My days have become booked to the hour. I have no time to write. For that I am so sorry. I would like to very briefly introduce myself and explain what I am trying to do here in Austria to help Ukrainians here who fled the war.
I am American, my husband is Austrian, I have three tween/teen kids. I speak Russian fluently after learning it in college in the U.S. and then living and working in Moscow for many years. In very early March, I got a nudge on Twitter that people who speak Russian or Ukrainian are needed in Vienna’s main train station. When I arrived, I found Ukrainian refugees, but no organized charity yet. Just volunteers. We all sort of jumped into action, helping families, getting tickets onwards, buying coffees and sandwiches, helping carry luggage, a place to sleep overnight — whatever was needed. Later the charity folks arrived and “organized” us, but I kept doing what I always did, namely solve the problem in front of me with the help of a credit card. I had (have!) generous readers, I could solve problems others couldn’t. I’ve (we’ve) paid for many a one night hotel stay, many a meal, train seat reservations (tickets are free, reserving a seat is not) cigarettes, diapers, deodorant, reading glasses, a bag for a dog to fly to Barcelona, luggage, and the biggest expense was flying a family of four to Dublin but that was a long story.
What started to happen over time, is Ukrainians living in Austria came back to the train station looking for a warm meal. The charity then decided to only let Ukrainians with train tickets eat at the cafeteria at the station (there are other places in Vienna Ukrainians here can go for a warm lunch). I realised buying food is a problem for many refugees. The Austrian government pays out €215 per month per adult and €100 per month per child to each Ukrainian, but many still haven’t received their money, and not just in one state, but all over. Some better (Vienna), some worse (Upper Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia). So never mind that this money is ridiculously small and not enough to survive on in 2022, many Ukrainians haven’t even seen a single cent of it. And then…to make it even worse…there are living situations in dorms and hotels which are considered “full board” but in fact they are not fed enough food not to go hungry, and those unfortunate Ukrainians do not qualify for any money beyond €40 a month pocket money (yes you read that correctly) as they are anyway being “fed” by the state. It’s all insane, yes. If you are screaming at your screen, I do not blame you.
So I started to take Ukrainians grocery shopping. I quickly realised I don’t have time to scale this up, and switched to gift cards. €50 per family. I quickly realised I cannot meet them all in person, and started distributing using the postal service, which thankfully works brilliantly in Austria. So now I send these Hofer (discount supermarket with good fresh produce and meats) €50 gift cards across the country, to addresses in all corners of Austria, to little towns I have never heard of. But when I come across a “hotel” or “dorm” address in Vienna or near Vienna, I try to meet these people in person. First, because I am worried they won’t get their mail, that someone will steal the card along the way, and second, because I want to hear how they are living. They are the most vulnerable.
So today I have one personal appointment at 9am, and then I will meet one group at 10:30 and another at 11:30 and it is supposed to be Saturday but my kids have already gotten used to me ignoring them (lol) so this feels more important. What I am doing is not sustainable nor should it be. The Austrian government should immediately provide Ukrainians with sufficient money, independent housing, and unrestricted access to the labor market. In a perfect world, that would have happened already. The refugee “hotel” business model is perhaps the most upsetting part of this whole mess, and I am in touch with journalists to look into some of the most concerning cases we have heard about so far. This is also time consuming. And I am still doing some one-offs like paying for a hotel room here and helping buy some handicapped equipment, but the problem with one-offs is they take so much time and I have no time. I am trying each day to send out anywhere from 30-50 cards, on average, I would imagine, per weekday. Our post doesn’t work here on weekends. So, it is a lot.
But what makes it all worth it are the messages of thanks and lovely photos of full shopping carts which Ukrainian families in Austria send me in return. I share those on Twitter (actually, for everything up to date, please read my Twitter, I don’t always have time to include everything in Substack).
Some media links now. Yesterday I gave a local TV interview and thankfully it is now in online print form as well. If I look exhausted it is, well, because I am. Thankfully a very smart and kind soul is putting together a small team and a website so that some of the envelope addressing, gift card buying, and distribution can be taken off my own hands. We will work in tandem. I will announce once it is all ready, hopefully next week sometime.
This is now front page news on Austria’s public broadcaster, so that is good:
https://wien.orf.at/stories/3156302/
This week some more in-depth stories will hopefully be published by local newspapers, who I introduced to Ukrainians willing to share their stores. For many obvious reasons, it is not easy to find such brave souls. Many fear losing what little they have received, the roof over their heads.
Here you can hear me in English talking about the problems (this was when I thought it wasn’t as bad as I know it now is):
Another local article focused on Carinthia and Steiermark interviewed a mother of six who we helped who arrived in March and hadn’t been paid a single Euro yet as of early May by the Austrian state:
This local tabloid article about my supermarket gift card project which is a crazy story in itself. The article ran online, in a few different versions, also talking about how I hand out McDonalds gift cards at the railway station. Then it ran one day in print. Then a few days later, an older man came looking for me at the train station, holding my photo in his hands which he had cut out of the newspaper. He told me he wanted to donate €10,000 towards the grocery cards. I said it was too much, started crying, and then we talked. He really did it. He wants to remain anonymous so I don’t want to anything else about it other than he does such a charity donation every year to a very specific cause (I saw the other press clippings). He said he read the story about me on the anniversary of his own mother’s death, and decided that was a sign. The newspaper is free and available on all public transport in Vienna. That is where he read it.
https://www.pressreader.com/austria/heute-wien-ausgabe/20220502/281754157895309
There was also a great interview, the first, with Ukrainian moms but I didn’t save it in time (it disappears after 7 days from the public broadcaster’s website), and another one in German, let me see if I can find it. I hate speaking publicly in German. I never took any classes so it’s all totally grammatically incorrect!
I am having a hard time finding time to write every day, but what I do promise to do here is focus on the issues I am most concerned with, update on how the grocery card project is doing, when I find time to go back to the train station, to describe the situation there, and most importantly, to tell the world what the Ukrainians here in Austria are telling me. In other words, stay tuned and please check Twitter I tend to post there faster. Like last night, I was so upset. The 11th district is where there is a dorm housing 400+ Ukrainians that was feeding them food which, as one woman said to me, “we wouldn't feed to dogs in Ukraine.” Photos here.
I am also very worried about a small “hotel” in rural Lower Austria. I will meet five families from there in the coming days. They will come to Vienna to meet me and receive Hofer gift cards. I also prepared McDonalds cards for the kids.
So that’s what we are dealing with. A major humanitarian crisis unfolding in the middle of the EU and the Austrian government either incapable or unwilling to deal with it. There are other “surprises” like if they live for free in a dorm and get a job which pays more than €110 per month (yes you read that correctly), they will lose their housing and their social payment, so basically the entire system is designed for failure. Designed to make the most vulnerable refugees pick up and leave. Designed to send refugees to remote corners of the country, out of sight, out of mind. No chance at integration. No chance to work and live an independent, dignified life. Not even a basic understanding of Econ 101 by those in charge either, because this could be a positive thing for Austria’s economy is anyone had half a brain (sorry, going to stop now before I get even more upset!).
Thanks for reading. Thanks for your patience with me when I cannot write. Thanks for your support.
Ty. I understand. This does not mean that I accept nor tolerate the behavior. All that can be done is to keep trying and not give up. To quote the late John Lewis: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.” statement made on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, March 1, 2020. Good trouble; humane, just, and positive for change. 🙏
I KNEW the old man would come through. No one comes with a clipped newspaper article(s) w/o being serious. So glad to hear his donation worked out. I still cannot believe Hofer is pretending to be clueless. Time to step up the contact frequency...