Help for Ukraine in Bavaria: Only sleep when there is time – Bavaria

The first 40-ton truck recently drove off. It was a sunny, cold day in Nuremberg, the 14th day of the war in the Ukraine, and a good 20 helpers had gathered early in the morning at a logistics site in the north of Nuremberg. They formed a human chain, package after package had to get into the huge truck, everything that went, surgical needles, syringes, plasters, special kits for flesh wounds, even hospital beds and wheelchairs. Then a refreshment for the two drivers and around noon the truck rolled off. The destination: Przemyśl in Poland, near the Ukrainian border, a distance of more than 1000 kilometers to the city, which has quickly become the central transhipment point for aid deliveries.

In many cities in Bavaria, the Ukraine aid is now running at full speed. Since more and more refugees have been arriving, the Free State has been faced with the challenge of accommodating them. At the same time, however, cars, sprinters and trucks are moving in the opposite direction. Aid organizations rotate mainly in larger cities such as Würzburg, Augsburg and Regensburg, volunteers work in extra shifts.

In Nuremberg, one of these groups is called “One Europe”. An actually small association that maintains cultural exchange between the Ukraine and Nuremberg, for example with meetings of young people and Holocaust survivors. Now, however, aid for Ukraine is “the number one priority,” says Chairman Andrej Novak. That means bringing donations and bulk purchases of medical material to the Ukraine as quickly as possible.

Shortly after the first Russian attack on Ukraine, “One Europe” set up a warehouse on the logistics site with an aid network from the region, including the association “Bamberg:UA”, set up two full-time jobs with computers, financed by donations from the association – and one Sorting and loading system established. Tanja Ehrlein, 30, from Nuremberg, Ukraine, from “Bamberg:UA”, leads through the rows of boxes in mid-March. Painkillers here, antidepressants there, sleeping bags on the other. By mid-March, they had brought 50 tons of relief supplies to the Ukraine. 12,000 euros in donations from “One Europe” have already been invested. They now work here with printed labels and QR codes, “that makes loading the buses easier,” she says. In times of crisis, NGOs learn quickly.

The donation amounts are huge. So much so that Ehrlein and the team drive the many clothes to the Red Cross in town. It’s more needed here now, for the arriving people who fled in haste and without luggage. In Ukraine, there is a particular lack of hospital equipment. Most recently, they were able to transport ultrasound equipment donated by a clinic.

Anna Rozengurt, 41, who fled Ukraine at the beginning of the war, is also helping. She now knows the team in the drafty warehouse, but mainly manages large deliveries with her husband, who stayed in the Ukraine. She talks about it over a cup of tea in the midst of the boxes. She was able to set herself up in the apartment of “One Europe” boss Novak, whom she knows privately. A desk, two screens, a constant eye on social media, especially Telegram and Facebook.

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She fled with her eight-year-old son from Kyiv, the city where she, the cosmopolitan, the director, got stuck. More precisely: she, her husband, filmmaker, and their son. She lived in Rostov, Russia, where she comes from, in Israel, where she has family. At some point they came to Kyiv for a few weeks on business and stayed for six years. And now? Sit her at these screens and do what she can as she says. She and her husband collected 70,000 euros and mainly bought medicines and bandages and had them taken to Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernihiv. They brought 600 liters of infusion solution from Düsseldorf to the Kharkiv central hospital. “Now we’re waiting for a shipment of L-thyroxine, a hormone for the thyroid.”

Initially, while still in Kyiv, later in their first place of refuge, Lviv, they sent information to other fleeing refugees on how to leave the capital, over which bridge, and on which train, she says. “You don’t know who is a saboteur and who isn’t.” As the wounded increased, they turned their focus to medicine. She works practically day and night, says Novak. She misses her husband, says Rozengurt. “I would like to go to Kyiv.” Back to her old life. “But our city will never be the same again.” We are hearing from several places now that women are going back. To their husbands and because they can’t stand being powerless in exile. Even in Lviv it was too dangerous for Rozengurt. Her husband has to be ready for military service there.

Not far from Lviv, in Przemyśl, Poland, in the middle of a large transhipment point, which Tanja Ehrlein and her team also drive to, you can reach a Bamberg clergyman these days. On the cell phone, Bogdan Puszkar tells us that a donation from the ambulance has just arrived. “Aid from all over Europe comes together here,” he says.

Puszkar, 65, was a former pastor of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Bamberg. Now he is coordinating that the deliveries from Bavaria are reloaded onto vehicles with Ukrainian license plates and driven on. Or that the ambulances or fire engines arrive at their destinations. “My attention is on the people who stayed,” he says. He’s always on the phone, talking to the military-civilian administration in Lviv, and also driving over to Ukraine. Sleeping in the Catholic monastery where he has a bed is okay, but the vans also come at around two or three in the morning. So he rests when he has time. Then he warns: “Never mind if it sounds absurd, Ukraine is considered Europe’s breadbasket. But soon we will also need food.”

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Meanwhile, Tanja Ehrlein is preparing the next delivery in Nuremberg. She has also driven herself, with a Ukrainian license plate. The handover took place just across the Polish border, not far from a previously bombed military base. She’s actually a pacifist, says Ehrlein, “but these days you’re really considering doing basic training again.”