If Viktoriia von Rosen had to decide, the entire team of the Ukrainian Coordination Center would probably have been introduced here.

The many helpers to whom the native of Kiev is so grateful for their support, which she would have liked to have recognized as Frankfurt faces.

But as is so often the case, whether they want to say it or not, it's individuals who are the driving force behind big changes.

Monica Ganster

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The forty-nine-year-old does not know standing still.

In this she is similar to her husband Rüdiger von Rosen, the long-standing executive board member of Deutsches Aktieninstitut, whose saying also applies to her: If there is not enough time to work during the day, then there is always the night.

Since February 24, when Russia attacked their homeland, all calm was gone.

On the evening of the same day, Viktoriia von Rosen was already standing with her husband and more than a thousand people at the main guard station to demonstrate against the robbery.

It was organized by the German-Ukrainian Association for Business and Science, of which von Rosen is Vice President.

When few help many

And because she is who she is and cannot stand still, she played a key role in setting up the Ukrainian Coordination Center, the contact point for all refugees, where advice, comfort, translation and encouragement are provided, with concrete help with language courses and childcare.

At the Office for Multicultural Affairs in Gallus, at times 80 volunteers accompanied thousands of refugees as best they could during their first time in a foreign country.

Von Rosen was there from the start as someone who gets things done, but who can also plan, organize and, above all, motivate.

She says she was fortunate to have met the right people, including many students, who brought their fresh minds and dynamism.

Help for others, she is convinced, is also help for yourself. For many of the volunteers, who themselves have Ukrainian roots, working in the UCC not only means helping their compatriots, but also being able to show gratitude to Germany.

The mobile phone's translation program, which she only uses in emergencies, finds no match for a Ukrainian expression that is as important to Viktoriia von Rosen as it is self-descriptive: stay disciplined, channel your inner strength in the right direction.

Getting to know Ukraine through prayers for peace

At the beginning of her extensive academic training in the financial sector, Germany was just an interesting further education station.

In 2017, the year of her marriage, she followed her husband, whom she met many years ago at the Kyiv stock exchange, to Frankfurt.

Both brought children from previous relationships, she two, he five.

"Together a blended family with seven children, that's a good thing," she says with a laugh.

A full house, in which there was also space for eight refugees, suits their activity.

Before the war, this also included organizing exhibitions with Ukrainian artists, founding the start-up Digital Bridges to promote Ukrainian tech companies in Hesse, or volunteering as a trainer and sports judge for synchronized swimming.

More important to her than ever are the ecumenical services, which came about thanks to her initiative between Catholic-Orthodox and Protestant communities.

Germans should find out more about the Ukraine through prayers for peace for a battered country that had to endure a famine caused by Stalin, the Holodomor, which killed millions in 1932/33.

In November, the Bundestag recognized this tragedy as genocide.