Back at the train station. Just met a family who made it out of Mariupol via Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria etc and now raced to a train to Munich. They are Armenian-Ukrainian and have a relative waiting in France. A sister in South Carolina. Dad says “but then it’s forever…”
Met a huge group of dozens of women and kids from Zaporozhye going to Milan tonight. Second time I’ve seen that. I handed over all the €100 of McDonalds cards I had just bought. Told them to use them this evening before the train and buy everyone cheeseburgers (€1.20).
Then families came to meet me from the “hotel” in a village in Lower Austria where 52 Ukrainians are living and are considered “fed”. They say the food has not gotten any better except now there is oatmeal at breakfast which is fried into pancakes at dinner. Lots of toddlers.
What upset me the most was when I heard they were forced to sign a contract in Russian agreeing to do specific “jobs” each day in the hotel (unpaid of course) assigned to each room. I took a photo of a photo, will get better copies. The organizers even put it in German too! 
I have a bad photo of point 28 of their contract which reads “each room will be given a task each day which will be posted in the hall and must be completed”. The Ukrainians say they called the hotline and were told this “contract” anyway isn’t legally binding. Obviously!
I asked if they complained to whoever is in charge and they tell me they shared their grievances with the charity which is their point of contact in Lower Austria. The representative listened patiently and then disappeared for two weeks, per the Ukrainians.
We need to find another solution for these 52 people. There are lots of moms with young kids. They say if they get real paid jobs they will never be able to eat meals on the “hotel” schedule. One woman said she wasn’t allowed lunch once when she didn’t tidy up something properly.
There are even four unrelated adults being forced to share a room (two husbands and two wives). I’ve written about this before. You remember the clear soup with the three little balls floating in it. They say the food isn’t what kids will eat. Bus once an hour to bigger town.
The Ukrainians living there do not get any money from the Austrian state because they are considered “full board fed”. They received once €20 per person pocket money for half of April. That’s it.
Needless to say I handed each family a Hofer card and McDonalds cards for all the kids and asked whoever is prepared to talk on the record for their numbers. So far, I have two women who are not afraid to speak about their experience. I would imagine more might talk anonymously.
Basically this. I keep saying it. I don’t feel like it gets enough attention in the discourse here yet. Out of sight out of mind…
https://twitter.com/tanjamaier17/status/1524354413757927426
@threadreaderapp unroll pls
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