Life in Germany

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 6th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: fitting in.

Last week marks three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, forcing thousands to flee their homeland. Many have landed in countries around the world, but Germany is the leading destination.

BROWN: Many arrive speaking no German, having no job, and owning little more than the clothes on their backs. WORLD’s Mary Muncy takes us to Germany where Ukrainian refugees are working to build a new life.

MARY MUNCY: Two weeks ago, three Ukrainians, a Russian, and a German sat around a coffee table, trying to learn a new board game in German.

They’re at a “speech cafe” where a group of people whose first language is not German meet in a community center room to learn the language together. The game is supposed to help them learn grocery store vocabulary words.

Maria is Russian but she speaks fluent German. She’s pointing to different grocery items on cards and having the others say the words aloud. She generally leads the café, but the cafe wasn’t her idea.

MARIA: The first idea was from Alyona.

Alyona Lemeshko. She’s a Ukrainian refugee. When she first arrived in Germany three years ago, she didn’t know the language. Today, she helps others in the same situation make a new life away from home.

She’s making tea while the others figure out the game:

ALYONA: I said, oh, we need more practice in German.

They come to put their classroom knowledge to use, where they don’t have to be perfect and everyone else is learning too.

Sometimes, as many as 30 people squeeze into the two small rooms. There’s one from Macedonia, another from Greece, and many from Ukraine.

Lemeshko arrived in Germany in March of 2022. She’s one of more than 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees in the country, and the number keeps growing.

Germany has the most Ukrainian refugees of any country in the world, partly because it has a refugee-friendly system.

When the war started, Lemeshko’s town back in Ukraine was one of the first to feel the effects.

We talked over tea and cake at her new home in Germany.

ALYONA: I called my friends and asked about, may I come to your village? Because I was alone.

She’s not married and doesn’t have any children. She stayed with her friends as the war crept closer, but after a few weeks, Lemeshko and her friends decided to leave.

The first place she went was an American missionary’s house in Germany. She filled out asylum paperwork, applied for medical insurance, and took language classes.

ALYONA: It's really difficult, because for me, it's new start. It's looking looking for apartment, job, everything, friends, everything.

In the last few months, Lemeshko passed her German exams, found a job at a kindergarten, and found an apartment, her transition was smoother than many. Vera Shlychkov is Lemeshko’s friend and met us at her house.

VERA: I lived in Selidovo. It's a city 40 kilometers from Donetsk, where the war began.

Shlychkov is married, and when the war started, all three of her children were seven and younger. At the time, they didn’t know anyone abroad, and it was hard for men to leave the country.

But after about two months, the war became too much and they packed up a few suitcases and left.

VERA: And we come in the city, they are sick.

All three of her children and Shlychkov herself had an infection and needed antibiotics, not only that, but her kids hadn’t eaten in days because of the stress of leaving Ukraine.

VERA: About me, I don't think. I think just about my children, how I can help. I saw my children and the they don't want eat, don't want nothing.

She didn’t know German, only a little English, they didn’t have insurance yet, and it would’ve been too expensive to go to the doctor without it—if they could even get in.

VERA: I can't make anything, nothing, and I don't know [speaking Ukrainian] What I must… What must I do.

After a few days of this, she asked for help in a WhatsApp group for refugees. They helped her get in contact with the right people so they could pay for a doctor’s visit, and eventually, they did get in.

Then, nine days after they arrived, the government set them up with housing and language classes. Shlychov and her children started going to the speech cafe a few months ago.

Once Shlychkov passes her German exams, she’ll be able to help support her family. Something she thinks the speech cafe will help her do.

ALYONA: A lot people should to work and learn language. It's really difficult. It's really hard.

During our interview, Lemeshko and Shlychkov would speak Ukrainian and Russian to each other, English to me, and sometimes slip into German when they couldn’t remember an English word.

VERA: I think about that, ich speak four languages. Oh, cool.

Both say learning German is not just for finding work or navigating a foreign country. It’s also about building community.

ALYONA: I didn't know Vera, but now I know.

Lemeshko says the cafe has helped her to connect with people from all over the world.

ALYONA: We have a lot Ukrainian people here. But I have not a lot friends from these people. It's important to have not just people from your culture, your country, but you have maybe the same like… something valuable.

Both Shlychkov and Lemeshko don’t know when or if they’ll go back to Ukraine or what will be there for them if they do. But Lemeshko says uncertainty is a part of life.

ALYONA: I didn't like, have line between, like before and then, you know? It's like another. In Ukraine, I had also bad days and good days. It's not like worst or best. It's like different, just like life.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Vilseck, Germany.

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