Day 100
Super busy, on the one hand you feel like you are helping a few people, really helping, on the other hand, you feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problem and the lack of political response / care.
100 days. 100 days of a new normal that should never start to feel normal to any of us. If you had told me three months ago I would spend my days delivering grocery cards and answering hundreds of messages in Russian and still translating at the train station and giving media interviews to the point that the camera doesn’t even bother you anymore — no, I would not have believed it.
To give you a small idea of what it is like. Today, 2pm, I am sitting at McDonalds with my youngest, a nice outside table, a quick lunch before I take her to buy a few bikinis because we are going on a long-awaited mini-break (next Substack will be Wednesday), and my phone rings, “no caller ID”. It is a Russian woman. Who is this, I ask? It’s me, she says, Yana, you helped me, with the little dog. I do not remember Yana with a little dog. I have met a lot of little dogs and probably given out my phone number to more than one Yana. “What do you need?”, I ask, because usually Ukrainians asking for Hofer cards text me.
“We left our car since March parked by the train station and now we came back and the battery is dead and we need to call a guy.” Then I remembered. I paid them a hotel room for one night, and then they left the car in Vienna and went to Bulgaria. They called me once to ask if the car was still there, about a month ago. It was. They had fled occupied Kherson by car. I told her to walk 10 meters to the local police station and ask them to help her call someone. I am still a big believer in helping people to help themselves, and if I were to call any car service in Austria it would cost a fortune. Maybe the city has help for such cases. I doubt it, but maybe.
This morning I met several women at the train station to hand them Hofer cards in person. Some were ok with being filmed on camera (German television ZDF came to film me “work” today and interview some of them), some were not, and they arrived earlier. One mom who didn’t want to talk on camera said she is here with 3 kids, living with a 70-something Austrian, and is embarrassed she cannot pay him rent money because even though she has been here since April, she was only given an appointment for July to be able to show the contract and be reimbursed the €300/rent that is paid out to Ukrainians with private accommodation “contracts”. She has that anxiety many women in her position feel: how much longer will our Austrian host let us stay? Will we have to look for something else? What grade will my youngest start in September “she finished first grade in Ukraine but will she really go into second grade here? what happens when we go back home?”.
A mom with a baby told me how hard it is to buy formula. She is living with her husband (not a Ukrainian citizen) and baby in a “hotel” in which they are fed but she needs to buy baby formula, and because they are considered “fed” by the state, she isn’t receiving the €215 per adult nor the €100 per child. Luckily, I wrote about her on Twitter and a very kind local woman met with her yesterday and gave her some cash and a BIPA voucher for formula. But this isn’t how it should work. Moms of babies should be able to afford baby formula. The charities also don’t always give it out — my understanding is a lot of what was on offer was ruined by a few people who came and hoarded everything and now what is available must be asked for and the Ukrainians find themselves at the mercy of that particular volunteer, whether or not he/she finds them “needy enough”. It’s complicated.
Cash in hand. Housing. Access and the right to work. Solutions would seem so simple and yet there is zero political will so everything just gets worse with every passing day. The politician who was in charge of Austria’s refugee response at the federal level “failed upwards” and now is some big head police digital something or other. There is no replacement. They might think about finding one in the next few weeks. Just in time for he or she to go on holiday for two months. Yes, really.
So now I can share my own little Mr. Takacs story. I was contacted by two different well respected journalists over the past several weeks, one as recently as last week, both of whom asked me if I could meet with Mr. Takacs at the train station and tell him about my work and the challenges we see. I, of course, agreed. Both meetings never happened. Mr. Takacs never ever contacted me, nor did anyone from his office. Now there is no more Mr Takacs for the refugee response. There is simply no one.
The only people “in government” who ever contacted me were the Greens, who said all the right things, and listened very patiently, and really gave the impression that they care, but I didn’t walk away with the impression that they have much influence over anything. I did share some local problems with them about Tirol, and they did reply and look into them. Many of the issues were attributed to a lack of resources, which I am sure is true.
