One of the e-mails on the morning of March 15 has the subject “Need thyroid medication”, it’s about L-thyroxine for a refugee cancer patient, it’s no longer available in pharmacies. A lot of things are not available in the pharmacies at the moment, there wasn’t even a simple antipyretic the day before yesterday, and the pharmacist said to my niece, who bought an antibiotic for her daughter: “You’re lucky, there are only two packs left, We won’t get more from this manufacturer because the pharmaceutical company was bombed near Kyiv.”
Two hours later, my sister sends me the same question, maybe it even comes from the same person, because both requests come from the university community. L-thyroxine is essential to life and must be taken regularly, I’m learning. And then a happy coincidence happens, as we can sometimes experience in extreme times: In the afternoon, a transport with many medicines leaves the University Hospital Halle for Chernivtsi. This help comes about thanks to S.’s contacts, when he asks about the medicine, The truck is being loaded and ten minutes later we are told that L-thyroxine is also in stock and several thousand doses will be given.
Online classes are scheduled to start again this week. I start the zoom meeting at 11.30 a.m. It is a small group, three of the five students are connected. Nine minutes later there’s an air raid alert. So see you later. My colleagues and I first go into the basement, but two “duties” have to stay in the hallway in front of the “office” in order to pass on the message by telephone when the all-clear is given. You can’t hear the siren in the old residence, the signal comes via the Internet. A few minutes the three of us return from the basement, firstly there is no network there, secondly we think it’s nicer if we all sit together.
Hopefully the newborn doesn’t have to spend the first few days of life down here
There are now five of us in the dark hallway, three women and two men. We read the news, chat and talk, everyone has a few jokes ready, dozens are made every day, one that fits the situation is said to come from Lemberg: “Damned air raid alarm for an hour now; is the bomb being ridden on a bicycle or what ?” My colleagues I. and K. are young women who are committed to many things. I. is actually still a student in real life, her English is excellent and she runs a small language school. Now she is helping the refugees, several people have also been taken into her house, some went further abroad, after work she sometimes still weaves camouflage nets. K. is of Romanian descent and is responsible for communication with Romanian partner universities. Now she always drives to the Ukrainian-Romanian border crossing when aid transports come for us from Romania to help, both linguistically and physically. Her husband is with the police and has to reckon with being deployed in the less quiet regions at any time. Shortly after 1 p.m. the all-clear was given. We’re going back to our jobs. Class time is now over.
While I’m cooking in the kitchen in the evening, my niece comes over from next door. She left a beer bottle with us and would now like to pick it up for K. By the way, the sale of beer and spirits with a low alcohol content has been permitted again since yesterday. I’m a little amazed, just for K., who will give birth in two weeks? My niece says K. is quite upset, her parents’ village near Mykolaiv has been under constant fire for two days, the parents stayed in their small basement, didn’t eat anything and only drank a little liquid so they wouldn’t wake up need the toilet. They probably don’t tell their daughter everything either. Now they have managed to drive out to relatives in Mykolaiv, but it remains questionable whether it will be safer in the middle of the city. I’m thinking that hopefully K.’s baby won’t have to spend the first few days of its life here in the basement. Later I ask my guest M. if we don’t want to practice climbing out through the basement window, because our basement only has one entrance.
But we haven’t gotten to that yet, M. is now also very busy, he’s helping to translate the German-language text and audio material for the Czernowitz military district administration. Our governor, with his fluent German, is a sought-after conversation partner in the German-language media. The publications and recordings should be translated into Ukrainian, at least in part, and our colleagues don’t have enough capacity. M. does it quickly and well. The bad news (but only relatively so at this time) reached me in the office the next day: Colleague O. had a positive corona test. So incongruous I think, Corona in wartime. Our team will miss him greatly. But O. is vaccinated and boosted, so let’s hope for a mild course and that O. will return to our ranks soon.
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