AreaRead the video transcript expand here
Polina and Marta are nineteen and eighteen years old.
Shortly after the beginning of the war they fled from Kyiv to Berlin.
They documented their escape on their cell phones in photos and videos.
Marta Pysanko, 18
»This is the Polish border.
There was a lot of rubbish everywhere.
So we all crossed the border.«
The teenagers now live with Katja Schütz.
The Berlin biologist is one of many volunteers who offer refugees a makeshift home in their own apartment - as best they can.
Polina Okhrytkova, 19 years old
»We talk about it every day: We are safe here, but our families are in Ukraine and we cannot help them.
We can only take care of the younger ones, Makar and Masha.«
Traveling with them was 17-year-old Masha and Marta's 14-year-old brother Makar, who refused to be filmed.
Katja Schütz has a son of the same age.
What the children had to go through is still unimaginable for them.
Katja Schütz, offers private accommodation
»They were on a skiing holiday three weeks ago.
It's like taking our kids to the UK - that's crazy.«
For Marta, the changed reality means one thing above all:
Marta Pysanko, 18
»We are not a soft people.
We are strong and we will rebuild our country.
Our country is being built by people like Polina and me.
Yesterday we were still children.
Today we take care of two "children" ourselves, are in a foreign country.«
Katja Schütz, helper
»What I think is really great: they both say yes, we are going to the University of Arts and Culture and we will be the future directors of our cultural institutions.
So that means we build it up.
And even so, come back, even if everything is destroyed there now, we'll rebuild it even more beautifully and we'll make the country.
There is so much, so much strength left and so much hope in this future.
And that's kind of touching."
As in many western cities, sympathy for the Ukrainians is great in Berlin.
Tens of thousands took to the streets again this weekend to demonstrate against Putin's war of invasion.
This gesture alone, the protest against the war, is a support for the young Ukrainians.
Marta Pysanko, 18 years old
“We can demonstrate here too.
We saw a huge crowd of people wearing Ukrainian flags standing in front of our embassy chanting for no flights over Ukraine.
We saw that and realized that we can also do something for our country here in Germany.
But we just hope that this war will end as soon as possible - and that we can go back to Kyiv to rebuild it.«
When or if that will be possible, nobody can say at the moment.
