Day 1 - The Day After The Paris Attacks - November 14th 2015

It was a cold, early Saturday morning and I woke up to the bitter news of the Paris attacks. Worries mixed with fears and left me confused. I rode my bike to rehearsal and when I locked it, I looked up and spotted a family of five across the street, standing side by side as if waiting for the bus. There was no bus stop nearby. It was quiet, the streets were empty.
My first instinct as usual was to ask if I could help but for the first time in my life, a little voice said "no". I immediately stomped that little voice into the ground as it was not my voice but the voice of fear.... I approached the family and offered my help. None of us knew back then that this was the beginning of a story that would never end.

The family Rasoul was homeless when we met. A family of five consisting of mother, father and three children. A Kurdish Syrian refugee family from Aleppo, the largest city in Syria that is being destroyed since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011. 

They all looked tired and a strange calmness, foreign to me, was surrounding each of them. None of them spoke German or English. A man who was accompanying them told me that they were in the camp Traiskirchen the day before but that they were sent away without information about where to go or where to sleep. That they had taken the train to Vienna and slept in a park. 

I looked at the youngest child, Diar who is 11 years old. He had the eyes of those who had seen too much. And perhaps this is what resulted in the strange calmness that was surrounding all of them. Nothing could shake them anymore. 

I took them to the Kurier building nearby. A former newspaper building that was turned into a refugee camp in the middle of Vienna. We were sent away because the family had "white" cards and the Kurier building was only for refugees who had just arrived and needed to be registered. I had no idea what a white card is nor what it meant. I was told to send them to the Dusika Stadion, an indoor sports arena turned into a refugee camp. I called the Stadion to double check yet the person on the phone explained to me that he had not heard of any refugee camp and that I should call back on  Monday. 

As I had volunteered at the very same building for the refugees, I knew where to find someone who could possibly help. I ran upstairs to the 4th floor where there was a temporary police station. This is where the refugees get registered. I arrived upstairs out of breath and bumped into an officer. I asked him if he knew of any official place where the family could sleep, but he didn't. I went back downstairs. I looked at the family. I needed time. I decided to leave the building and take them for coffee. 

It was almost 09 am in the morning and we sat at Cafe Europa over coffee, tea and hot chocolate. I needed to think and I needed to figure something out. As it was Saturday in Vienna, I was unable to reach any government officials for help. There was no information online. My back started to hurt from the pressure. I felt as if it was up to me whether they would sleep in the park once again or not. 

I called Roberta Rastl from Diakonie, an NGO for which I volunteered too. I apologized for the early call on a weekend but it was "urgent" I said, "this family needs a place to sleep". Roberta said she would call me back within 30 minutes and she did. She found a place, it used to be a shelter for refugees, close to Schoebrunn. They were closing soon and therefore only one family was residing there. They were from Iraq. Roberta went on to tell me that the family Rasoul could stay there as of now but only for a week. It was an exception, she was doing me a favor based on trust, trusting me that in a week from now, I would pick this family up no matter what.

I was extremely happy. My back pain started to fade away. We left the coffee shop and I called a cab for me, the father and the man who was still accompanying them. I called my friend Agnes who lives nearby and owns a car asking her to take the mother and three children to the shelter in Schoenbrunn. 

We all met there. It was humble, yet a clean, quiet and loving place that offered food, showers, matresses, clothes, games ect. The Iraqi family was very sweet too. I was thankful, happy and relieved knowing that the family Rasoul would not sleep in the park. It was my first achievement, my very first battle - not knowing that the biggest was yet to come.