Neubrandenburger in Zurich: Pensioners without coal receive help from Switzerland
Manuel Wehlen is from Neubrandenburg and lives in Zurich. The emergency situation of Detlef Schultze from Uckerland affects him.
Uckerland
“I would like to give Mr. Schultze 200 euros.” This is how the e-mail from Manuel Wehlen that reaches the editors begins. “Can you make contact for the transfer? I live in Switzerland and unfortunately cannot come by in person.” The trigger for the offer of help from the neighboring country was our report “Pensioners will be without coal before winter” about Detlef Schultze.
To the report: Pensioners sit without coals
The severely disabled pensioner sits without coal in Hetzdorf because briquettes are currently completely overpriced or only available after months of waiting. He has around 400 euros a month to live on. He was able to get a hundredweight of coal for 45 euros at the weekend.
Late summer temperatures are currently still prevailing during the day. In the evenings and at night, however, the cold creeps through every crack in his small house on the outskirts. In order to keep it a little warm in the living room in the morning and in the bedroom in the evening, he burns gas from bottles like those used by campers. But even these have now become expensive at 15 euros each.
Also: gas cylinders stolen in Mecklenburg Switzerland – four-digit damage
He still has a small stack of willow wood in the shed that he could use to keep the tiled stove in the living room warm for a few weeks. In the past few years he only used this firewood for kindling and additional heating. “I can no longer chop wood because I get bad air,” says Detlef Schultze. Only a few percent of German households still heat with coal, but in the current energy crisis, these cannot be sufficiently supplied with briquettes themselves.
Also read: Now the coal is scarce
When we called Manuel Wehlen on Sunday evening, his surprised question was: “Am I the only one who called?” That’s the case, at least so far. Born in Neubrandenburg, he is an optician and has been working for a large chain of opticians in Zurich for over ten years. Every morning when he takes the train to work, he reads the news from home in the Nordkurier app on his smartphone, because he has an e-paper subscription to the Nordkurier. This is how he and his girlfriend became aware of the pensioner’s emergency situation in the Uckermark. The two spontaneously decided to help him. The 44-year-old is a practicing Buddhist. For him, this primarily means feeling part of a whole, connected to his fellow human beings. Detlef Schultze was very grateful when he heard about the offer of help from Switzerland through a call from the editors on Monday.