrainians arrive in Berlin every day, 1,500 of whom have to be accommodated by the city every day. This takes place in gymnasiums and congress halls, in the buildings of the old Tegel Airport. Some continue on, or are transported on by buses in front of the station to reception centers in other federal states.
A large proportion find shelter with Berliners who offer their home or at least their bank. Initially this went through hosts or hostesses with cardboard signs on the platform, now there are various online platforms and groups on Telegram. A couple says on Telegram that they already have a woman with her 12-year-old son in the house, but that they still have room in the same room for someone who does not object to sleeping on a mattress. A young woman offers a sofa in the sitting room – for up to a week for one or two women with children.
accommodation address
In front of a cafe a few blocks from the central station, Nastya and Ksjosja Galushko – twin sisters from Chernivtsi, 27 years old – roll cigarettes. They arrived by train from Warsaw that morning, killing time until they can go to their lodgings in the evening. They found the address in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin via Telegram; the hostess is at work until seven o’clock. The sisters will stay there for one night, then they will travel on to an address in Leipzig, which was also offered on Telegram; in Leipzig, a host family offers one month’s stay.
“Time is not for us”, says Nastja when asked about their route. They have lost all sense of time. A few days after the war started, they left, each with a backpack and a sports bag, first to Romania, then to Warsaw, now in Berlin, tomorrow to Leizpig. Both sisters are visual artists. While waiting for her coffee, Kyusja paints her lips red in the reflection of the cafe window. Nastja, with a pale pink pixie haircut, calls her boyfriend in Odessa.
A woman in blue Adidas pants and cowboy boots puts down her phone and starts a conversation with the women: did your family stay behind? Are you worried about your mother? Does your friend have to fight too? The Ukrainian women start to cry, the German presses Nastja against her. Moments later, the woman returns with an envelope of ‘pocket money’ for each and a bar of chocolate.
“What time do church services start in Berlin?” Nastja asks later. Perhaps going to a church will do her good, she says. Every day in different churches in Berlin ‘Friedensgebete’ organized.
Volunteers
Later that day, after work, a group of people gather in the Sophienkirche in central Berlin for such a ‘Friedensgebet’† A psalm is sung, the lyrics of the song are on the paper in many languages. The pastor tells of the shelter that is organized a little further by the municipality and that volunteers are needed to cook in the evenings.
One by one, the churchgoers walk forward, light a candle, the German congregation members say aloud their prayers and their wishes for peace. Also a Ukrainian boy walks forward and lights a candle – he says his prayer in silence.
“The war is meaningless,” Nastja had said. “We live in the 21st century, there is progress. Now the Ukrainian people are one, before that I never thought of ‘our people’.”
Sometimes the sisters read their English from their phone, from a translation app. Ksjoesja: “Berlin is beautiful. But not now.” Nastja: „I keep thinking: in a month it will be better, in a month we can go home. We have to keep believing.”
Also read this report by Eastern Europe correspondent Emilie van Outeren about reception at the Polish border