From Platform 2 in Hanover into a new life
How must that be? Being catapulted out of life overnight, with friends, family, school, university or job, with familiar surroundings and home, overnight or even from now on? How can you bear that? Two people who need to know this are standing on platform 2 at Hanover Central Station, waiting for the next train in their new lives. Tavana (37), Sami (34) and their five-year-old daughter Sahar are on their way to the initial reception center for refugees in Bad Fallingbostel. The two native Iranians had been living and working in Kyiv for six years when a rocket hit their block of flats tore the family out of their old life.
The manager of a forestry company and the engineer, a modern, attractive couple like many in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Kyiv, grabbed two backpacks, packed them with the bare essentials, put something warm on Sahar and left. Yes, they actually walked for a day until they found a taxi that took them to the Polish border. From there they traveled through Poland and Germany to Hanover. The regional train to Bad Fallingbostel leaves platform 2 every hour. To the initial reception center for refugees. Refugees like Sami, Tavana and Sahar. Like all the Ukrainian refugees interviewed, they are cautious. They don’t want their full names or even a photo of themselves to appear in the newspaper. They’re too afraid of Putin’s henchmen.
They want to cook, not fight
A few trains later, on the way to Bad Fallingbostel, Andrej and Kyrill are also sitting, both cooks, both 23 years young, both friendly, rather delicate young men who were working in Poland when Vladimir Putin’s bombs hit their hometown of Tscherkassy on the Dnieper. Andrej’s mother and his two sisters were still there at the time and warn his brother: “Don’t come back, otherwise you’ll have to fight, it’s war,” says the 23-year-old with sadness in his dark eyes. “My sisters can’t escape because my mother doesn’t want to leave,” he says. Andrei has plans. “We want to get here quickly, learn German and then catch up with my sisters later. We want to build something up here.” His buddy Kyrill, both of whom were currently training to be cooks at a technical college, also doesn’t want to join the army.
The two young men share what little belongings they have in a suitcase, holding onto their travel tickets and a cloth bag with the words “Live democracy!” on it. They got it from Irina Reichhardt from the Czech club Lower Saxony, who brought the two to the track. “If they went back to Ukraine, they would have to fight. The two have nothing to do with the military,” says the young woman. There is something better than death. Maybe something better in Germany.
Family tries to make their way to Paris
17-year-old Oleg is standing with his mother Maria (63) on platform 12, the two want to go to Paris via Düsseldorf. “We have relatives there and we want to meet the rest of the family there. We’ve split up and we’re getting by in pairs or in small groups, hoping to see each other healthy again in France,” says Oleg. Actually still a teenager who does what he has to do as an adult. “I’m still too young for the army and I’m persecuted by my mother,” he says, while lugging his heavy holdall and his mother’s large green trolley suitcase, the pull-out handle of which has already been broken. “I’m the only man too young for the army who can take my mother to safety.”
The two came from Ivano-Frankivsk in the Carpathian foothills, where they met other people who were fleeing Putin’s war of aggression in an assembly camp. “When a shopping center there came under fire and everything burned, we left too,” says Oleg. Somehow his whole family will make it to Paris, where relatives live who will now take in the Czech aunts, uncles and cousins.
Station mission is prepared
Since last week, people from Ukraine who have broken out of the deadly trap at home by bus or train have been reporting to the station mission every day. This Monday it will be seven by noon, but there will be many more, knowing the permission in the mission. Director Andrea Weber and her people can help people a little further on their way, “like in the last refugee crisis, give them information on how and where to go, how to get there”. The difference to the refugee crisis in 2015 is that people are currently coming from Europe and would stay in Europe, the mentality is similar.
Warmer room with level-headed helpers
And so before the onward journey from platform 2, exhausted people sometimes just have to take a short break in the station mission. “Here you can get in touch with family at home or in Germany, if they are here, drink hot tea and sort yourself out in a friendly, warm room with people who keep calm,” explains Weber. A sketch with information about Bad Fallingbostel, tickets for the train, which is ultimately paid for by the city of Hanover – that’s what they get on platform 2. And with it something like a small welcome.
By Petra Rückerl