On Monday, the Bavarian editorial team received a call that is rare. Klaus Lehner, a protagonist from a recent story, was very keen to share something very positive. However, one by one.
Last Friday, the Bavarian section of the SZ published a text about rising heating oil prices and how much this poses financial challenges for many people. We accompanied the heating oil supplier Klaus Lehner from Egglham in Lower Bavaria on his tour to customers.
One of them, 81-year-old Lieselotte Zaha, has been particularly hard hit by the tripling of the price of heating oil. In the past, Zaha was only able to buy oil for a few weeks or months with her pension. And that usually only with the help of the heating oil supplier Lehner, who repeatedly made it easy for her to stretch the payment of the bill over several months. Even if he doesn’t have much financial leeway to help out people like Lieselotte Zaha. With the renewed increase in the price of heating oil, however, she was threatened with a cold house in winter.
Since the text was published, a dozen readers from all over Germany have contacted Lehner and offered to help the widowed Zaha. “It’s really crazy, people are calling from everywhere. The offers of help range from 100 to 1000 euros. A man even asked what it would cost to fill up the whole tank,” said Lehner on the phone. Half of the announced transfers have already arrived on Lehner’s account. For this money he now brings Zaha heating oil. He doesn’t know yet whether it will be enough for the winter, but it looks good so far.
Lehner himself says he was very surprised by the calls. “You often hear and read that people are no longer showing solidarity, but that’s obviously not true. People are already helping together.” Lieselotte Zaha herself learned from Lehner at the weekend about the many calls and offers from the readers. “She was totally happy, excited and really touched,” says Lehner.