No war in the classroom: Russian students help Ukrainian children study

Created: 05/16/2022, 15:56

In a high school in Hildesheim, Russian children help their Ukrainian classmates with their studies.

Language and culture unite the young people.

Hildesheim – When teacher Thorben Trüter asks twelve-year-old Katarina if she would like to play a role in the class musical, the Ukrainian girl looks to Viktoria in the first row of seats for help.

"Viktoria, can you translate?" A question that Trüter often asks the eleven-year-old girl with Russian roots in class.

Viktoria gets up from her seat and explains the question to Katarina in a Russian whisper.

Finally, Katarina thumbs up with a victorious smile.

"I understand." Katarina is one of more than 90,000 children nationwide who fled the war in Ukraine and are now going to a German school, as reported by hna.de.

Collegiality instead of war: Russian children and young people help their Ukrainian classmates to study

In Lower Saxony alone there are currently almost 12,000 Ukrainian schoolchildren.

The 12-year-old, who comes from Kyiv, started class 6-M at Hildesheim's Andreanum Gymnasium shortly before the Easter holidays.

She has already had some German lessons in the Ukraine.

And she often communicates without translation.

When the classmates make jokes, Katarina also giggles.

"The children here have been very welcoming to me," she says.

Katarina (right) and Natalia (left) from the Ukraine with teacher Thorben Trüter in class 6M at the Andreanum Gymnasium Hildesheim.

They are among the 12,000 children in Lower Saxony who fled the war in Ukraine and are attending a German school.

© Nancy Heusel/epd

On the day of their arrival in Germany, the Andreanum students were organizing a charity run for the Ukraine and collected more than 55,000 euros.

Among other things, they were able to use this to finance an ambulance for a hospital in Kyiv and to support the food banks in the region, says headmaster Dirk Wilkening proudly.

The solidarity at the Protestant school is noticeably great.

Two days before Katarina was admitted to the class, Trüter designed and laminated translation cards with the students.

"How are you?" and "Does something hurt?" is written on it in German and Ukrainian.

In the beginning, Katarina and her Ukrainian classmate often picked up these cards, but now they are hardly ever used.

However, Viktoria is not always there to translate.

"Sometimes it's a bit annoying, because I'm constantly being asked during the breaks," she says.

Language and culture often unite Russian and Ukrainian children and young people

A translation app on your smartphone will also help in class.

Only the poem by Mascha Kaleko chosen by Trüter that day does not really want to be translated.

"It doesn't work so well with poetry," he says with a grin.

Katarina and her Ukrainian classmate are given the task of bringing a Ukrainian spring poem to class.

The ten Ukrainian students at the Andreanum are supposed to take part in regular classes together with Russian-speaking students and only learn German as a second language in special hours.

The teachers don't address the pupils' war experiences, first of all it's about arriving.

The fact that Viktoria has Russian roots and Katarina is from the Ukraine is not important to the girls.

They hardly talk to each other about the war, they both say.

"What is there to say about that?" asks Katarina.

It does bother Viktoria, however, that Russians are increasingly being discriminated against in the course of the Ukraine conflict.

Not all Russians in Germany support Putin's war in Ukraine

"A lot of people are not for the war, that's just nonsense.

Not everyone is like Putin.” Katarina finally says hesitantly and with a serious expression that her greatest wish is for her family to be reunited.

She misses her father.

Her little dachshund "Puma" also stayed in Kyiv.

"Actually, we need a Ukrainian social worker for these issues," says Trüter.

In the near future, a Ukrainian teacher at the Andreanum will also provide the students with subject matter from her home country.

The Lower Saxony Ministry of Education uses an online portal to place Ukrainian teachers nationwide.

Ukrainian refugee children want to do their Abitur in Germany

Thus, until the end of the Ukrainian school year at the end of May, the students can participate in the online lessons of Ukraine.

It is uncertain what will happen after that.

For Maria and Mariana from the 11th grade, however, it is already clear that they want to do their Abitur at the Andreanum.

They learned German in Kyiv a long time ago and help a lot with the translations, because the Ukrainian students often speak little English and hardly any German.

The two 17-year-olds recently created a video devotional with their classmates, which was distributed on YouTube.

In it, Mariana finally asks God for help: "Give us patience to wait for our fathers, for peace and justice." (epd)

The Air Force flies injured people from Ukraine from Poland to Hanover - 14 patients from the war zone are now being treated in Lower Saxony.

Hildesheim's Catholic Bishop Heiner Wilmer visited Ukrainian refugees in a Catholic facility.