Hosting Refugees

Natalia Bloch

Imagining herself as a refugee mother was one of the main reasons Magda decided to host a refugee family: –  Imagining that it could have been me. Obviously, there were many differences between us, but there were also so many things in common that I imagined that if I were in her situation, my husband would be at war, and I wouldn’t know if I'd be with him the next day… He called almost every day. And when he didn’t, I could see Luba getting upset, although, of course, it was just because he couldn’t call that day. But she didn’t know it. And that was the hardest part.

Luba had a good life before the war. She was a dancer and choreographer, and ran her own ballet school; her husband held a senior position at a mobile phone company; her older son, 13-year-old Dima, attended music school, and the younger son, 11-year-old Artem, studied in sports school. But this good life was near the Russian border, in the Sumy Oblast. Luba’s husband wasn’t recruited; he volunteered. She keeps fighting to this day.

Like many other refugees, when Luba fled to Poland, she turned to someone she knew here, and the only such a person was her former student. But the man and his partner rented a tiny studio apartment: – They literally slept there on the floor, for one or two nights. It wasn’t possible to stay there longer. However, Luba’s former student recommended her the only non-governmental organisation in Poznań that connected people willing to host refugees in their homes with those seeking shelter. Magda was already in the organisation’s database. In the application form, she indicated that she had a room available in a single-family home, so she couldn’t accommodate more than three people; that they couldn’t be small children, as she had a large dog and “you never know what might happen”; and that they couldn’t be elderly, as the room was upstairs. That’s how the organisation connected Luba and her sons with Magda’s family.

They attended Zumba classes together, and visited the theatre together. Luba was very keen to work according to her qualifications, while refugee women were usually offered cleaning jobs or those in a laundry or factories. Magda understood this, she’s a doctor herself. Could she imagine what it would be like if she had to flee to another country and be offered a cleaning job there? – Luba is such an active person, and I was actually the first one to ask her if she wanted to try finding something in her profession.

In the neighbourhood where Magda lives, there was an arts club – Luba volunteered there, running ballet classes for Ukrainian children. She could afford it because her husband’s company still paid him a salary, which he sent to his family. Thanks to that, she already had something on her CV. And then I posted on some Facebook group that there was someone, a choreographer and dance teacher with experience, searching for job. That’s how Luba got a job at an acrobatics school – according to the school’s owner, the girls lacked ballet skills. It was part-time job, but it gave Luba a sense of purpose and something to do; she had to prepare the classes, commute to the school.

After four months as a guest, Luba decided it was time to move out on her own – sharing one room with two teenagers generated tension, especially since her older son didn’t make it in a Polish school; he missed his father, his friends, and his home. He turned his frustration against his mother. 

Magda helped Luba find an apartment (it was easier when a Polish person made calls to the real estate agents). It was more expensive than Luba had planned, but her husband was sending money, so she believed she could manage. But soon the remittances stopped coming – the husband’s company was no longer paying his salary, leaving him with the soldier’s pay only. This is when Luba’s friend started convincing her to move to Germany. There – the friend said – she would be guaranteed social housing for a year, but in return, she would have to learn German and pass exams in order to be able to find a job. – It was very difficult for her to make that decision – Magda recalls – moving again, even further away from her husband, and she still had that hope…

How did they adapt in Germany? – Luba says they miss Poland, they miss it so much; that she was better off here, they were better off here, in Poland in general. There, they ended up in a small social housing flat, in a rather not-so-good neighbourhood. Besides this one person who convinced Luba to go to Germany, they didn’t have any friends there.

And then Dima returned to Ukraine, and Luba was left alone with her younger son. – It was clear that the father was such an idol to him, perhaps even more so because there was no direct contact between then; a more idealised one. Magda reckons Dima is already 16. – And when I imagine him now, I think, if he hasn’t changed, that as soon as he can, he’ll probably join the army voluntarily. 

When Magda shows me Luba’s photo, I blurt out stupidly: – A beautiful woman. Magda immediately corrects me: – Beautiful inside, but also outside. I regret that things haven’t worked out the way they were supposed to. Because when she was leaving, we said you’d come to us with your husband and the boys, and we’d visit you. And so it turned out completely differently.
 

– The most difficult was seeing Luba in this limbo. She was constantly waiting to be with her husband, to get her normal life back. She was a truly strong woman, but she kept saying she was in such quicksand – in Magda’s words admiration is intertwined with care. – Luba is a very strong woman – this phrase Magda repeats several times during our conversation – who always gets back on her feet, and somehow manages to sort things out against all odds. Magda is not sure whether she could have coped with such a situation on her own: – I don’t know if I would have… I don’t think I would have had as much strength as she does.