Inna Ivasyk (31) is cradling her nine-month-old son Alexander. Daughter Alina (4) clings to father Oleski (36). Daughter Kristina (10) hangs on the railing of the stairs, barefoot. Uncle Andrii (43) watches the scene in the garden house with a smile. Borscht, beetroot soup from Ukraine, is on the fire.
The family fled Vinnytsia, a city in central Ukraine that was hit by Russian rocket attacks two months later, due to the threat of war. Dozens of Ukrainians, including children, were killed. Alina was not even one year old when she left her native country. Alexander is named after a friend who went missing at the front a few weeks before his birth.
At first the family was in Ridderkerk, huddled in a room of a contractor for which the two brothers did odd jobs. After three months, a place became available in the extraction village of Dongense Vaart, in a municipal shelter. For example, the old Jonghensschool Petrus Canisius, as is still written in curly letters on the front door, and the associated garden house were still registered at that time.
At Christmas there are three long tables full of stew and stew in the old school hall VarenykyUkrainian dumplings with potatoes and cheese. The adjacent room, previously a huge gymnasium, is filled with ten Ukrainians living in it. Leon Bronckers and Deborah van der Meere, the couple who guide the refugees, sleep in the old master’s house.
Bronckers, a psychologist who graduated, teaches at a university of applied sciences. “First the people, then the rules,” says his WhatsApp biography. Van der Meere, daughter of a professional soldier, was an education manager. She enjoyed the reception of Ukrainian refugees so much that she applied for a job at COA. There she was hired as location manager of the asylum seekers’ center in Rijen, the Netherlands.
Oleski Ivasyk (father) and Kristina Ivasyk (eldest daughter).
Photo Merlin Daleman
Municipal inspections
Although the Ukrainians are happy with the couple, the municipality ended the cooperation last year. They had to move to one central municipality. They refused. Since then, Bronckers and Van der Meere’s location has been a private shelter, which means that they no longer receive compensation from the municipality.
This year the couple filed a lawsuit against the municipality. This was about the penalty that Dongen imposed on them because the occupation of the garden house by the Ivasyk family is in conflict with the zoning plan. The judge ruled that the penalty would be annulled because the municipality had not taken sufficient account of the situation of the refugees and that they were allowed to stay until the war ended.
Yet the municipality unexpectedly knocked on the couple’s door again last month. She wants to check again whether the gym meets architectural regulations. On Friday, Dongen announced that Ukrainians in two other municipal reception locations will move to the central reception location in January and February.
The refugees indicated that they did not want to move. Nevertheless, the Ukrainians, including the Ivasyk family, received a letter from the municipality of Dongen stating that they would move within two weeks.
Municipalities should limit the number of forced relocations of Ukrainian refugees, because it causes uncertainty and stress. That message Reinier van Zutphen, the National Ombudsman, and Margrite Kalverboer, the Ombudsman for Children, issued a report last week based on an increasing number of complaints about relocations and problems in the reception of Ukrainians. If nothing happens, “humane shelter” will come to an end more than 130,000 Ukrainians registered with municipalities in the Netherlands “will be under further pressure”, they write. They are not familiar with the reception locations in Dongen, they say when asked.
The Ukrainians who live with the couple have also been in uncertainty for a long time about a possible move, even though the municipality was initially very happy with the shelter at the old school. Dongen himself knocked on Bronckers and Van der Meere’s door after the war broke out in Ukraine. The couple already had a permit for shelter for youth in crisis. In addition, a contract was added for the reception of Ukrainian refugees, only in the old school. Nevertheless, at the couple’s request, the municipality installed the sewerage for the garden house.
In November 2022, the couple was checked for the first time by a municipal supervisor. He came for the dormer windows on the garden house, even though they were exempt from a permit. In the years that followed, a fire inspection, security audit (including the couple’s private quarters) and numerous adjustments to the accommodations followed.
The Ivasyk family.
Photo Merlin Daleman
Alina Ivasyk, Nastia Haidavova and an unknown person.
Photo Merlin Daleman
Letter in Russian
In April last year, Bronckers asked in an app, shared with NRCto the new project leader of the municipality of Dongen for the reception of Ukrainians if she wanted to meet him. She replied that she wanted to talk about the security check. When the couple mentioned her name at the reception at the town hall, they heard: Oh, you’re coming for the final interview?
Dongen stopped providing daycare to the couple, it turned out. The municipality wants to centralize the reception of Ukrainians as much as possible at two large locations in Dongen, where they share a room with one or two people. Then, the reasoning goes, they are all guided in the same way.
The space, privacy and guidance at the old school are invaluable, say the couple and the Ukrainians themselves. The children have friends in the street, go to dog training and celebrate the Sinterklaas festival in the village hall.
When I go to another house, I don’t feel well
In the official termination of their contract, then acting mayor Marnix Bakermans concluded with a “token of appreciation” by offering a “contribution” of 400 euros for a farewell. Van der Meere can still laugh about it. “A shawarma sandwich and coke should be fine.”
The refugees indicated that they did not want to move. Nevertheless, the Ukrainians, including the Ivasyk family, received a letter from the municipality of Dongen stating that they would move within two weeks. Their rooms were already prepared, according to the letter, which was seen by NRC. That caused “great stress,” says mother Inna, who did not like being in one room with her family or having to split up. “We were angry,” says Father Oleski, even more so because the letter was written in Russian.
‘Desperation and confusion’
Kristina (10), hanging from the stairs, tells in fluent Dutch what the thought of moving affected her. “If I go to another house, I don’t feel well.” For Kristina, home is where family is — and that’s how she sees the administrators in Dongen. “Leon and Deborah are like grandparents to me,” she says, while sister Alina runs up and down between the couple. They don’t want to leave them, after having to leave their big brother and grandmother behind in Ukraine.
There was great relief when the judge annulled the cease and desist order on the occupation of the garden house by the Ivasyk family last August. The municipal council felt that the decision had been made “carelessly”, informed the council, but did not appeal because it “requires a lot of capacity and time”. With this, the board hoped that “there will be peace for all involved.”
“We thought we had peace,” says Van der Meere, who was surprised that the municipality knocked again last month. “You keep asking yourself: won’t something come up at some point that will bother us? It’s underneath the skin, but sometimes it surfaces. Then you think: damn, it’s doing something to me.” Bronckers: “Sometimes it feels like everything is starting over again.”
The couple spoke at council meetings, as did two Ukrainians from the shelter, to talk about what the uncertainty is doing to them. Last year, after the municipal council ordered them to move, council members asked to investigate what was possible. “The conversations with the managers and residents were very valuable but did not lead to any other insights,” the municipal council concluded.
After the judge’s ruling, council members last month asked for an apology from the mayor and aldermen. Jan Kennekens (DongenPlus), who recently played Sinterklaas at the shelter, criticized their “cold and distant attitude (..) which is at odds with the human need and involvement that characterizes this initiative.” Councilor Ankie de Hoon (CDA) responded: “If it has caused despair and confusion among these people (the Ukrainians, ed.), then as far as the council is concerned, that is certainly worth an apology.”
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