5.3.2022
I spend the morning of March 5th in the office, the laptop is my main weapon in this war. After a week, more than 45,000 euros in donations are on the account of our partner institution, the IKGS. Institute for Culture and History Southeastern Europe at the LMU Munich. The first aid supplies bought with this donation money are just being loaded at the border from a bus of the Romanian partner university “Stefan cel Mare” into a Ukrainian transporter, my closest allies in this war, S. and O., are doing that right now.
It’s good to be able to see that the three of us are not only a well-rehearsed team in peacetime, we also tick in the same way in war. That’s not a matter of course. In Suceava, the pro-rector of the university personally takes care of the logistics. Multe mulțumiri, domnule Prorector. In Chernivtsi everything is distributed quickly.
My doctoral supervisor calls and says he has “an almost absurd question at this time”. His son and his family were able to leave Kharkiv after all and are on their way to Chernivtsi. Do I have any tips for accommodation? He himself, one of the most renowned German professors in Ukraine, and his wife live in a two-room apartment. Taking five more people there is unrealistic. After a short phone call, I can reply that he can almost see himself as a jackpot winner. Gallows humor is also one of our weapons in this war. We have actually kept the very last accommodation available to us, that of the DAAD language assistant. Hopefully the family will make the long journey well.
I have never written a reason for using a bathing establishment
I have an unusual amount of time for this diary text, which I am supposed to hand in on Sunday, I think on Saturday afternoon when I return from the university. Maybe even an hour in the evening and then on Sunday morning before my guests from Zhytomyr and I leave for the Romanian border around 11am. Mother and son want to go to Poland, our German friends from Potsdam are on their way to Romania, pick them up and take them to a relative in Wroclaw.
They cross the border on foot, the men and I drive back. General mobilization means men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country unless they have a relevant medical certificate. In the evening we all sit together for a short time – with my sister’s family who lives next door.
A phone call thwarts my plan for a thoughtful, unhurried letter. A group of children from Mariupol, 40 people, was rescued from the besieged city. They will be in Chernivtsi tomorrow at noon, then on to Romania. They want to take a break here, a free church provides food, and an agreement has been reached with a public bathing establishment that the children can take a shower there. They had to stay in shelters for several days.
Mariupol is locked in, messages to a colleague do not go through
Can I get care sets? Definitely, that just means that first thing in the morning is a trip to a supermarket. Ms brother can drive there, we can do it before eleven o’clock. However, it won’t be a quiet Sunday morning for writing. I also have to write a letter of justification, the director is cooperative, but she has to have something in writing, the bureaucracy doesn’t stop in war. I’ve never written a reason for using a public bathing facility, but with a little imagination I can do it, writing essays was one of my strengths at school. I’ll find out later whether the good lady accepts it that way.
Mariupol, a port city of 400,000 that the Russian “liberators” sent back in 2014 to where the “Russian warship” was sent by the Snake Island defenders on the first day of the war, has been surrounded for six days. This tactic is supposed to speed up the “denazification of Ukraine” in several places.
Mariupol is known to German readers from the novel “She came from Mariupol” by Natascha Wodin. This family story also tells a lot about the exciting, multinational history of the city. There is also a student from Mariupol who did an internship at our Denkdach center shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic. Contact with R. was maintained, she last visited us in December and talked a lot about her work in an international organization in her hometown. A bright, well-educated prospective administrator. My messages to her on March 3rd have not been delivered, nor have two others on March 5th.
The evacuation from the city failed because the Russians did not observe the ceasefire. That was almost predictable. Non-compliance with agreements at all levels is a defining “trait” of our eastern neighbor. I still hope for the moment when an answer from R. appears on my smartphone.
Read more episodes of this column here.