Olga, Damir & Daniel
The fourth in a new series of first person interviews with Ukrainians now living in Austria. Olga, a single mom of 9 year-old twin boys with autism, gave me her permission to use their real names.
Olga asked me to meet her in my own neighbourhood, which is quite unusual for these interviews, as I live in the green suburbs of Vienna that are “almost in Lower Austria”, as a friend who lives on Mariahilferstraße said to me when she came to see us for Thanksgiving using public transportation. Olga greeted me at a local bus stop with a huge smile, and was wearing a hoodie with a decorative yellow and blue design. The times have long past during which you would see many Ukrainians tie Ukrainian flag ribbons to their backpacks or purses. It was nice to see.
We got talking and walked to a nearby bakery, where we ordered a few cold drinks, sat at a table outside, next to wasps buzzing around the fruit vendor’s stand, and I pulled out my notebook, ready to write down Olga’s story. I had no idea what to expect. I emerged, about an hour later, with my chin firmly dropped, and told Olga, bluntly, that she is perhaps the luckiest ‘temporarily displaced’ Ukrainian I have met so far, in terms of how she and her sons have been cared for by official Austria, the NGOs in place here. “Yes, I keep hearing that from other moms,” she says. Olga hasn’t had the chance to go to German classes or look for a job yet. She is a full time mom to nine year-old twin boys, both of whom have autism: Damir quite severely, Daniel is moderate on the spectrum.
I realize later, once I am home, that I never asked Olga about the boys’ early childhood. She explains, via text: “I noticed that something wasn’t right when the boys were about one and a half. But then in Ukraine, they didn’t diagnose autism until the age of 3. I tried to take them to various support activities on my own, but everyone told me it was too early. So because I didn’t have any prior experience, I had to wait. When the boys were three, I took them to a speech therapist who worked with autistic kids, and she sent them for tests, and after that they received an official diagnosis.”
“In Ukraine, they attended a state school. It was free of charge. 8am to 5:30pm. The school director was in close contact with medical teams who helped us. Rehabilitation for kids with autism in Ukraine really improved over the past five years. They gave us trips to the sanatorium by the sea throughout the year. Once a year we were able to go to “dolphin” therapy for 2-3 weeks. Other therapies were also paid for by the state.”
Olga, 38, begins her story on February 24, 2022. She and her boys were living alone in an apartment in Kyiv. Her ex-husband, an Iranian who studied in Ukraine, was also in Ukraine but not living with them. Olga immediately went out in search of food, and realised supplies were running low. Her mother was at the time in Canada (Olga’s sister lives in Canada and had just had a new baby). Olga’s father was stuck in Kyiv oblast and could not get to her. She began to panic. She knew she needed to get to the train station and out of Kyiv, but she didn’t know how to get there with the boys on her own. No taxi would come. There was no gas. Huge lines at petrol stations and ATMs. Finally Olga’s dad called and said “pack everything, three men will come in one hour with a van to help you and the boys”. She packed food, and a backpack.
At the train station, it was a madhouse. Olga grabbed the boys by the hands and pushed, like everyone else, for the next train. In 20 minutes a direct train to Vienna was due to depart. They had no tickets. They pushed on like everyone else. There were 15 people in a coupe on the last wagon car. The boys screamed. The other passengers seemed to understand the boys could not help it. They were, understandably, freaking out from the entire situation.
A conductor gave Olga, Damir and Daniel his little coupe. He told them, “you can use it until Lviv.” The train didn’t follow its usually route; there was no GPS. In Lviv, the conductor told them to get off. Olga looked at the sea of bodies outside the window, and refused. She simply locked the door and said she wasn’t getting off the train until Vienna. People knocked and yelled but she held firm. By Hungary, the kids fell asleep. In Hungary, it was nighttime, and there too she refused to leave the train. By that point, everyone was refusing to get off the train. They handed over their passports for stamps without disembarking.
Olga was texting with her former mother-in-law in Iran. The family has relatives in Hamburg. She urged Olga to go to Germany. An Iranian aunt could meet them in Vienna, and help them get to Hamburg. Olga agreed not really processing everything. In Hungary, volunteers passed over sandwiches and drinks. Olga remembers all the food she brought with her for the boys had already run out by then.
