As of: February 24, 2024, 11:42 a.m
By: Nicole Kalenda
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The war brought them to Planegg (from left): Kseniia Pavlyna, Anna Lahodyuk and Maryna Kravchenko.
© Dagmar Rutt
The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that 6.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia's war of aggression began.
157 of them landed in Planegg.
Two years after the start of the war, most people are living life with Plan A and Plan B: Plan A means returning to Ukraine, Plan B means staying in Germany.
Planegg –
Anna Lahodyuk (35), Maryna Kravchenko (34) and Kseniia Pavlyna (44) all fled Ukraine for Germany in the first weeks after the Russian attack.
From Lviv, Zaporizhia and Kyiv.
They are now at home in Planegg.
They don't know how long.
A few days before the second anniversary of the outbreak of war on February 24th, they met in the Planegger town hall to talk about their new and old lives.
Lahodyuk worked as a tour guide in Ukraine, like her husband.
After the war broke out, he volunteered for the military, she grabbed her ten-month-old son and came to Germany from Lviv.
Vasyl is now almost three and visits a crèche in Martinsried.
Lahodyuk, who speaks German well, is employed by the community as a carer.
She looks after refugees from Ukraine and organizes accommodation in community accommodation such as the Pension Elisabeth.
Holiday from the front for Christmas
The family lived on the ninth floor of a high-rise building in Lviv, western Ukraine.
On the first Christmas after the war began, Anna Lahodyuk went home to see her husband for a few hours.
She says: “That was the worst.” The power station was hit, there was no electricity, no heating and no water.
The situation has now improved thanks to defense options provided by Western arms deliveries.
At Christmas 2023, Lahodyuk's husband, who like their son is called Vasyl, was on vacation from the front and came to Planegg for ten days.
He brought Bailey, the Labrador mix, who had been staying with her parents after Anna Lahodyuk's escape.
Vasyl Lahodyuk, the former tour guide, was initially stationed in the Donetsk region, but is now near Kharkiv.
The family's best friend has fallen, as has a former university lecturer Anna Lahodyuk and the man's comrades.
“Everyone has someone fighting at the front, and almost everyone has lost family, friends or acquaintances,” says Anna Lahodyuk.
“If you have relatives or friends in Ukraine, there is always stress, always pressure.
But it's worst for the people who stayed in Ukraine.
They suffer from the missiles and drone attacks, but they carry on despite everything.”
Maryna Kravchenko fled with her son Tymur (10) from Zaporizhia, the city whose nuclear power plant fell into Russian hands.
Kravchenko says: “I’m very lucky.” She works in the communications department of a media company based in Martinsried.
She managed to convince her parents Ihor (69) and Marharyta (67), who are in poor health, to also come to Germany.
“I'm very relieved since they're here.” And she's found an apartment big enough for all four of them.
When she was on the waiting list for a place in Planegger accommodation, the community received a call.
Someone offered an apartment for a Ukrainian family.
Son Tymur made friends at Martinsried elementary school.
Maryna Kravchenko takes him to school in the morning, goes to work, picks him up at lunchtime, goes back to work and still learns German for several hours every day.
“Waiting, hoping and developing, looking for a new security” is what her life consists of.
“The important thing is to be useful,” says Kravchenko.
“Anyone who works here pays taxes and can send aid to Ukraine.”
Keep in touch via the Internet and messenger services
She and her son still have many friends in Zaporizhia.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, Facebook and various messenger services, contact is close.
Kravchenko states: “The children are under a lot of psychological strain.
Some have panic attacks.” Every time there was an air raid, they went into the basement with their study supplies.
The difference between the time before the outbreak of war and now is difficult for them to understand and bear.
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“When there is an air alert and bombs are dropped, people have no feeling of security,” says Kseniia Pavlyna.
She came to Germany two years ago with her daughter Olha (16) and her mother Eleonora (69).
Pavlyna, a doctor with a PhD, was already working in the Ukrainian capital for a Swiss company as a project manager in international medical research.
“When the war started, colleagues immediately offered help,” she says.
Because the cars were shot at, she left Kyiv on the evacuation train on March 1, 2022.
Pavlyna is still at the biotechnology company, but her workplace is now in Steinkirchen.
A colleague helped look for an apartment, and the daughter now attends a high school in Schäftlarn, plays the flute in the school orchestra and is a member of the youth fire brigade in Planegg.
Until the summer of the first year of the war, she had Ukrainian distance learning in addition to school in Germany.
Her advantage is that she spoke German as a second foreign language at home.
“Your best friends from Kyiv are scattered in the UK, the Netherlands, the USA because of the war,” says Pavlyna.
“We don’t know what the future will bring.” And Anna Lahodyuk adds: “We don’t know where we will return to.” Through her work as a carer, she has a lot of contact with the refugees.
She says: “The mothers with children doubt whether they will return.
The pensioners want to go back.” Lahodyuk tells of an older couple who longed for their home in Zaporizhzhia.
Shortly after returning, a rocket destroyed the apartment and everything in the area.
The two of them are now staying in the Elisabeth guesthouse.
The vast majority of Ukrainians in Planegg want to make the most of their lives, says Lahodyuk.
“For themselves and for their country.
Almost everyone wants to integrate.” The people who lived in community accommodation all attended integration courses.
“Only the pensioners sit there and wait full of hope for a return.
The other adults always have two plans: go back and stay here.”
Hope is the wrong word to express how she feels, says Kseniia Pavlyna.
“We believe everything will be okay in the end.” And Maryna Kravchenko emphasizes: “All refugees are grateful for the help that they are receiving and that Ukraine is receiving.” She herself is grateful “that my son and my parents are safe and that I have the opportunity to work and learn."
It is important to have a contact person in the community who “speaks our language”.
This helps to overcome the feeling of alienation.
Anna Lahodyuk says about her relationship with the Ukrainian refugees: “I am in the same situation as them.
The background for all of us is war.”