Road to Nowhere (Day 41)
Shocking stories from Ukrainian refugees about how some have been treated in Austria so far. Update from Vienna train station. Accounts from Bucha. Austria says no Russian spies here (cough cough).
This morning I met a group of three women. I helped two of them get tickets to Munich. We had two hours until their train; I offered to take them to the free cafeteria for breakfast. On our walk over, they began to tell me their story. They had ended up in the middle of nowhere, Lower Austria. They had been housed in a small hotel in the Wiener Neustadt region run by a local family (I will not publish the name here as I don’t want to get sued but journalists please contact me via Twitter DM @tanjamaier17 I have the details).
The hotel was houses 30 refugees from Ukraine. The Ukrainians themselves do not receive the state money towards food (€6 per day per adult), this is all kept by the Austrian family running the hotel. Some meals are provided, but the women tell me it is not enough, they must use their own money to buy more. They do not have access to a kitchen, as they are expected to eat the hotel meals. Shared rooms, in one room two men and two women were housed (no privacy). They have to walk 2 kilometers through the woods to reach the nearest store (see photo above). There is only one bus a day very early in the morning to Vienna. If you miss it, that’s it. There is no bus on weekends. There is humanitarian aid that has been donated by people or charities; it is kept under lock and key by the hotel owners. Clothing donations were brought. The Ukrainians witnessed the owner of the hotel clothing her own children in the donated clothes. As one said to me, “the audacity, to let us see her going through the clothes, trying them on her teenage daughter first before offering them to us! They didn’t even try to hide what they were doing”.
The mother and daughter are about 45 and 20, originally from Lugansk. They became refugees during the 2014 war, and were living in a rented apartment in Odessa. They should be arriving shortly in Munich. They hope nice volunteers will be there. They don’t have anyone meeting them.
Their friend is also a refugee now twice. She is originally from Donestk, was living in Kyiv. She even has a blue card now, wants to stay in Austria, but with this remote location she cannot even get to a German language class. She is desperate to find any kind of room or shared room somehow closer to Vienna, to public transport, where she can be in control of the (inadequate at today’s prices) food money provided.
All three women told me how they ended up in this horrible situation. They arrived in Austria about a month ago, in early March. They were initially taken to the Senator Hotel in Vienna’s 17th district. There, volunteers (they do not know with which organization) banged on their doors each night, encouraging them to leave, showing them photos of pretty mountains and promising them up to €800 per month. “The amount of money kept changing and getting smaller as we got closer to the destination”. They were driven by bus to Gmunden, where they were housed in cold containers with bunk beds and filthy sheets. “It was so bad I just stood all night”. There were filthy toilets and “water to our knees”. They began texting the other Ukrainians still in the Senator Hotel, warning them not to go to Gmunden.
From Gmunden, they managed to get on a bus and get take to Arena Nova, in Wiener Neutstadt. This is a giant expo-like hall with cots which serves as a regional refugee distribution point. After a few days there, they were taken to this hotel in this village in the middle of nowhere, Wiener Neustadt region. The relationship with the hotel is through Caritas, they said. The issues with no social payments and the hotel owner keeping all the food money I already described; they also told me local Austrians are hiring the Ukrainians for jobs such as working in their gardens, helping build swimming pools, cleaning windows, etc. and are paying them in cash €5-6/hour for hard labor.
One month. One month in Austria and this is what these three women have experienced. I thanked them for their candour and apologised on behalf those of us who actually care in Austria. I begged the third woman to send me her number; I don’t have it yet. But if I hear of a room or shared room near Vienna I will drive out there and bring her myself. The mother and daughter de-registered themselves in Wiener Neustadt and are now free to go to Germany. In the cafeteria I introduced them to another group of five women kids, also on their way to Munich. I connected them over Telegram with another family already in a small Bavarian town. You hope something comes of it.
You worry. You are disgusted by the behaviour of these professional refugee helper hotels. The women tell me the hotel has housed refugees for years. Except Ukrainians do not want to sit in the middle of nowhere for months on end. They want to attend language classes and work. They do not want to be isolated and cut off from transportation. Can we all just stop for a second and imagine what other kind of abuse is happening right now in similar situations? It is so upsetting and so wrong.
I then ran into two young women of about 25 with a very cute chocolate brown Chihuahua. I walked them to the free cafeteria after they told me they have hours until their train. Their story:
Austria wasn’t the worst, they said. Poland was just completely full. Germany was terrible. In Austria they had been sent to somewhere in Lower Austria but it wasn’t that bad. I got the impression they are just exhausted. Exhausted of being on the road. Exhausted of the uncertainty. Homesick. Disillusioned. Disenchanted. Fed up. The dog was hyper, you could see she is tired too. We walked in the cafeteria and a volunteer insisted she put on a muzzle but there was no muzzle big enough (the dog weighs all of a few pounds), so I just grabbed the plastic cat carrier and told the women to pretend like we would put the dog in it.
