As of: February 24, 2024, 8:00 a.m
By: Andreas Steppan
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To show that they are doing well, the Khomiak family sent this picture to their parents two years ago.
It was recorded in Hungary, shortly after the border with Ukraine.
The family now lives in Königsdorf.
© private
Two years after the Russian attack, Ukrainians who fled to the district talk about their current situation and feelings.
Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen –
February 24th is a sad anniversary.
The Russian attack on Ukraine exactly two years ago was a deep turning point for Europe and also in the lives of countless people.
Fleeing the war in their homeland, many people also found their way to the district.
Our newspaper met with some of them and asked them how things went for them and what feelings they associated with the date.
Vladimir Khomiak
The doctor Vladimir Khomiak (41) comes from near Kiev.
He has been living in Königsdorf with his wife and six children since June 2022.
Because the latter were all under 18 at the start of the war, the family was allowed to leave the country.
“The first few months were very difficult,” he says.
“We always hoped we could go back.”
Because he knows English, he helped translate between Germans and Ukrainians.
He could have had a brilliant career in Ukraine.
In Bavaria he first cleaned in a clinic.
Khomiak now works as a home intensive care nurse.
His employer, a woman from Königsdorf, helped him overcome all the bureaucratic hurdles.
The Ukrainian is now learning German for the B2 language test.
In the summer he takes exams to become an assistant doctor.
“I really want to find a full-time job here,” he says.
Thanks to help from Kolping, among others, integration has now made great progress.
“My children enjoy going to school here,” he says.
And they have a safe route to school.
Large parts of the country are mined in Ukraine.
It is difficult for him to assess the situation in Ukraine.
“We get very different information, on different channels.” The war initially united people across religious and cultural differences.
This alliance is now fragile again.
Wealthy Ukrainians could avoid the war more easily than poorer ones.
This creates a divide in society.
Viktor Haransha
Viktor Haranscha has lived in Bad Tölz since 2022.
He is currently hearing a lot of bad news from Ukraine.
He doesn't like to talk about the war.
“The more positive our thoughts are, the faster the war will be over,” he is convinced.
But his motto in life is: “Always stay positive.” Or: “Where I live, I have to do good.”
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Viktor Haransha © Private
Haransha radiates this.
In Ukraine he worked for a charitable foundation.
He's always up for a joke.
He wants to tell a lot, and now he's getting better and better at it in German.
His job search recently took him to a daycare center.
He enthusiastically organizes music concerts for Bavarian-Ukrainian friendship.
Haranscha plays the guitar and sings his own songs – in German.
With this he wants to do something to counteract the war and the suffering.
He knows what German help means for Ukraine and he is happy to be able to live here.
“We always have to say thank you,” he emphasizes.
Julia Fox
“There are alarms about attacks every night in Kiev,” notes Yuliia Fuchs.
“This war is a huge catastrophe, not only for Ukraine, but also for Germany and for the whole world.” She is married to a German.
At the very beginning of the war she was in Kiev to obtain documents.
On the first day of the war, she put her son and her parents in the car and took them to Germany.
She now leads a bridging class with Ukrainian young people, which is very tiring.
Some of them are traumatized.
Yuliia Fuchs © Private
“In Ukraine we had everything.
We had a good life.
We are very hard-working and work a lot,” she says firmly.
When she thinks about the war, only one thought helps her: “I firmly believe that we will win, God will help us.” She knows the pilgrimage site Birkenstein, where people regularly pray for peace.
“I know this is important for all of us.”
Natalia Suprun
For Nataliia Suprun, the date February 24th initially means sadness.
But she immediately adds: “I prefer to say that for me it is a day of hope.” She wants the terrible anniversary to be an occasion for the whole world to look towards Ukraine.
“People must understand that the war cannot continue for another two years.”
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She herself had never experienced war in her life before.
“I only knew war from Grandma and Grandpa’s stories,” she says.
To this day, people in Ukraine cannot really understand what is happening - and even less so, even if they are not in the country.
Nataliia Suprun © arp
The finance graduate was deputy bank director in Nova Kachovka in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson.
Immediately after the Russian attack, she packed her bags and drove first to Lviv in western Ukraine, then to Germany.
Nataliia Suprun already spoke German well and quickly found work at the Tölz Municipal Services Association.
Today she leads “two lives,” she says.
“During the day, when I’m at work, I have to be positive.” This is the only way to get ahead, learn German, find work, earn money in order to be able to help others.
“If I just think about what’s bad, I can’t live, then I get sick,” says Nataliia Suprun.
In the evening her second life begins.
Then she turns on her cell phone and contacts family and friends in Ukraine and tries to help.
What she feels in Germany is happiness “that I have a roof over my head here in Bad Tölz and everything I need.”
Also grateful to all the people who help her.
And proud – of her 23-year-old daughter Yuliia, who lives in Ismaning, is currently completing a social year at a school and also works as a waitress.
(bib, branch)
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