Since learning more about Ukrainian refugees in Germany—the country’s largest refugee population—I have become interested in the question of staying versus returning to Ukraine and the human stories behind displacement. The war has now lasted more than four years, and, as Deb mentioned in class, many Ukrainians who initially expected to return home have found that they cannot. What was imagined as a temporary displacement has increasingly become a long-term reality.
I am interested in what that prolonged displacement has done to the Ukrainian community in Berlin where Ukrainians have developed their own networks of mutual support, activism, and community. Organizations such as Vitsche keep the human cost of the war visible while maintaining networks of Ukrainian activists and creating spaces where displaced Ukrainians can find community and belonging. I would like to look within the organizations themselves and report on the people inside these networks, including Ukrainians who arrived as refugees and have since become translators, organizers, advocates, hosts, patient carers, or informal guides for people who arrived after them.
This raises a question I would like to investigate on the ground: What happens when refugees who expected to return home begin building a life and becoming necessary to a community in the place where they sought temporary refuge? Does helping other Ukrainians change how they understand Berlin, Germany, and the possibility of returning to Ukraine? I do not want to assume that staying versus returning is the central conflict for every person I meet; but, I do want to ask this question to explore individuals’ stories.
I would structure the reporting around three core groups of people and three different sites, with each site representing a distinct part of Berlin’s Ukrainian community and a different form of refugee-to-refugee assistance. I want to understand which Ukrainians are helping which other Ukrainians, what kind of help they provide, and what these relationships reveal about how a displaced community has built its own support system.
I would identify three reporting locations that provide an inside view of Ukrainian refugees helping one another and contact each location before arriving in Berlin. One might be a Ukrainian community or mutual-aid space where newly arrived families seek help with housing, benefits, schools, documents, or German bureaucracy. Another could involve medical or social-service assistance. Ukraine-Hilfe Berlin, for example, has volunteers who help wounded Ukrainians navigate German institutions and could potentially lead me to someone with firsthand experience of both displacement and caregiving. A third could be a youth, student, activist, or cultural community where support is less formal and depends on peer networks.
To find the strongest stories, I have reached out to Ukrainian classmates and acquaintances before the trip and asked whether they know Ukrainians in Berlin who arrived after 2022 and now help newer arrivals. I would like to enter these communities through personal connections before directly reaching out to each organization for site visits and interviews. Ideally, I would arrive with three potential characters and three locations, while remaining open to other ideas for strong stories that align with my topic.
The larger story might be about how Ukrainians in Berlin have moved from needing help to helping others—and how that evolution is shifting their understanding of home.
