Anna Golubyeva still vividly remembers the night the first bus arrived in Berlin. It was cold – just above freezing – when 38 women and 34 children, with a number of dogs and cats, stepped off the bus in Dahlem. All of them were exhausted after their long journey. By now it was 12:30 a.m. and sleep was simply out of the question for her. “Up until that point the war was just something happening far off in the distance,” says Golubyeva, who is in her third semester of studying law at Freie Universität Berlin. “And suddenly there were all these families standing before us. That was a bitter pill to swallow.”

Golubyeva herself comes from Ukraine. She lived in Odessa until she was 13 years old, and some of her relatives are still there. That’s why she decided to stay up that night with a group of other students. They wanted to help ease the burden of those who had just made it to Germany. Golubyeva spent the night interpreting for the women and children and introducing them to the families who would be hosting them.

Reaching Safety in Berlin – 150 People Arrive by Bus

It’s all thanks to Karl-Georg Wellmann that this bus of refugees arrived in Dahlem that night and that dozens of host families were there to receive them. As soon as the 69-year-old and his wife saw the scenes at the Polish-Ukrainian border on television back in February, they were ready to jump into their minibus and set off. “We couldn’t just sit there – we had to do something,” he says. He spoke to members of his church in Dahlem, who managed to find families willing to host refugees. He couldn’t have imagined then that just a few weeks later he would be bringing 150 people to Berlin with the help of his wife and friends.

Deutschlandstipendium Scholarships for Students from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia

Karl-Georg Wellmann represented the CDU in the Bundestag until 2017. He was chair of the German-Ukrainian parliamentary group and is familiar with the country on the Black Sea from his vacations to the region. That’s why he decided long before the war broke out to fund several Deutschlandstipendium scholarships that would benefit students from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

One of these scholarship holders ended up being Anna Golubyeva. When he told her about his plans to help Ukrainian refugees, she immediately got a group of other students together to provide support upon arrival. “These initial interactions between refugees and German families are incredibly important,” says Golubyeva. “This is when both sides first learn who they will be living with and what their history is, even if they end up having to communicate through gestures later on.”

Helping Ukrainian Families Return to a Sense of Normality

Before Wellmann set off on his journey, a friend convinced him to rent a tour bus instead of bringing the family car. His church community found plenty of families who were willing to host someone, and his wife bought stuffed animals for children on the bus, while a major grocery store chain donated drinks and snacks. A friend of his who is a diplomat in Warsaw reached out to the necessary contacts and soon they had begun to cooperate with a city near the Ukrainian border. “These incredible shows of solidarity here and in Poland have been very touching to see,” says Wellmann. “It’s really impressive to see what we can achieve when we work together.”

Wellmann is well-connected, which is why he was able to bring 75 more people to Berlin two weeks later. Together with the parish of Nikolassee and the large sailing clubs in Wannsee, he found additional accommodation for refugees and has since been working to set them up with places in schools and language courses as well as with jobs and other prospects. “I’ve developed a totally new connection with Ukraine through the contact I’ve been having with its people,” says the former politician. He says that his experiences in Poland were deeply upsetting: “Their tears, desperation, and exhaustion – it’s difficult to put into words.” This makes it all the more important to him that he stays in touch with the families as they make a new life here in Germany.

A Sailing Club in Wannsee Welcomed 35 Refugees

This is also a subject close to Anna Golubyeva’s heart. Over the last few weeks she has been helping friends and relatives who have fled to Germany to find their bearings in their new lives. She made space for her cousin and another young Ukrainian woman in her shared apartment and was also able to find German hosts for two families. Wellmann says, "We share a culture and Ukraine has a good education system. This makes it easier – especially for younger refugees – to settle into life in Germany.”

He witnessed a particularly moving moment the day after the bus’s arrival at his sailing club in Wannsee, which had accepted 35 refugees. He met them on the terrace for breakfast. “The mothers sat in the sun watching their children playing and said to me: Now we can sit outside again without having to worry about bombs.”

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This article originally appeared in German on May 8, 2022, in the Tagesspiegel newspaper supplement published by Freie Universität Berlin.