A Sunday evening in Bad Staffelstein near Bamberg. A typical German dinner with brown bread, sausage and cheese is on the table, along with homemade apple juice. “Grab it,” says Monika Löffler, 60. Her husband Thomas and three sisters from Ukraine are sitting at the table: Yuliia, 26, Alina, 22, and Iryna Kliamar, 19. When the war started, the Löfflers quickly decided: ” We don’t just want to talk, we want to do something.” On March 19, the guests from the Ukraine moved into the semi-detached house in Bad Staffelstein.
Similar to Monika and Thomas Löffler, many people have spontaneously decided in recent weeks to take in refugees. Hundreds of people stood at the major train stations with cardboard signs: “Welcome 2 people as long as you want” or “1 mom, 2 children, 6 weeks”. In between, volunteers with megaphones mediated.
They are touching pictures that testify to a great willingness to help. But where does all that space come from in a country reportedly suffering from a housing shortage? Usually guest rooms or other unused rooms in one’s own apartment are offered, rarely holiday apartments or apartments that were empty. The Löfflers prepared the rooms for their three adult children, who have long since moved out. These accommodations have one thing in common: it is living space that would not normally be available. Monika and Thomas Löffler would not have come up with the idea of subletting the children’s rooms if it hadn’t been for the war in the Ukraine.
The sisters found happiness through Whatsapp
One opinion poll by the Federal Ministry of the Interior among almost 2,000 refugees from Ukraine at the end of March showed that more than half were finding accommodation privately: 19 percent of those surveyed with relatives, 24 percent with friends and 22 percent in another private apartment. Only seven percent state that they sleep in collective accommodation, for example in a trade fair hall or in a gym.
The help portal shows that the state also relies on private commitment Germany4Ukraineset up by the Ministry of the Interior. Under the “Accommodation” button you will find the link to the private page “Accommodation Ukraine” at the top. The 30-year-old entrepreneur Lukas Kunert programmed it on the very first day of the war. There are now 360,000 beds in 150 locations. The site works on the same principle warm bedwhere thousands of beds are also offered.
Yuliia Kliamar’s post that she was looking for accommodation for three sisters was shared more than 2,000 times on a Whatsapp group. “Be careful,” many warned. But Thomas Löffler immediately sent his identity card and Monika filmed the children’s room. “These are good people,” Yuliia Kliamar reassured her parents, who were staying in their home town near the Belarusian border.
Although they’ve only recently shared a bathroom and food, the Löfflers and their guests seem familiar with one another. The communication works great, because Yuliia and Iryna have studied foreign languages and speak fluent German. Alina is studying medicine, the lectures continue online, sometimes interrupted by bomb alarms.
“It doesn’t matter to us whether we live in Berlin or Bad Staffelstein.”
The cozy house full of plants, books and a Swedish stove has become a safe haven. It’s “perfect” here, says Yuliia, and all three sisters nod. Monika and Thomas Löffler don’t even take rent from the refugees. To distract themselves from the terrible events in their homeland, the Ukrainian women go jogging or ride through the nearby fields on the bikes that the Löfflers have gotten for them.
The Kliamar sisters were lucky, they feel at home in the country. “It doesn’t matter to us whether we live in Berlin or Bad Staffelstein,” emphasizes Yuliia. On her escape she was initially stranded in Slovakia and then, like many others, boarded the train to Berlin. Together with Alina’s twin sister and her husband, they initially lived with a well-known actor.
They soon realized that it was difficult to find permanent accommodation for five people in Berlin, where not even registration worked. In the country, on the other hand, the potential for living space is far from exhausted, as the offers on “Accommodation Ukraine” show.