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From Mykolaiv to Berlin: Anna Kostiuchenko fled her homeland with her children in a hurry
Photo: Serafin Reiber / DER SPIEGEL
They reach their destination shortly before midnight.
Exhausted, packed with rucksacks and bags, they stand in the doorway: Anna Kostiuchenko with her two children, 14-year-old Lina and 8-year-old Mischa.
They fled Mykolaiv, a city in southern Ukraine, and it took them four days to travel almost 1,800 kilometers to Berlin.
"We're just glad we're safe," says Kostiuchenko.
When she heard the news of the beginning of the war on February 24, the physiotherapist panicked.
"I didn't want to wake up my Mischa, I didn't want to have to tell him we were at war," she says.
The war changed everything in Anna Kostiuchenko's life.
Throughout the day, people flock to the supermarkets to stock up on supplies.
The family spends Friday night in a nearby Soviet-era bunker out of fear.
The next day the daughter gets severe panic attacks, they decide to flee.
Anna Kostiuchenko does not have a driver's license or her own car, so she asks her ex-husband to drive her.
They set off on Friday afternoon – just in time.
"We wouldn't have gotten out of town a day later."
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Far away, but arrived safely: Anna Kostiuchenko, Lina and Mischa
Photo: Serafin Reiber / DER SPIEGEL
According to Anna Kostiuchenko, Mykolaiv was also under fire from the Russian army a short time later.
Her friends and neighbors have been sitting in the bunker almost continuously ever since.
As they travel west, they see planes and drones flying by.
On Tuesday night they finally stand in the hallway of an apartment hotel in Kreuzberg, Moritzplatz isn't far.
War is raging in Ukraine – and Germany is experiencing a second one in 2015. Special trains now roll into Berlin's main train station several times a day, buses with refugees arrive, and volunteers set off.
The situation seems to be under control at the moment, but for how much longer?
The number of people seeking protection increases with every day that the war in Ukraine increases in brutality.
According to the Berlin Senate, up to 4,000 people were stranded in the capital on Wednesday alone with trains from Warsaw.
The daily high in 2015 was around 1000 people.
The willingness to help among the civilian population is enormous – and is urgently needed.
"Just bad"
Florian Wichelmann recognized this early on.
The Berlin real estate company owns Nena Apartments, a chain that offers hotel rooms with kitchens for short-term rental.
Anna Kostiuchenko and her children are the first to find shelter in one of his apartments.
While Wichelmann is waiting for the family from Ukraine that evening, his phone keeps ringing, one message after the other comes in: people who want to offer apartments, as well as people who are desperately looking for accommodation for refugees.
Florian Wichelmann came up with the idea for his relief campaign last Sunday.
He heard about the latest developments in Ukraine on the radio.
“As a father, I find the idea of being on the run with children overnight just terrible,” says Wichelmann.
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Entrepreneur Florian Wichelmann (centre) with colleagues
Photo: Serafin Reiber / DER SPIEGEL
They currently have a room occupancy rate of around 95 percent in his company.
"But that also means: Five percent are currently free," says Wichelmann.
On Sunday afternoon he posted on LinkedIn his offer to take care of the accommodation of refugees - anyone who has contact with Ukrainian refugees should simply contact him.
"I thought that we might get three, four, five inquiries," says Wichelmann.
He had already provided three apartments during the refugee crisis in 2015.
But this time the dynamic is completely different: the very next morning, more than 20,000 people saw the post.
Several hundred messages reached Wichelmann, he contacted other apart-hotel operators, more than a dozen were immediately ready to help.
Within a very short time, they set up a website together to coordinate requests and bring people and beds together.
In the meantime, more than 33 companies nationwide have joined the EveryBedHelps initiative, and together they have around 600 vacant apartments on offer.
After just five days, around 200 apartments could be found for 450 refugees.
A one-room apartment like the one for Anna Kostiuchenko actually costs around 100 euros per night.
In 2015, the federal government subsequently provided financial support and covered the costs of accommodating the refugees, says Wichelmann.
The 41-year-old suspects that there will be state aid again this time, but in the current situation he doesn't care.
The Kostiuchenko family can stay in Wichelmann's apartment free of charge until at least the end of March.
After that, the apartments are rented.
Discussions are currently underway with housing companies such as Wunderflats, which have capacities for longer-term accommodation.
Fresh linen and a bed
Many refugees end up in Berlin first.
A family also found accommodation at Vilhelm 7 in Kreuzberg, a mother with her 16-year-old daughter from Odessa.
At first they needed fresh linen and a bed.
Yvonne Kevin, who runs the house, welcomed them: "They were completely exhausted and at the end of their strength." Kevin has also joined Florian Wichelmann's EveryBedHelps initiative.
Before they arrived in the capital, the woman and her daughter didn't sleep for two nights, they walked a lot.
But the help for the refugees in the small Berlin boutique hotel is just the beginning.
"I can make a bed," says Kevin, "but no one knows what will happen in the next few weeks."
The operator shares everything the refugees need in one of her many chat groups.