All these rules drive me mad. Austria is at times more concerned with putting FFP2 masks on everyone, checking for vaccines (the guy at Starbucks yesterday wanted to vaccine ID me for taking off my mask and eating a bite of my muffin while still standing in the shop inside the train station), enforcing meaningless little rules like small dogs too must have muzzles while major glaring issues like abuse at the hands of “hosts” and lack of access to suitable housing and work and benefits are just…ignored?
They launched a cheesy government-funded new website for jobs in Austria for Ukrainians, proudly saying they want to have 10,000 Ukrainians in new jobs by the end of the year. But there are reportedly already 40,000 Ukrainians in Austria, so that math is really strange. And then I think back to the horror story of this small hotel in the middle of nowhere, and it makes me think that is what they did to the Syrian and Afghan refugees — out of sight out of mind. Only that won’t work with Ukrainian women. They will simply get up and leave. Those who can. They will go home, even to war.
Shame on Europe. Shame on Austria.
I helped a family of three get tickets back to Györ, Hungary. How are they treating you there? It’s ok, they said.
I met a very distressed woman who needs to get back to Poltava, Ukraine to collect her child. I helped her get a ticket to the Zahony border crossing. We had ten minutes until the train was due to leave. I helped her with her bags and we ran to platform 10. There was an old Romanian train with about three train cars. I helped her on board; we didn’t even have time to get a sandwich or a drink. I told her everything would be ok. Not to worry. You’ll get to the border by nightfall. Volunteers will help you there. Do I know that? Of course not. But you have to give hope.
I met this adorable thing, Archie. He is on his way to Lake Constance, Switzerland. His two female owners seemed to know what they were doing and where they were headed. One of the few interactions today that wasn’t stressful or emotionally upsetting.
As I was walking away from Archie, I met a group of nine people speaking in sign language. One of them came up to me, pulled down his mask, and started speaking. It was slurred but I could understand him. I answered in Russian. Tickets to Prague, for later tonight. No problem, I replied, follow me. I marched the group of nine hearing impaired Ukrainians to the ticket office, where a railway rep patiently secured them the tickets. I paid for seat reservations. I always do this when possible. It gives a train care number, seat numbers, and peace of mind. They asked me how to get to the subway, where to change money, what to see in central Vienna. How is it in Czechia, I asked? It’s fine, he told me, they treat us well. “I know it’s difficult in Austria, he said, we have heard.” They have heard. I nodded. “Unfortunately.”
I walked them all to the subway. On the way, we chatted about Ukraine and the war:
I asked if I could invite them for lunch, and gave them €100 so they could all see it happening. They thanked me in sign language and with huge smiles. It isn’t much but it might buy some sausages. I hope the museums will let them in (some have already been turning Ukrainians away without “Culture Cards” which Caritas doesn’t have yet and I heard you cannot get until you have a “blue card” (when nothing works smoothly you really have to ask yourself if this is by design…). I wished them a nice day in Vienna and took them all the way to the subway car, showing them on the map three stops to the one with the church next to it (Stephansplatz).
I helped a large group from Kyiv get SIM cards and register them. They are going to Switzerland later today. They are lucky. They were housed in a good hotel near the train station last night, and fed. I still don’t know how to put people in that hotel in the rooms Stadt Wien reportedly pays for. I’m glad someone knows how to work the system.
I just got a call from a family of four from Poltava oblast I met yesterday. They ran away from an Austrian family, are on their way to Brussels, to a host who contacted me over Twitter. I hope it all works out. It is crazy, googling train schedules, saying where to go, who to ask for, worrying but not being able to do everything in person. I called the local village government of the place they left, and made sure they are de-registered. This leaves them free to try their luck in a new country.
I don’t have a professional background in refugee air nor government bureaucracy. I don’t understand all the rules and regulations. But on a human level, I see thousands of people who want to be independent, who want to work, and who are finding themselves in Europe without housing in towns where they would have access to language lessons, work and schools, without enough pocket money, without any feeling of security. Many will simply pick up and go back to war. Of that I am sure.
A few articles to recommend, as well. Difficult, painful reading about Bucha. But necessary. Necessary that we do not look away.
An excellent conversation with Kara Swisher on how Ukrainian and Russian media are covering the war; recorded on 31 March, still very much worth a listen:
I found these photos to be very moving, contrast with Russia’s political leadership ranting in a bunker about fake news, genocide denial, and claiming to build an empire from Portugal to Vladivostok.
Meanwhile, governments across Europe are kicking out Russian diplomats (and rightly so), except for…you guessed it…Austria, which claims it has no evidence of Russian spies (cough cough). I keep thinking about my emergency back-up plan to flee to the United States. I know you aren’t supposed to say such things out loud. But it is always in the back of my mind, some days more than others. Today is a more day. A short thread:
Finally, if you are interested in Austrian domestic political gossip, quite the ridiculous scandal enrolling involving huge amounts of security (hashtag free drivers and childcare) for the first family and a drunk driving incident, another short thread:
Thank you for reading. Oh….I almost forgot! I was quoted in The New Yorker. Very exciting, and I never would have seen it if not for a kind reader sending me the link. Thank you all for your support! It’s nice to see the voices of Ukraine’s women being heard on the other side of the Atlantic.