The horrific images and horrific news from Ukraine meanwhile make many people in the district feel the need to lend a hand, to help, to house refugees, to donate. Relief campaigns are under way in the communities, people make their guest rooms available or drive off in trucks themselves to bring relief supplies to the Ukrainian borders. Some also come up with very unusual ideas in the hope of getting closer to peace. How about, for example, simply writing to the Pope?
Hella Langer, a Catholic from Graefelfing, thinks it’s worth trying as a Catholic church “to appeal to the Christian conscience of patriarch Cyril I and to work with him on President Putin, and to do so in a highly effective manner everywhere.” She writes this to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, asking him to use all his influence on Pope Francis to send a strong signal for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. “In my view, a Twitter message is not sufficient for the highest representative of the Catholic Church, it is far too weak,” she says. Hella Langer points out that it is ultimately a war between two Christian countries that have been connected over the centuries. “A self-described Christian president of a country orders a war of aggression against his Christian neighbor and causes endless destruction and suffering for everyone involved. If the head of the Catholic Church is not asked to do everything, even with personal commitment, then when? “, she explains her letter.
The Unterfoehringer FDP councilor Veit Wiswesser also wrote a letter to Mayor Andreas Kemmelmeyer about the planned opening of the Feststadel this Sunday. Because of the war in the Ukraine, he “neither the need nor the nerves to take part in any festival in a beery mood and with Dschingderassabum,” writes Wiswesser. Rather, he suggests preparing the Feststadl as an emergency shelter for war refugees. In Unterföhring, various associations have now come together to form an “Action Alliance Ukraine” in order to pool and coordinate aid and fundraising campaigns. The municipality supports the alliance, among other things, in information work. The municipal council spontaneously donated 10,000 euros to the German section of the “Doctors Without Borders” association.
The residents of Unterschleißheim collected donations in kind during a major campaign at the Lohhofer Volksfestplatz. Sleeping bags, sleeping mats, bed linen, blankets, first-aid kits, medical gloves, children’s diapers and thermal underwear came together, the Third Mayor Annegret Harms (SPD) was happy about several fully packed trucks that brought the things to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic parish in Munich. The family center of the Unterschleißheim Neighborhood Aid now offers an open meeting for refugees and children from the Ukraine every Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. It should invite you to exchange ideas, get to know each other and play. Residents from Unterschleißheim, who are housing the refugees, are also welcome.
In Straßlach-Dingharting, the community employees have started a call for donations. The first package was donated by all community workers. Hygiene items, baby food, diapers, medication and bandages were packed. “I was overwhelmed by the helpfulness of my employees and the eagerness with which they collected and donated the really important relief supplies,” said Mayor Hans Sienerth. Together with senior citizens’ representative Jessica Bauner, the community has set up a collection point at the senior citizens’ base in Straßlach. The community reports that the encouragement and support from the population has been enormous. The first things could already be handed over to an aid organization in Munich on Thursday.
Twelve Ukraine refugees arrived in Brunnthal on Friday night. The children and their mothers were initially housed in the Brunnthal country inn and are gradually to move into an empty community-owned apartment and into rooms offered by citizens. Sascha Peter Kraus, reserve officer in the German Navy, and municipal councilor Andreas Langner (CSU) picked them up with their wives and a Hofoldinger citizen in two Sprinter buses from the Geldhauser bus company, “in Slovakia, about 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border on a hopeless crowded station”, as the second mayor Thomas Mayer (CSU) says. Mayer heads the new coordination staff, which takes care of accommodation, support and assistance for the refugees. In an emotional discussion on Wednesday, the municipal council decided that the municipality would advance costs as emergency aid and take in up to 14 war refugees.
In Haar, a private initiative supported by the Haar community calls for a chain of lights again as a sign of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, against war and for peace. The meeting point is on Sunday, March 13, at 7 p.m. on the Haarer Anger in front of the Poststadel. “Everyone is welcome – as a human being, as Europeans and as citizens, to set an example!” the initiators write. Already on Friday, the churches called for an ecumenical prayer for peace in the churchyard of the Jesus Church.