Natalia Solonytska fled from Ukraine when the war started there and had hoped that she would be back home long ago. Instead, she still lives in the shelter in Tilburg. In tears she says: “Everyone thought it would only be for two months, but it goes on and on.” To fill her days, she now works as a volunteer in the second-hand clothing store in the shelter.
We meet Natalia and her one-year-old daughter Bohdana in the clothing store: “I always have to do something. Otherwise I sit still and think. This helps me against depression.”
“Alarms sounded everywhere, I was afraid for the future of my children.”
Natalia is from Khmelnytsky, in western Ukraine. When the first bombs fell in her city, she immediately decided to flee: “The alarm sounded everywhere. I have two small children, aged eight and one. And I was afraid for their future, so I decided to move to a safer place.”
Natalia fled with her sister and their children via Poland to the Netherlands. Her husband stayed behind, but was later able to flee to the Netherlands as well.
For Natalia it is certain that she wants to go back to Ukraine: “I can’t think much about it. Maybe tomorrow will be peace. Many people want to stay here because everything is broken there, but I want to go back anyway.”
“Ukrainian refugees don’t talk about their feelings.”
When Natalia fills up, Wendy van Bussel puts an arm around her shoulder comfortingly. She is the coordinator of all six reception locations in Tilburg for the municipality of Tilburg. A total of 650 Ukrainians are now being sheltered there. In addition, 440 Ukrainian refugees live with private individuals in Tilburg.
That Natalia shows her emotions is quite unique, says Van Bussel: “Ukrainian refugees don’t just talk about feelings. They keep everything inside. We are concerned about that, because what they have been through is traumatic and that needs to be processed.”
“I looked around and thought: I will never see my loved ones again.”
Anastasia Ostapchuk fled to the Netherlands with her daughter via Germany. “I fled in the first twenty minutes of the war,” she says. She comes from Lutsk, also a city in the west of the country. “A bomb fell five hundred meters from my window. All the glass broke. I grabbed my passport, some money, warm clothes and drove to the border.”
Anastasia about her departure: “I looked around and thought: I will never see this flat again. I will never see my loved ones again.”
Big question for the Ukrainian refugees: do you want to go back or stay here? “What we see is that the vast majority, about sixty percent, still want to stay in the Netherlands,” notes Van Bussel. “Now that the war is getting longer, they are building a future in our country. Do you want to go back to a country where everything has been bombed? Where you have to rebuild everything?”