I remember meeting Inna on a hot, summer day. She had written me during the week, asked when we might meet, saying she had a small gift for me. I had quickly texted back the time and address where I would be delivering Hofer cards that Sunday, and promptly forgot all about it. As I walked up to the dorm, a blonde lady was waiting for me with a huge smile. Here you go, she said, and handed me a plastic bag containing a jar of homemade honey from Mykolaiv. I was so surprised and embarrassed. I had completely forgotten. I had in my head the cards I was due to deliver and making myself mentally prepared for what are always difficult conversations at the notorious dorm in Vienna’s 11th district. Inna had come all the way to the edge of Vienna on her day off from work just to thank me. She had received a Hofer card from our program months prior. She was now working, very hard, full time, in a restaurant kitchen. She didn’t get many days off. But she was grateful for the work, and for our help, and wanted to thank me personally.
Inna wrote me yesterday, as I was trying to arrange some interviews for a journalist in town this week. She would love to share her story, but has no time to meet due to work. Would I translate it? She already wrote it all down, in her own words. Naturally, I agreed. Below is my translation of Inna’s story. Word for word.
At 5am on February 24, 2022, my telephone rang. “MAMA” the screen read. I thought to myself, oh no, something really bad must have happened. Probably something with Papa, he has a bad heart. My parents were already quite old, both over 70. I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone. I was afraid of hearing bad news. I already felt something had happened which I couldn’t fix. My parents only called me once before that early in the morning (at 4am). It was on May 20, 2012. I will never ever forget that telephone call. Tears (no — the hysterical screams of my parents and I cannot understand the words…”died”…”was killed”…). I only heard the cries, the screams, and they hung up. I didn’t understand anything, but I felt that something terrible had happened on that spring day. Ever since, I am afraid of my parents’ phone calls, I associate them with bad news. In 2012 it was the news that my only brother was killed in a car crash; he wasn’t even 30 years old. I became my parents’ only child.
5am in 2022…with a frozen heart I force myself to answer the phone. I hear Mama crying (just like in 2012), but through her tears, Mama says “Inna. War.” She cries again. I try to say something to Mama, maybe it isn’t true? Inna, it is war. That’s it. Mama got a call from her brother in Kherson (my uncle, who lives in Kalanchatsky region). They felt the arrival of the “Russian World/Peace” first. Everything was burning, there was shooting.
Probably all Ukrainians went through this. You cannot imagine that this is possible in the 21st century. You hear the terrible news, and you simply cannot bring yourself to accept it as true.
My alarm went off. Oh, today is Thursday, and my younger son was supposed to have swim training (at 6:45am) before school. He has been a swimmer since he was four. We were supposed to take him to training, so that he wouldn’t be late to school. “Today we will miss swimming,” I decided firmly for myself. The children usually go to tutors for foreign languages (my eldest had English at 18:00, and my youngest would have German at 16:00). It is all close to our building (then I naively thought it was safe, those things that are not far from our building), and the children would be able to quickly come home.
A message arrived from work (I work as an accountant in a bakery) — all employees should report to work, there is only a danger for military targets (they will only shoot missiles at military targets). I calmed down a little bit, but in a few minutes, the air raid siren went off again. I will not go to work today, and I will stay home with the kids (the school had already informed us lessons were cancelled for the day).
My husband had already gotten dressed and was about to leave to go somewhere…
“Andrey, where are you going?” I asked him, knowing the answer already. To his mother, she lived her whole life alone, and he was her only son.
“I want to bring Mama to us, to Mykolaiv, so that she won’t be alone. I am afraid she might refuse to leave. Therefore, before I go, I’ll stop buy the store and buy groceries,” my husband explained.
My husband is worried (I feel this), but he is silent. He gives me a kiss, and asks me to gather all our documents, and most important, always be reachable by phone.
What next? Maybe we will need some cash (I would need to withdraw my salary using my card). I should buy some medicine, because the kids might get sick, I should gather our documents and pack the children some things.
I am afraid to leave the boys at home alone, therefore I take them with me to the ATM and to the pharmacy. There is panic in the air in the city, fear, uncertainty, a feeling of helplessness. There are terrible lines at the gas stations, at the ATMs, at the pharmacies. Everywhere long lines.
After lunch, my husband came home. My mother-in-law refused to leave her home. She took the food, but refused to go. My husband is upset, but is quiet. We drive to my parents (40 kilometres from Mykolaiv). “Not for long, just for the weekend, and after — our country’s leadership will sort it out, they will figure it all out via diplomatic channels,” I thought to myself.
The days past like in a fog. They didn’t feel real. I cannot sleep. I ask the kids to sleep in their clothes, and I sit in the chair across from them. My dad sometimes insists that I lie down, and he sits instead of me in the chair. I barely eat (I cannot, I don’t want to).
Because my parents are worried, I force myself to eat a bowl of porridge in the morning. That’s all I eat the whole day. The news on the TV — it’s impossible to look away and the news does not calm us down.
