MY DARLING ANICHKA

Yesterday, my husband and I volunteered to welcome Ukrainian refugees at Berlin’s Central Station.  We were two of many in our yellow vests with masking tape name tags.  In our 20-minute orientation, we learned that about 80% of those arriving in Berlin have a destination in Europe with friends or family.  For the 20% of refugees without a place to go, we learned that Berlin shelters are now full, but that refugees would be taken by bus to other shelters within Germany, some as far away as Munich.

We were advised to jot down the number of an on-site protective service for unaccompanied minors, and we learned where refugees could get something to eat and drink and charge up their phones.  We were shown where those who wished could get a voluntary Covid test, and where mothers could leave their children under supervision while they sorted out transport connections and temporary accommodations.  We were told where the medical tents were set up outside the station and where refugees could get a German Vodafone SIM card.  All of these services—everything—is at NO COST to anyone with a Ukrainian passport or permanent residency card. 

Volunteering to welcome these exhausted, disoriented people from Ukraine was an incredibly rewarding experience.  Over the course of the evening, I helped a young girl and her grandparents find the ticket office where they could book a train to Belgium.  She looked to be about 15 and said she was from Kyiv.  Her parents had stayed behind; her father, because he was of military age and her mother, because she refused to leave her husband.  They sent her off with her grandparents to her aunt’s home in Belgium.  The young girl had had three years of French and was excited to be able to go to school there.  She looked very tired but hopeful, and her eyes didn't fill up with tears even as she spoke with obvious concern about her parents.  When we said our goodbyes at the food area, she spontaneously reached up to wrap her arms around my neck and said, “Thank you.”

I helped a woman in black leather boots with rhinestone trim and a large suitcase find her train to Nauen.  I led a group of four women with their several small children and numerous IKEA bags stuffed with everything they could carry, to the platform for the train to Stuttgart.  I took two excited young hipsters with piercings and tattoos to the ticket office where they could book their train to Amsterdam.  (By the way, there is a welcome area at the station for POC (people of color) and LGBTQ+ people who want or need special assistance.)  And I brought a young man in a hoodie to the Vodafone tent.  I asked him where he was headed and he showed me his ticket.  I said, “Oh, Osnabrück; that’s a lovely city.”  His face lit up.

But perhaps the most moving experience of my first night as a volunteer was my encounter with three young women, no more than 20 years old and who seemed to be related—in fact, two looked like twins.  Each was carrying her baby—3 months? 6 months?  No strollers, no Snugglies, no baby car seat carriers, just little bundles in pink snowsuits and woolen hats, cradled in loving arms.  These young mothers bore their futures.  

As we rode the escalator down to their train platform, I couldn’t help turning around and staring at these babies, who stared back, their round blue eyes calm and curious, having absolutely no idea how their lives were changing, possibly forever. 

This morning, I couldn’t get those mothers and their babies out of my mind, and I wrote this poem to a little one I will never know but will never forget.  

 

 

MY DARLING ANICHKA

 

My darling Anichka,

You won’t remember

Our Ukrainian home.

But I will 

Make you a memory.

 

We left Mezyn at three o’clock,

The sun still high in the sky,

Snow on the frozen ground.

Waiting in Mezyn

To be displaced.

 

Your grandfather, my father

Held you close against his chest

Sobbing and heaving.

Waiting in Mezyn

To plant the wheat.

 

Your grandmother, my mother

Wiped her eyes with her apron

Her tears flowed like the Desna.

Waiting in Mezyn

To bake the bread.

 

Your father, my husband

Disappeared in a camouflage embrace

So tight, then let us go.

Waiting in Mezyn

To fight the war.

 

On the train to Chernihiv

Then Kyiv and Lviv,

Fields lying fallow

Waiting in Ukraine

To give us life.

 

From Lviv on to Poland,

You and I,

At the station

Waiting in Warsawa 

For a train to Berlin.

 

You were pink in my arms,

Your blue eyes round

And staring

With no fear, no understanding

Unblinking and trusting.

 

My darling Anichka,

You won’t remember

The fields of Mezyn 

Rape and sunflowers.

You won’t remember your father.

 

We spill onto the platform

Berlin’s Central Station

You and I

Hear a language

We understand as compassion.

 

My darling Anichka,

You won’t remember

Our Ukrainian home.

But I will 

Make you a future.

 

 

 

Keep it real!  And long live Ukraine.

Marilyn