Hospitality for one and all: how Germany welcomes Ukrainian refugees

A small report from the Berlin station is published by a resident of the German capital Alexander Mindlin:

“This hour was not planned for me today, completely different things were waiting. But friends called and said that there were not enough Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking volunteers at the central station in Berlin to receive refugees arriving from Ukraine. And my wife and I went to the station.

What did we see?

From the very entrance to the station, signs with the Ukrainian flag and arrows begin. Signs are posted throughout the station, leading to the central meeting point for refugees. There are tables and benches, food is laid out and bottles of water or other drinks are placed. There are printed sheets with the necessary information.

Everyone is fed immediately and without further questions, supplied with water, medicines, everything necessary.

People in yellow vests walk around the station, with a strip pasted on their chest, where the name of the person and the list of languages that he speaks are written. These are volunteers - Berlin volunteers who came here to help refugees. There are many Ukrainians, many Russians, but there are also Germans, Italians, Spaniards. This is Berlin.

We also stuck strips with names on our jackets, found out exactly what to explain to the refugees, and began to work.

Oddly enough, most of all visitors needed information. What about documents? How to get to the right place? How to take the train and where to get a ticket? Where can you get a night in Berlin?

They had many questions. And there was a lot of excitement. But as they talked with us, the excitement receded, they calmed down, came to their senses. They came to understand that they were not left to the mercy of fate, that they were met here, helped, satisfied ...

Women, children... Lots of children. Suitcases, trunks, bags, backpacks. And there are practically no men. They stayed to defend their homes. Women with children simply needed help in dragging bags or suitcases.

We showed them where the Reisezentrum (German: tourist center) was and explained that they would get a ticket to any city in Germany for free. Sometimes, it was necessary to stay with the children while their mother received tickets. Sometimes - to show where the toilet is. And most importantly - to show where their train will depart from. And help to get on this train.

The fact is that the German system of passing trains is very different from the post-Soviet one. People look for "train to Frankfurt" or "train to Hannover" and don't know that here in Germany trains are distinguished mainly by departure time - "train at 2:30 pm" or "train at 2:45 pm". That trains stop at the station literally for 3-5 minutes, and carry on.

How do you manage to sit down, bring in your suitcases, find a seat on the train, and what to say if asked? This is where we helped them.

Some of the visitors knew Russian well and spoke it fluently. Some of them could speak Russian with great difficulty, but they still spoke. And some knew only Ukrainian, and did not understand other languages. Everyone was approached by volunteers who helped them in the language they needed.

There were also those who, in principle, did not speak Russian. I personally understood them, was not offended in the slightest, and either switched to English or called a volunteer with the Ukrainian language.

None of the Ukrainians were surprised that the Russians were helping them. None of them expressed any negative attitude towards me. Only gratitude.

We helped them get tickets, connect to WiFi, and solve all sorts of everyday issues.

What do I want to say to Berliners?

The situation at the station is this - when a train arrives, several hundred people get off at the same time. Sometimes 700-800. That's when volunteers are needed, and no one will be superfluous.

When most of those who arrived boarded trains in the directions they needed, or left to settle in Berlin, the station is empty, and there are more volunteers than refugees. Then we just start to get in the way...

For me, all that I saw was a revived picture from materials on the history of Berlin, when, after the 1st World War, a stream of refugees from Eastern Europe rushed to Berlin, driven from their homes by the war...

But that's a completely different story".