In Vienna, the aunt met the family and helped with onward tickets to Hamburg. Olga was thinking, realising her ex-husband would be able to leave Ukraine, as he is not a citizen. He too would then go to Germany, and she would be entirely dependent on his extended family. One hour before the train was due to depart for Hamburg, Olga listened to her gut feeling, and said no, she had changed her mind. She and the boys would stay in Vienna. The family, was, of course shocked, and upset. But Olga held firm.
Olga went to the police and registered in Austria. By luck or fate or divine intervention, Olga and the boys went not to live at the “refugee hotel” (back then this was Hotel Senator in 1170, from which Ukrainians were taken to live across Austria, sometimes to pretty awful camp conditions), but to Haus Damaris, run by Caritas in Vienna’s 19th district. This former turn-of-the-century glove factory, an old brick building, has been housing refugees in a type of assisted living dorm since at least 2015 (full disclosure I once volunteered there for an evening back then, in 2015, and found it to be a friendly place with communal kitchens and easy access to city transport and shops). I tell Olga I was inside there once. “There were many Chechens, Syrians, other nationalities,” Olga explains, that today the dorm remains a multinational home.
Olga remembers her first evening in the dorm. “There was a common room. It was late, must have been midnight. I was scared. I could not sleep. There was a piano. I remember just playing and singing and crying. It was my way of calming myself.”
At the dorm, Olga was cared for by a social worker whom I will not name for privacy reasons, but by all accounts who seems to have gone above and beyond to care for and look after this single mom and her two sons. As Olga tells me what her first months were like, she keeps circling back to the support she received from this person, the resources which were made available to them, the guidance and emotional support she was given. “A golden person”, I say, as we say in Russian. “Absolutely,” she nods in agreement.
At first, Olga found herself crying in the local Hofer. Everything was in German and she could not understand what anything was. She had only 20 minutes to shop, as she had asked a neighbour to watch the boys. I think it is hard for people who have not parented kids with special needs to understand what kind of intense, 24/7 parenting this demands. There is no break. And in Austria, Olga, Damir and Daniel were thrown overnight into a totally new situation without their usual support network.
The family lived in Haus Damaris for about six months. They kept begging for an apartment, and were told to be patient. It was important to find an apartment near a school for children with autism, and this hadn’t happened yet. There are long waiting lists for all of these resources. There was an apartment in the 22nd district, but no school places available there. Olga kept begging the social worker, and the social worker kept telling her to be patient. One step at a time.
I ask Olga if she ever thought about giving up and going home, to Kyiv. “I had no energy to go home,” she explains. Her sister in Canada suggested going there. This was too big a hurdle for Olga. “No way could I manage that long flight alone with them.”
Late last spring, a school spot was found for Daniel, in a private school which supports children with autism in Vienna’s 19th district. As Olga understands, Caritas and/or a Catholic organization helps with the funding for the tuition. It was the social worker who made this all happen. Daniel was allowed to attend from 8am - noon, and “maybe” they would have a space for Damir later. By September, Damir too was able to attend, but only from 8am - 10am. There were many trial days. Everything was eased into very gradually. Olga was surprised by this, as the boys had attended full days of school in Ukraine, going from 8am to 5:30pm each day. After six months, Daniel was doing well, and this February, Damir was finally allowed to stay from 8am - noon like his brother. Damir, as I understand it, requires the help of an individual support tutor while in school.
Before the family moved into the apartment they now live in in Vienna’s 19th district, Olga describes one day when the boys were playing in the dorm’s courtyard (there was also a vegetable garden in the back where residents could plan their own veggies), and suddenly — Damir was gone. Damir loves travelling, and they immediately feared he might have gone to the bus stop and left, on his own. Everyone went into panic mode and the police were called. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, a call reported Damir had taken a bus into a Vienna suburb and the driver had noticed him, travelling alone, flapping his hands around in happiness, looking out the window, regarding the solo adventure he had just undertaken. When Olga finally got to the local police station to collect him, she found friendly officers entertaining Damir with blowing up surgical gloves and feeding him cookies.
Olga continued to beg Caritas for an apartment, explaining she found life with a communal kitchen and bathrooms with the boys really challenging. A few days after she planted her first seeds in the courtyard patch, the lucky phone call came in. There was an apartment in the 19th district which the owners would make available to Caritas for the family. Olga and the boys now live across a busy street from a park and even a little city-run swimming pool. They have been visiting the pool almost daily in the heat — the boys love it. A van service takes the boys to school and back (I assume this to be one of the city programs which help children with special needs in Vienna).