“We cannot guarantee our children’s safety, we cannot defend our sons from missile attacks, you must leave Ukraine with them,” that is how the most terrible conversation with my husband began.
The children pack their backpacks. I write and put in each of their backpacks a piece of paper with their names, ages, telephone numbers of our relatives. I put in each of their bags a little bit of pocket money, too.
I explain to my sons, that the pieces of paper are necessary if I am killed or wounded, if we get separated from each other. They listen to me, and I see in their eyes that they do not understand how serious the situation is.
They all took us to the evacuation bus. My husband, my parents, my uncle. We got on the bus. My parents are lost — their faces say it all. My mother probably kissed her only grandchildren ten times in saying goodbye. She tells them over and over again to listen to me, their mother. My husband and I said goodbye with far less drama. No one knows what lies ahead.
Then an evacuation train to Lviv. It took 14 hours. The train stopped every time there was an air raid siren (that was really scary), and changed its course. Through the windows, I could sometimes see fields on fire. We arrived in Lviv. Next was an express train, Lviv - Przemysl. Then Poland, Czechia, Austria. All that time I protected my kids like a dragon.
Our godparents had left for Austria on the first day of the war, and it was they who first offered us help. Thanks to them, we met a wonderful PERSON (I write with a capital letter about that wonderful woman, the volunteer Josefina) who helped find for us an Austrian family we could stay with at first, Alex and Lena (it turned out “at first” turned into much longer).
Alex and Lena (they were total strangers to us) welcomed us warmly to their wonderful family and held our hands through the entire registration process (receiving our blue cards, registration, enrolling the children in school, signing up with AMS). I often asked myself, “could I do that?” Because they invested so much of their free time to help us, total strangers. I truly believe we were not problematic, we did not argue about anything. But there were always so many questions to which I did not know the answers to. They helped us, genuinely, from the bottom of their hearts.
Our family’s story is not tragic, not sad like those of many of my fellow Ukrainians. I would actually say it is about integration, adaptation, about people, who offered a helping hand.
The children went to school, and I went to German language courses offered by ÖIF. We had an amazing group and teacher. It was something unbelievable, a great group, working towards a common goal — to learn German. We are still friends with many of my classmates today.
The hardest part was finding housing to rent. I really remember that period clearly. Every unsuccessful attempt (rejection), every unsuccessful viewing (we were trying to rent an apartment in Vienna for a very modest rent for the city) — it all ended in tears. I sat and cried out of helplessness. I kept having the same dream: me and my two sons are left without housing, we are on the street, and we are sitting on a blanket. Lena and Alex helped us both in words and in actions (they promised they would never leave us on the street). Lena wrote emails and set up the apartment viewings, when I gave her the addresses.
And then it happened! An Austrian agreed to rent us a one-room apartment. I was jumping for joy. Next there were some problems which aren’t really problems. Equipping and furnishing it (it was rented empty, unfurnished). Josefina again helped us, when she found out we had moved with the kids. She brought chairs, a drying rack, an iron, and lots of household items.
September 2022. I passed the test in the language school in order to enrol in German A2 and I am waiting for the next course to begin. But everything changed…friends of Lena and Alex opened a restaurant and they needed staff. Once again the family became our guardian angels. I really needed a job to be able to pay for the apartment and our utility bills.
I remember that day, when I saw my future boss. Huge thanks to him, that he agreed to hire me for the job without fluent German. He gave me a chance. I really hope that he doesn’t regret it!
I am so grateful to every person I met along our journey.
I am grateful to all the events that happened with me (the bad ones made me stronger, the good ones forced me to be amazed by human capabilities and asked myself the question, “could I have done the same?”).
I am so grateful to Austria, for welcoming my family and other Ukrainian families and offering a helping hand to our country.
I am so grateful to the Ukrainian soldiers who are defending our Ukraine. For their heroic deeds, they make us believe in the victory of our country.
I am so grateful to our president, V.A. Zelensky, that he did not run from the country, but became a person, an example for all of us to look up to.
I am so grateful to my parents and my husband. I always felt their support (both in difficult moments and in happy times).
I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to kiss my sons before they go to sleep at night. Although my eldest is 15 and already turns away, he doesn’t want to be kissed. I do it when he has fallen asleep.
Every evening I thank God for everything — for everything that I have, and for everything that he gave me. I am grateful for every lived day.
Thank you. I would really like to meet the journalist you wrote about. But unfortunately, I am working that day (I also worked on Christmas, and on NEw Years), but I am really appreciative that I have a job, it is very important for me to be able to pay my rent. I did not want to have to ask for social housing and financial support.
Tatiana, I think if you personally will find our story interesting, then others will also find it interesting. I would be grateful if you might read it. I will answer any questions. I do not have anything to hide, therefore I did not change any names.
Inna.
January 8, 2023.