As of: February 26, 2024, 2:30 p.m
By: Tanja Brinkmann
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Split
A picture of destruction: many cities, like this one in the Donetsk region in the south, are completely bombed.
© Roman Pilipey/AFP
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to rid it of “Nazis” and prevent NATO from expanding eastward.
Hundreds of thousands fled to Germany - a good 750 also to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The Kovtun and Gerasiutenko families tell us how they are doing and how they have integrated.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
– She now ignores the headlines.
Also what is spread on social media.
Pure self-protection.
“At the beginning, when we came here, I read everything, I didn't want to miss anything,” remembers Kateryna Kovtun.
The result: nighttime panic attacks.
The images and reports from her Ukrainian homeland, which has been under attack by Russia for two years, where tens of thousands of people have died and where many houses and a lot of infrastructure have been destroyed, are simply too terrible.
“It destroys you,” says the mother of two.
Knowledge of German helped with getting used to it
In her hometown of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, war quickly became very close.
“There was shooting every day, every night.” The water supply was one of the first targets of the bombs.
“There was only water from the river,” says Kovtun.
Nothing worked anymore, pharmacies and supermarkets remained closed - “people were in a panic”.
About a month after the war began, she decided to leave her country.
Above all, to offer perspective to her son and daughter, who are now 16 and 11 years old.
After a few weeks in Poland, they came to Bavaria with the help of a German doctor's family - and then to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in their apartment.
While the German and English teacher and her son found it relatively easy to settle in thanks to their language skills, “it was a big shock for my daughter.”
She couldn't speak German and suddenly had to go to school all alone, with only a piece of paper in her pocket with her mother's phone number on it.
“That was very hard for her.”
Kateryna Kovtun teaches students from Ukraine.
© private
Viktoriia and Dmytro Gerasiutenko were also affected by the language barrier when they arrived in Germany in April 2022.
“We only knew a little German, that was difficult,” says the 45-year-old.
When the war began, the couple was on vacation.
“It was purely a coincidence that we weren’t in Ukraine.” It’s understandable that the specialist in anesthesia and emergency medicine didn’t return to his home country.
His wife drove back - into the middle of the battle for Mariupol.
“We lived nearby,” she says.
“I was afraid, it was very dangerous.” But the top priority was to get her son and daughter (now 16 and 17) to safety.
With the children and two suitcases with everything she needed, she met her husband in Poland.
From there they went to Germany, first to a camp in Munich, then they had a choice - and chose Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The decisive factor was that there is a large clinic here where her husband hopes to get a job.
He now has one foot in the hospital on Auenstrasse.
“I now work in the central operating room as a nursing assistant,” says the 48-year-old.
In order to improve his language skills, he is currently taking a German course in Munich.
Once he has the necessary certificate, he wants to have his qualification recognized so that he can finally practice as a doctor again.
Feeling comfortable in Garmisch-Partenkirchen: Viktoriia and Dmytro Gerasiutenko.
© Josef Hornsteiner
Kovtun also plans to do that.
The German and English teacher started teaching students again shortly after her arrival - but only the Ukrainian children and young people in the bridge classes at Werdenfels-Gymnasium and Zugspitz-Realschule.
“I’m happy that I can work full-time in my job again.” But in order to be in front of a German class, she would have to study again.
“It’s only like that in Bavaria,” regrets the educator.
Your diploma would be recognized in all other federal states.
If that doesn't change, Kovtun would have to move.
Once again.
And start all over again.
Without friends, without a social network.
A step she would not like to take.
However, it would have to.
The additional training that has so far been required in the Free State simply cannot be reconciled with her children, even if her son and daughter have integrated well.
Horrible reports on social media
What is clear to Kovtun and the Gerasiutenkos is that they want to stay in Germany.
Just because of the children.
There was simply too much destruction in her home country.
There is still no stable water supply in Mykolaiv, and schools and universities have been razed to the ground.
Kovtun wouldn't even know where she should teach.
Viktoriia and Dmytro Gerasiutenko also see no basis for a return.
The accountant currently works part-time at the job center.
Her mother now also lives in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
They have contact with other relatives and friends via social media.
And we regularly hear terrible news.
Like the one about an oncologist friend who died with his wife and two children.
Another friend also died in the bombing.
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Both families are deeply grateful that they are safe and have a perspective.
“Our hearts hurt for our homeland,” says Viktoriia Gerasiutenko.
And also when they think about what they had to leave behind.
They see their new life and just like the Kovtuns in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.