In Carinthia, everything fell apart due to a hacker attack on the local government. The government managed to pay themselves, but not the Ukrainians. Priorities.
I remain deeply troubled and sad and worried about the course of the war and the utter destruction taking place right now in Donbas and understanding how utterly unprepared Europe is both to stand up to Putin (like, actually stand up) and deal with the next wave of refugees. Today there were fewer Ukrainians at the train station. The train tracks got hit in western Ukraine. The schedule is still a bit messed up. It feels like a calm before a storm, IF people can get out of Donbas. You cannot do rescue operations with fighting like this:
At the train station this morning I met some women living in dorms and hotels in Vienna. One young woman told me this. After I posted it, an Austrian offered her a laptop. It will come by post next week, and I will hand it over. If it weren’t for the kindness of strangers, we would have a full blown Ukrainian humanitarian crisis on our hands. The other women asked about used phones. A 19 year old orphan came too. She didn’t want to talk on camera. A mom of a 12 year old who has a 26 year old back home who is a volunteer helping with her husband and mom teared up telling the camera crew about her worries about her family left behind. These emotions don’t lessen over time.
Then my pensioner friend calls me from ACV to have me tell the guy in German that he lost his dorm room because he went back to Kharkiv for 10 days, which I did, and then he tells me his sister is one of the people coming today to get a Hofer card and don’t let her talk to the TV people because “she is crazy” but I had to laugh because all this family drama is so normal and reader, she is not crazy, she is just very different from him.
So we filmed us talking, the women gave interviews, I talked to people about their train tickets. So many people asking for tickets back to Kyiv. They are actually shocked to find out we don’t have any “for money” tickets to Kyiv until the end of June, and the free tickets only take you to the border in Hungary or Poland, and then you are on your own. I met one woman who flew here from Turkey just to try and get back to Kyiv. “But sea, sun, why didn’t you stay in Turkey?” I asked. No money, she shrugged. She just kept saying she needs to get home as soon as possible. We got her free tickets today to the Hungarian-Ukraine border. She’ll arrive at midnight and need to look for the train to Chop which leaves Zahony around 1am. I know the schedules by heart now. All these places I will probably never see.
In the meantime I spend a lot of time I really do not have being a connecting point between well-meaning Austrians and Ukrainians. I really wish I could figure out a better way for them to talk to each other without me being the middle man. It is tiring and time-consuming. Sometimes it is great, like when a housing offer works out, and other times it doesn’t go anywhere any you think what did I just waste that 30 minutes for. It’s a learning curve.
And you cannot help people who do not want to help themselves. That is such an important lesson. We want to help people help themselves. So like with the car phone call, I didn’t manage their situation for them. You leave your car unattended for months, you can figure out how to jump start the battery when you finally return. If that makes sense.
Today I delivered and/or posted at least 30 grocery cards. Received 20 in person at the train station. Thank you. I am trying to be zen with my growing pile waiting for cards, knowing they always show up, it just takes time. I don’t know how Mario does it. I am so incredibly grateful to him for the website, without which I think I most definitely would have lost my mind by now. You can track his progress here. It is truly phenomenal!
We are going into a long weekend and I am going to try and take some time off. Next Substack on Wednesday. Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support.
p.s. some good news! The mom from “that” hotel was offered an apartment. Funny how that works. Good for her, I still worry about the rest of them.
p.p.s. bad news…yesterday was rough…I gave a journalist so many phone numbers of so many moms and kids, and he picked a mom with 3 kids who I know really needs help, and she agreed to talk on camera…and at the last minute didn’t show up. She made up an excuse about food poisoning, but I think she just got scared. Which is understandable and also maddening because if she shared her story she might just have gotten herself and her kids a nice apartment somewhere in Germany where the social payouts are €449 per adult (Austria — €215) and she gets exactly zero right now because she is living in a dorm that is considered emergency housing where they are “fed” and therefore do not qualify to receive any money. But, as I said earlier, you cannot help people who are not yet ready to help themselves.
Thx for your stories. I like them very.