"We prayed: Hopefully the rockets won't hit us"

Olga Fastovez worked in Ukraine in an institution for seriously ill children and young people. When the war began there, they fled together. Here she tells her story.

My name is Olga Fastovez, I am 64 years old. Shortly after the war began, I fled my Ukrainian hometown of Bila Zerkwa in March 2022 with a group of more than 30 children and young people with severe disabilities and other carers. Bila Zerkwa means White Church, has around 200,000 inhabitants and is located around 70 kilometres south of Kiev. We have been living together in Haus Mamre in Bielefeld-Bethel for a year and a half now.

I didn't believe that this war could happen. When I saw a rocket for the first time, I thought it looked like a car flying in the sky with its headlights switched on. The facility for seriously ill children and young people where I worked in Bila Zerkwa is located between a military barracks and an airport and is therefore in the sights of the Russian attackers. It quickly became clear that we had to get away from there.

We fled to Poland first. In the bus I was travelling in, we couldn't properly secure the seriously ill children and young people we were looking after. We had to lay some of them on the floor so that they wouldn't fall and injure themselves. We drove for hours and prayed: Hopefully the rockets won't hit us. We stayed in Kolberg in Poland for a fortnight and all lived together in one room. We were soon told to go on to Germany, to Bethel, where the children would be better!

I was sceptical. Today I say: it turned out to be true. Our sick children and young people, who were full of fear and totally exhausted from the flight, are doing so much better here thanks to the help from Bethel. It's so nice to see that they are treated like other children here. That they are supported, that they go to school. That they are looked after, that they are given clothes. That might be normal in Germany. Not in Ukraine. Sick children don't receive this kind of support there.

I really like Bethel. Everything is so clean and green here. I also like the 30 km/h speed limit in the town and that the cars stop in front of the zebra crossings. Everyone drives so fast in Bila Zerkwa, it's so dangerous. Before I came here, I spent my whole life in Bila Zerkwa. I couldn't afford to go on holiday. Now it's possible. I earn enough money in Bethel to visit my home town and bring presents to my relatives. I gave my 14-year-old granddaughter, who lives with my daughter in Poland, a mobile phone. She said: "Grandma, you've become a rich woman!" We laughed.

"What we have experienced together connects us forever."

Olga Fastovez, carer at Bethel

My nephew is at war, as is my niece's husband. Phone calls with them are very short. They say: "I'm fine", then they hang up quickly so that the Russian army can't locate their position. When my nephew was in hospital after being shot through the lung, he told me terrible things about the war. Of soldiers dying, of fields littered with corpses, both Ukrainian and Russian. It is so unimaginably horrific. Why can't we live together in peace? Why war? I don't understand it.

I am very grateful that I am allowed to work at Bethel and I am doing well. My Ukrainian colleagues, who fled with me and look after the children and young people with me, feel the same way. We want to work, we don't want to live on state support. Some people in Ukraine believe that there is money for everyone in Germany just like that. I know now that it's not like that. You have to work hard for it here. But I want to, and I like doing the work because I get so much back from the children and young people every day. I also don't let it get me down. You have to move forward and look ahead, that's my attitude to life. I recently moved into a rented flat in Bethel. However, I would like to return to my home country later.

There's a saying in Ukrainian: "You're drawn to the place where you were born." And so it is. My house is in Bila Zerkwa, where I have the graves of my parents, my husband, who died of coronavirus two years ago, and my son, who drowned in a river 18 years ago. Now I still have my daughter and my granddaughter. I live for them. And for the children I look after at Bethel. They are like my own children, I have grown very fond of them. What we have experienced together connects us forever.

Translation: Katharina Enns | Transcript: Philipp Kreutzer | Photo: Matthias Cremer

This story simply told

Olga Fastovez worked in Ukraine in an institution for seriously ill children and young people. When the war began there, they fled together. The escape was very exhausting. They were very scared. Now Olga Fastovez and the children and young people from Ukraine live in Bethel. They are much better off there.

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