A neighbor went to the drugstore that night when her first guests arrived and bought underpants, tampons, pads, shampoo and other cosmetics for 100 euros.
A neighbor cooked the women something to eat, Kevin himself washed their clothes after they brought them to the room.
programming helps
Helpers and volunteers can now network via social media more easily and, above all, faster than ever before.
At the beginning of the corona pandemic, neighborhood help was set up from scratch to organize shopping for the elderly.
During the flood in the summer of 2021, private helpers coordinated the work of thousands of volunteers in the flood clean-up work.
Even in the current crisis, the digital volunteer army seems to be picking up again.
nationwide.
Lukas Kunert is one of those who lend a hand.
"My wife is from Russia, we met in the Ukraine," says the businessman from Fulda.
His company helps school classes and initiatives manage their money.
When the war begins, Kunert decides to start an accommodation agency.
“We can program,” says the 30-year-old.
A sketch over lunch, a phone call to the programmers: wohnung-ukraine.de goes online after just a few hours.
Within a week, more than 95,000 private individuals and companies registered on the platform, and a total of 213,000 beds were registered.
Much more than is currently needed.
"At the moment the supply is actually even greater than the demand," says Kunert, "but that's changing quickly." In the past few days, the number of inquiries for accommodation has increased "very dynamically".
Help for the people in Ukraine – you can donate here
Expand areaAction Alliance for Disaster Relief
Donation account: Commerzbank
IBAN: DE65 100 400 600 100 400 600
BIC: COBADEFFXXX Online donations:
aktionsbuendnis-katastrophenhilfe.de
Caritas Germany, the German Red Cross, Unicef and Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe have joined forces in the disaster relief action alliance.
AreaAktion Deutschland Hilft eVopen
DE62 3702 0500 0000 1020 30
BIC: BFSWDE33XXX
Bank for Social Economy
Online donations: Aktion Deutschland Hilft eV
Expand areaAction Little Prince
Donation account: Sparkasse Münsterland Ost
IBAN DE46 4005 0150 0062 0620 62
BIC: WELADED1MST
Expand areaDoctors of the World eV
Donation account: Deutsche Kreditbank
IBAN: DE06 1203 0000 1004 3336 60
BIC: BYLADEM1001
AreaAlliance Development Helpopen
Donation account: Bank for Social
Economy IBAN: DE29 100 20 5000 100 20 5000
BIC: BFSWDE33BER Online donations
: spender.entwicklung-hilft.de
The alliance includes Bread for the World, Christoffel-Blindenmission, German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Aid, Kindernothilfe, medico international, Misereor, Plan International, terre des hommes, Welthungerhilfe
Expand German Red Cross (DRK) section
IBAN: DE63370205000005023307
BIC: BFSWDE33XXX
Keyword: emergency aid Ukraine
Expand DivisionHumedica eV
Donation account: Sparkasse Kaufbeuren
IBAN: DE35 7345 0000 0000 0047 47
BIC: BYLADEM1KFB
Area Save the Children e.
V.open
Donation account: Bank for Social
Economy IBAN: DE92 1002 0500 0003 292912
BIC: BFSWDE33BER
Expand areaSOS Children's Villages worldwide
Donation account: GLS community
bank IBAN: DE22 4306 0967 2222 2000 00
Expand areaUN refugee aid
Donation account: Sparkasse Köln Bonn
IBAN: DE78 3705 0198 0020 0088 50
BIC: COLSDE33 Online donations
via: uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de
For Kunert, the platform is a way out of the state of shock.
Like many others, he wants to help the refugees quickly and very pragmatically.
But there are also difficult questions: data protection, security of the platform, confidentiality of the accommodation offers.
"Especially in the case of those seeking protection, this is highly sensitive information that we have to treat with the utmost care."
Platform stress test
The stress test for Kunert's platform has been running since Tuesday.
In the meantime, the man from Fulda has teamed up with Jörg Richert, founder of the Karuna social cooperative.
»We came to the limit of the virtual – we had to be there.« Together they decided to write an e-mail to everyone who had registered in Berlin at wohnung-ukraine.de – with an urgent request to come to Berlin Central Station .
The »matching« then takes place in an adjoining hall.
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Crowds in the capital: Helpers and those seeking help come together at Berlin Central Station
Photo: Serafin Reiber / DER SPIEGEL
How this works could be observed on Wednesday evening when Eurocity arrived from Warsaw.
Jörg Richert stood in the hall surrounded by dozens of helpers with a megaphone and a blue light jacket.
"Attention, a large family with ten children is looking for a place to sleep." Gradually, and with the help of translators, people find each other.
"A great feeling of happiness," says Wichert.
He knows that without Kundert's database, they would never be as effective.
But help is also being formed in other German cities.
Dresden, for example, bundles information on helping refugees on its website and also offers contacts to associations and initiatives for donations.
The city of Stuttgart has set up a "Coordination Staff Ukraine" to coordinate the work between the administration and the civilian population.
In Karlsruhe, the city is looking for people who can speak Ukrainian or who can provide accommodation for refugees.
All the helpers are preparing for the fact that more people will come every day.
The greatest challenges, everyone knows, are yet to come.