The boys only go to school in the mornings because there are no free “aftercare” spaces. At first, when they moved into the apartment, there was some concern how Olga would manage alone. Of course in the dorm there is a community, other pairs of eyes and ears. At this point I interrupt Olga, and ask who is with the boys now, how are we sitting here on this lovely afternoon talking, alone? Oh, she explains, there are social workers who come twice a week to take them to the park so I can have a little break.
Could you say that again?! I asked, stunned.
Olga continues. “At first they wanted me to come too, but I explained, if I have to go to the park as well, it isn’t really a break for me.”
Wow. Just wow, I said, thinking about what a godsend that must be for a single mom with special needs kids. Wondering if that even exists in other countries.
“Yearound?”.
“Yes, they come during the school year too.”
I am speechless.
Olga suspects this is all possible because of the social worker from the dorm who took such an interest in the family, and knows how to make calls within the system, knows what resources are available. That itself is an art form in Vienna’s social bureaucracy. There is a lot on offer, but how to tap into it?
Olga now has a new social worker, who told them about a program allowing families with limited means to enjoy a one-week summer holiday in Austria. Her new advisor called her up when a space opened up. Olga quickly paid the €100 for herself; the boys went free of charge. They took a bus to Steiermark and enjoyed a week in the countryside with other families of all different nationalities — Austrians, Italians, Syrians, Ukrainians. Olga was fascinated because it was the first time the boys had been invited with kids who are not on the autism spectrum; the program was not designed with specifically autistic kids in mind, as their holidays in Ukraine had been. They all loved it. The boys don’t sleep well in new places, “so other than the fact that I didn’t really sleep it was great,” Olga says, without any complaint in her voice.
Daniel speaks some German by now. Damir doesn’t speak much in any language, Olga explains. They have a Russian-speaking speech therapist who is working with the boys. The apartment is theirs until March 2024, and no one knows what will happen then. Olga really hopes they might be able to stay another year. The owners did come to meet the family, and they were very kind.
Olga has not yet had a chance to attend German courses, but she would like to. She would like to organise some kind of support groups for mothers of autistic kids from Ukraine. She mentions that resources often focus on the children, but not the parents.
Olga’s dad came to visit once for three days (he is 60 and therefore could leave Ukraine). He brought them their clothes and things from Kyiv. But he could not stay. He has work to do at home. He is in the construction business. Olga’s mother is still in Canada. She stays there for now with Olga’s sister. It is a full house. Olga doesn’t think there would be space for them there.
The boys’ father is reportedly in Germany. He disappeared. Olga thinks this is out of fear of perhaps having to pay some kind of child support once we has a traceable income in Europe. She did threaten it once in a conversation. After that, he didn’t call anymore. Olga speaks Farsi. She learned it from him.
Olga waited patiently for one year to be able to speak with a psychologist, also provided by the social worker. She says those sessions were really, really helpful. She feels like she finally got out of her funk a few months ago. She has her energy back.
We chat as we walk back to the bus stop, Olga tells me about other individuals who helped her privately, other local parents of autistic kids. I tell her about some organizations here in Vienna she is not yet familiar with, carefully adding that of all the stories I have heard in Austria so far, hers is one of the most remarkable regarding the amount of individual support which she and her boys have received to date from NGOs and social programs funded by the city.
“If only it worked like that for everyone…” I say, perhaps more to myself than to Olga.
Olga’s story is an important reminder than when structures and programs work as they are intended, and when teams of people cooperate to help those in need, beautiful things can happen. Unfortunately, there is a massive “human factor” in all of this. It only works for some families, some of the time, and so much, an immeasurable amount, lies in the hands of social workers who are individuals too. So while I found Olga’s story to be incredibly uplifting, I could not help but think about all the other families with kids with special needs. Did they too get the support they need? I don’t know. I can only speculate. But let this story be a testament to what is possible when everything does work. Olga also receives child benefit payments, as do all Ukrainian parents who apply, and in Austria they are increased by 50% if your children have documented special needs. Thankfully, the social workers helped fill out these papers too. I get the impression speaking with Olga that she really suffered a trauma after their escape, and ending up in a new country, alone. Many people held her hand as she got her strength back. The way it should be. In a perfect world. One family at a time.