In our five-part series on the Russian war of aggression, five Ukrainian women have their say. Today: Iryna Novokreschtschenova, 54, who is deeply impressed by the care she experienced in Germany.
My homeland has always been famous for its watermelons. Kherson watermelons were always the sweetest and the largest. The average weight of a watermelon was 18 to 25 kilos. Near the village of Osokorivka there is even a monument to watermelons called “Gifts of the Kherson Region”. (…)
And now my beloved mother and brother live under occupation in the Kherson region. They lack food, often have no electricity, no gas and very often no connection to the outside world. Sometimes they receive humanitarian aid, or other people or organizations support them. When there is no electricity, my mother cooks on the gas stove. If there is no gas, she cooks with the electric oven. When there is no gas or electricity, my mother has to cook in the yard on a homemade brick oven. This hurts me a lot and I’m worried about my mother and brother because I haven’t been able to reach them for a very long time.(…) I left my country, my Ukraine, my hometown of Zelenodolsk on March 10, 2022. When the passports were stamped for our departure, my daughter Dasha and I began to cry. (…)
I have a friend in Berlin, Johannes Baur. He helped us a lot during our first time in Berlin. He is a very friendly and warm-hearted person. There are no words to describe the kindness, hospitality and warmth with which we were welcomed by the volunteers in Germany. They supported and helped us a lot and provided a variety of meals for all the refugees from Ukraine: warm food, delicious sandwiches, divinely smelling rolls and many other delicacies. I haven’t experienced such genuine kindness, warmth and love for a long time. The Germans deeply impressed me with their care for the Ukrainian people who had fled the war. (…)
Later we moved to another family. We were warmly welcomed there too; it was warm and cozy. The couple and their little daughter treated us with kindness and love and helped us overcome our depression, inner restlessness, doubts, hopelessness, uncertainty and fear of the future. I am grateful to them and especially to their little daughter, who was like a ray of light in the darkness for us.
I would like to share with you an incident from my life in Berlin that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. On a warm spring day in March, my new family and I went for a walk and came to the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate. I saw the Ukrainian flag and heard Ukrainian songs, and we walked closer. I was calm and happy, but when I heard the song – a prayer for Ukraine – tears came to my eyes and I couldn’t stop crying. The couple, my family, with whom I lived hugged me from both sides, and their little daughter wiped my tears with a tissue.
She’s so small, she wasn’t even a year old. How could she feel my pain and suffering? Then I calmed down a bit and we continued our walk, but my thoughts were already far away from Berlin, in Ukraine, with my mother, my son and my husband.
War is so terrible. War means separation from loved ones, relatives and friends for an indefinite period of time. War is the fate of people lost in eternity. War is loneliness, doubt and fear. War is the impossibility of hugging one’s own children, one’s husband, one’s parents. War means many dead and wounded. War is the tears of mothers, wives and children. War is the line that separates the life before and the life after.
I hate war. I don’t like people who fight, shoot and want to kill other people. God created us here on earth to love one another, to help one another, to live in joy, love and grace. I love my homeland, Ukraine, very much. I want to live with my family in a peaceful, prosperous and happy Ukraine and lead a long and happy life.
Daria has found a job and Iryna continues to learn German while her son finishes his studies in Odessa. Her husband is an engineer and works in a power plant. He lives not far from Zaporizhzhia and has been “under a hail of bombs” for two years, as Iryna says. Her mother is still alive, but her health is deteriorating day by day.
The book
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After the start of the war, Aurélie Bros was in Ukraine for an aid project that supports Ukrainian journalists. She asked 38 women to write letters about their everyday lives without peace and security. We present five of them in abbreviated form in this dossier. The photos were taken by Ukrainians Daria Biliak, Kristina Parioti and Anastasia Potapova, who now live in Germany. Aurélie Bros (ed.): “Like a ray of light in the darkness. Letters from women from Ukraine to the free world” (491 pages, 30 euros, Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag)