It’s gray, damp, and winter is coming. Although the streets are presently covered with hues of yellow, orange, and brown, we know exactly what is around the corner. In that context, I listened with great interest to this episode of The Daily yesterday. I would recommend everyone in North America to do the same. We in Europe know what we are collectively going through. We feel the prices bite in the shops and restaurants and on our electric bills. We see the refugee crisis amongst us (and not only from Ukraine). I wasn’t aware (but am now) of how much political incompetence and lack of EU-wide coordination contributed to the present energy price crisis, but it doesn’t surprise me. It has been a long time since great minds in Europe once chose political careers over the private sector. We are more often than not left with incompetence and bureaucracy that cannot see the forest through the trees as the norm. It is always someone else’s fault. No one could have seen the crisis coming. Etc.
So it definitely feels, to me at least, like we are heading into winter with our eyes blindfolded and our ears covered with noise-cancelling headphones. The signs are all there, yet we don’t react. We make no advance preparations. We barely cope with the situation we currently find ourselves in.
This was my day yesterday, for example (full thread here). It took me an extra two hours and €30 I didn’t have budgeted for to help this elderly couple from Zaporozhye get on the train they needed to catch to Poland, but I did it. But I am one, volunteers are few and far between, and they are tens of thousands. Without infrastructure in place, imagine how many Ukrainians may arrive come winter, or if Ukraine loses power across large territories for an extended period of time. And I should also point out that while I was running around the train station, I saw dozens of men from other countries, refugees who clearly just arrived, and are most likely passing through Austria, also mulling about. This is our reality right here, right now. You can remove the on-site charity and the free water and snacks and diapers. You can say as of November the Ukrainians must buy transportation tickets like the rest of us. You can do all of that but it does not make the problem go away. Desperate people will still keep coming. Like the woman whose birthday was yesterday who was prepared to spend her last Euros on a taxi because the NGO on duty doesn’t have a budget for taxis for refugees in wheelchairs. Never mind how she expected to carry three heavy bags and push her husband in a wheelchair at the same time. Impossible. And yet…
As I was heading home from the train station, I received a phone call. A follow up to an email I had sent at the end of last week. We went through issue by issue, very polite, very understanding, very sympathetic, very respectful, but there are always two sides to a single coin, and their perspective is their perspective, the Ukrainians have their own perspective, the fault, naturally, lies with the federal states who don’t provide housing (the fault always lies with someone else, this is rule number one). Or, as I suggested, with the Austrian federal government that does not provide any additional financial support to provide housing, cash payments, and all the other resources those fleeing the war in Ukraine may need while seeking temporary protection (yes, that is what it is called, legally) in Austria. I said it in March, nothing ever happened, and it still remains true. Money money money. There cannot be a proper response to this humanitarian crisis amongst us when no new taxpayer money is put on the table.
I gave a forty minute long phone interview yesterday on this topic and it is exhausting. Because yes, it is complicated. No, no one is really in charge. Yes, they all blame each other. No, things haven’t really gotten better. No, it doesn’t make any sense. Yes, it is very frustrating. What will happen next? Your guess is as good as mine.
They are debating tents for migrant men from other countries. Tents, going into winter! And literal neo-Nazis came out to protest alongside local residents, as one does in certain parts of Austria. This has already become standard practice, unfortunately, since the whole anti-vaxx movement. There are empty buildings across Austria that could be used to house refugees but are not used because…politics. Interior ministry in charge. God knows why. Because heartless people are often tasked with the response and those lawmakers with the power to do something to change this do not act.
The cost of living crisis is real and omnipresent. Social markets are struggling to keep food on their shelves. They are forced to raise prices. This article suggests a family of three could barely afford to feed itself on €50 per week. I have heard from Ukrainians in Vienna the shelves at these shops are often empty. Demand far outstrips supply. Even the Hofer cards we send — also only €50 in value — are just a tiny bandaid while in reality the patient needs surgery, but there is no surgeon and no hospital and no anaesthetic because no one wants to pay for it. Why are there no translators for refugees who need to see doctors, I ask? Well, because that would be the hospitals’ job. And naturally, the hospitals don’t want to pay for it.
It is always someone else’s job until it is no one’s job and nothing happens.
Everything is someone else’s job, someone else’s budget, someone else’s responsibility. Shrug of the shoulders. "Such a shame. Such a sad situation. So unfortunate none of us can really do anything about it.
As if the entire course of future history is already pre-determined, and the only things we can influence are those that happen every year, year after year. Now is time to celebrate neutrality, eat Gansl, bake Christmas cookies, in that order. Today I drove by tanks set up in central Vienna. Kids playing on top. A bungee jumping wall erected on a main square in front of the luxury Hyatt hotel, all camouflage-colored. Playing war to celebrate peace and independence is a very bizarre approach. I fail to understand it.
If you dare bring up a specific case, you name a specific individual, it can go both ways. The refugee might get the help they need, or they might be punished by the authority figure who feels like they were unfairly called out from above for their actions or lack thereof. Oversight is the exception, not the norm. The entire sphere of treatment of people seeking protection in Austria feels lawless in nature. I am wading into uncharted territory I have no expertise for and it all makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. You start by distributing grocery store gift cards, and buying coffees at the train station, and end up talking with a Ukrainian mother who says her two year-old child was taken away by child protective services (the Austrian version). I have no training for this. I know there are always two sides to every story. I make it public in the hope the embassy will step in here. They let me know they are aware. I don’t need to know more details than that.
What I can say, in my conversations with many desperate people, every day (whether or not I want to be of help — they keep finding me and contacting me), many of them feel alone. Totally alone. Passed from one phone number to the next. There is a lack of trust which is based upon personal experiences when dealing with various authorities here. I understand that lack of trust. I experience it myself, although my life is in no way reflective of the refugee experience. But I moved around a lot as a kid and as an adult, and I still experience a kind of crippling anxiety when I have to walk into an official government office. Any. I don’t know why desperate people trust me. Simply because I gave them a €50 gift card? Because I listened for ten minutes? Because I spoke honestly at the time and shared my thoughts and whatever small advice I might have had for them? It is an emotional burden but it also feels like a responsibility I cannot just walk away from. I cannot suddenly just stop opening my messages because I never know which words will greet me.
Some other reporting / recommended reading, in no particular order:
Fascinating thread on military documents found after Russia’s retreat from Kharkiv region.
CNN interactive on how Belarusian hospitals treated Russia’s wounded during the early days of the war and one doctor’s escape.
Foreign Policy on Russia recruiting Afghan mercenaries.
The view from much of Ukraine:
Official warnings to Ukrainians currently in Europe:
How we are trying to help here in Austria. Baby steps. I am waiting like an anxious mother hen for the €10,000 prize money. My little pile of empty envelopes is 80 (€4,000 equivalent) and counting. Still receiving messages even though today is a national holiday. As soon as the money arrives, I will work off my pile and then some. Mario has a huge waiting list on our website. There is information there on how to donate. PayPal link here. Thank you. The photos keep arriving. I see the seasons changing. Fewer plums, more pickles. I see the little treats — a bar of marzipan chocolate, candy for the kids. They make me smile. Remind me how important it is, critical, that we don’t lose our humanity in all of this. No, we cannot help everyone, but we can help many. We have already helped so many. We mustn’t forget that.
Thank you for reading and for your continued support.