Julia C. stands in front of her 24 10th-grade pupils at The Ukrainian School —A school in Dresden, Germany is staffed by teachers from Ukraine, who are helping to deal with the sudden influx school-aged refugee students. The school’s curriculum covers nearly all the standard school subjects while also helping Ukrainian students learn German and adjust to their new lives.
The Ukrainian School program was created in April 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent influx of Ukrainian refugees and their children. The director of the newly reopened school is simultaneously the director of Dresden’s more standard German-language High School Number 116.
On July 14, more than 5.8 millionAccording to UN Refugee Agency data, approximately 400 Ukrainian refugees fled to Europe. The high school teaches around 400 pupils in grades 5-10. Eight teachers who fled Ukraine in 2022 are employed in the highschool.
Julia, who was reluctant to give her first name to avoid being identified for political criticisms and instructing her students in German, now teaches her Ukrainian colleagues how to speak German. The young woman, originally from Ukraine, arrived in Germany in 2009.
“Life was hard. First, I wanted to go as far away as possible, across the ocean, to the U.S.,” Julia tells Truthout. “Then I decided to stay in the area, so I can still see my family.” Before immigrating to Germany, Julia completed a bachelor’s degree in German language instruction. Julia also studied German philology at University of Dresden.
Sofia, a teenage student of Julia’s, fled Ukraine with her mother on March 8. “In Kharkiv, we had to pass several military controls and I heard bombs,” Sofia tells Truthout. “And from Charkiw to Lviv, we were constantly controlled by military.”
Olesa, another one of Julia’s students, is from Odessa. She escaped Ukraine with her parents, and her baby sisters. “We did not travel ad hoc; on February 24, we packed our bags, then we thought about leaving or not,” Olesa tells Truthout. “Then, on the night of March 8, we left.”
Yulia D. is another German teacher at the school. She arrived from Ukraine in March. Her big blue eyes seem dull when she talks about her home country. “We got information that the war could start. Some were prepared; I wasn’t. I didn’t want to believe it,” she tells Truthout. She hoped the war would end soon after it started. “I saw rockets flying to Kyiv, over the roof of my house.” After that, she, her family and her neighbors were hiding for 16 days in their cellar, without electricity, heating or water. “The government said, ‘Stay in the cellars and just leave when there is an official OK,’ so we waited and started to believe that it was impossible to get away, and just wanted to die.”
Her 15-year-old daughter tried to escape but were stopped by the Russian military. They managed to flee with a small suitcase that contained their most important documents as well as some sweaters. “I passed burning cars. [I] didn’t see deaths, but my family and friends know people who were killed,” Yuliia says. She and her daughter traveled from Kyiv to Lviv in train, took a car to the border and crossed into Poland on foot. After crossing into Poland, Yulia caught a bus to Warsaw and then a train to Berlin. Finally, she reached Dresden.
“For me, it was impossible to stay in the country; I was mentally totally cracked,” Yuliia says. Her husband was also among her family members who decided to stay. “Men have to protect the country; if they escape, they will be criminally prosecuted,” she added. Three days after she escaped, her neighbors’ house was bombed with two rockets.
Yulia had visited Germany several times before the war. She was there as a child and on school exchanges. She lived in Germany four years before the dissolution of Soviet Union. She finished 9th grade there. She also lived for many years in Russia.
“I speak Russian with my husband and my daughter — it’s my mother tongue, besides Ukrainian, and it’s no problem to speak,” she said. Yulia explains that although the Soviet Union banned Ukrainian language, her mother still attended a Ukrainian school. Julia is of Bulgarian descent. (Bulgarians are just 10 of the main minority groups in South Ukraine.
Yulia states that her mental health and that of her students is still very difficult.
“In class, I focus on German, grammar, words, dialogues — but no politics,” she tells Truthout. “When I mention the time in the cellar, my daughter gets aggressive and says that she does not want to talk about this topic,” Yuliia says.
She also doesn’t talk about politics with the students’ parents, who just ask how their children are doing in school.
“When the kids started school, they were very silent, they were afraid of other people, but now we’ve also seen happy kids, who smile and laugh,” she says. “I’m grateful that we can learn without danger, and that I can work here in my profession. We would have never dreamt about this possibility.”
In The Ukrainian School in Dresden, pupils don’t get grades, and after an assessment of their language competence, they can switch to regular schools. To obtain a report card in time for the Ukrainian summer vacation, children had to learn online. “Now parents have to decide if they want to stay or return,” says Yuliia. “If they want to return, they should continue with the online classes; if not, they should focus on getting their children into the regular schools, as soon as possible.”
Sofia and Olesa are interested in switching schools. Sofia wants to study medicine in Berlin; Olesa’s dream is to work as a psychologist somewhere in Germany. They are fluent in a few languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, English, and German. They claim that the differences between Latin letters and Cyrillic letters is not difficult for them as they have been proficient in either English or German since first grade.
As the war progresses, more blood is shed and more lands become barren. “Everything that happens is because of politics, not because of the people,” says Julia.
