G.Thursday 24 February, 6 a.m. (7 a.m. in Ukraine): there is a message on my phone from my Ukrainian son, Vasily, written as he was leaving the house to go to work: «Hi I’ll tell you what’s going on here. We hear sirens and see fires in the distance, there are already queues to get bread and cigarettes, I didn’t believe it but the war has really begun ». I turn on the radio and from that moment on my life changes direction. How has changed in a much more tragic way that of millions of people in Ukraine and in the world. Shocked, literally, for two days I wasn’t even able to cook, I felt dizzy and scared for Vasily, that fear told many times by my father when he managed to escape from the prison camp in Germany during the war.
We welcomed Vasily in 2010 (he was 11 years old) with temporary foster care (4 months a year and many trips to Ukraine) through the association The children of the east. Vasily, now 23, has become part of us and our family, like many of the 200 children we brought to Italy, entrusted to about 150 families.
Escape from Ukraine: the work of “Children of the East”
This Association, of which I am a member of the steering committee, did not waste a minute of time: to network, it began to contact other Italian and international associations, including organizations in Romania and Poland, on the border with Ukraine, and not least the association Refugees Welcometo seek availability of families and housing for refugees. We had to and wanted to get as many people out of the country as possible and we had to organize quickly: buses that left loaded with medicines, clothes, blankets, snow shoes, groceries and then returned with Ukrainian family and friends, and other desperate Ukrainians; the setting up of a reception center in Poland for the basic needs of exhausted refugees after very long journeys, real escapes with minimal luggage and sometimes without even being able to greet their husbands and family members. In Poland there is a Ukrainian friend who has decided to give us a hand instead of coming directly to Italy: she follows the fugitives with her phone on their journey to the border, welcomes them and it is good for them to find a helping hand that speaks the same language. My days continued to be marked by calls or video calls with Vasily, often almost in the dark, due to the curfew, partly carried out near the basement where he took refuge for the bombs. The noise of the rattling glass and the distant artillery drove me mad with fear. I lived almost in symbiosis with him and I was getting sick. But that’s where – when you can’t do anything for your child but talk to him, you decide to get a move on and help someone else, like moms and runaway babies. I had to, I wanted, to feel useful. And the Children of the East Association needed me too.
Yulia’s cry for help from Mariupol
8th of March: I received a message on Viber, my number was circulated together with others on the site of “The children of the East”: «Hello my name is Yulia. I’m running away and I’m desperate. They told me you can help us. We have crossed the circles of hell and now we ask you to protect us. My 10 year old daughter and I traveled days and days from Mariupol to the border with Poland. We haven’t eaten bread for a week “. I activate immediately. I call Federica, the president of The Children of the East and the organization also welcomes Yulia and Liza. Yulia writes to me: «We had a very good time in your Center. My daughter finally no longer sleeps standing up but in silence and comfort. Everything is easier if you and all of you are with me – says Yulia – My daughter and I want to live a quiet life somewhere in the world, because in Ukraine we no longer have a place to go. Our city has been wiped off the face of the earth ». Yes Yulia I am with you and with you. I can’t help Vasily, subject to martial law, young people and men cannot leave the country. He didn’t do his military service but he can help in other ways. Kharkiv where he lives is under the bombs and he too decides to escape to a quieter and perhaps safer place, to the West, where he is now.
Escape from Ukraine: the story of Yulia and Liza
“All happy families are the same, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way»Writes Tolstoy in Anna Karenina. We have heard many of these stories in recent days but Yulia’s one particularly impresses me. I wait 10 days after her arrival to ask her the hardest questions. I feel that she now trusts her and with the help of the talented young Ukrainian Lili (who helps us from day one) I ask her to tell us her story. A normal, happy family, he is a technician in a steel mill, she is a saleswoman in a shop, a beautiful house in the center of Mariupol. They were doing well economically. Remember Yulia: on February 24th we hear the whistling of sirens, shootings under the house and bombs in the distance. We see people running away from the window. We took refuge in the bunker under the church but there was no room for everyone and so I left my daughter alone for three days with other mothers who had very young children.
Escape to Victory .. and Survival
Thursday 3 March. Yulia continues: «I’m on the street with my daughter and I see a line of cars full of mothers and children. There was also the priest. He sees me and yells at me to jump into the car. I can’t even say hello to my husband. My only purpose was to get my daughter to safety. Luckily I had put all the documents in the bag two days before because I had thought ‘if I die they know who I am’. We traveled four days to get to the west of Ukraine via country roads to avoid the bombs, we slept in churches, on the floor or on benches. And then two more days to reach the Polish border and at that moment I had your contact, Mariella, and I felt a little better. While we were traveling, a bomb went off nearby that shook the car and threw us into each other“. Yulia shows us the marks she still carries on her body.
Italy, finally a home
Friday 11 March. I found a comfortable home for Yulia and Liza and I go to Cascina Gobba in Milan to pick them up when the buses arrive. They are excited about our meeting but destroyed physically and in the soul. The greatest pain is that of having lost contact with her husband, the father who had enlisted as a volunteer to defend his city.. The girl’s eyes are wide open because the unknown scares her. Communication between us is difficult but I know at least 10 words of Russian and with these simple syllables from another world for us, the little girl relaxes a little.
The warm welcome in Castelletto Ticino (Novara)
Yulia and Liza finally safe in Italy
Thanks to the almost religious availability of the hosts, Pietro and Aurora and their three beautiful children, Yulia and Liza have a house of their own, located in the lower part of the house where the owners live. They normally rent it as bed and breakfast. Yulia and Liza are the first Ukrainians who arrived without family contacts in the country: in a flash we created a help network. At the moment of welcome – in addition to the owners who open the house and do their utmost to illustrate all the useful details – Lili comes to our rescue, a young and generous Ukrainian who makes them feel immediately at home (I had met her a few days earlier at a demonstration of the Municipality and I had asked her for a hand). Her friends Aurora and Romina let her find some shopping and games for Liza, and Tiziana and Antonella bring her the first clothes. Yulia and Liza had fled with only the clothes they were wearing.
I had brought two home Covid tests from home and unfortunately the mother is positive and also forces me to a few days of fiduciary isolation: shopping behind the door, limited conversations. But they also accept this test and do not lose heart, they are not alone, surrounded by so much solidarity and friendship. Only the noises of the planes coming from Malpensa frighten them night and day. Yulia tells me that the first Italian night is studded with nightmares: she no longer finds her child in the fleeing crowd and she sees her husband submerged in the mass graves of Mariupol.
Happiness is a walk and a pizza
Concluded the isolation from Covid (luckily Yulia was negativized in a few days) I took them on foot to the nearest shop (about 500 meters) and I showed them the shortcut to go home alone. They were happy, discovering a new world, out of danger and finally autonomous. The trip with Romina to buy the leggings and school apron for Liza.
The girl was immediately welcomed into school in the 5th grade and the same age and very awake Angelica, daughter of Romina, took her under her protection, Romina bought her the mandatory blue apron in class and a pair of leggings that the child wanted, to conform to her friends.
Last night, Saturday 19 March, they were invited to eat pizza in the house of Romina’s family and the photo of a gymnastic Liza gives the idea of the change that took place in the little girl in just ten days: children do not forget but they process the dramas experienced when they have a friend faster than we doa nice game and lots of pillows and fun.
The Mass and Yulia’s liberating tears
Today, Sunday 20 March, Yulia was accompanied by the catechist to Mass and there – between the atmosphere created by the prayers, the music and the songs, and the special welcome of the parishioners to her and Liza – for the first time Yulia burst into a long and liberating cry . And I with her, but later, and alone.
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