Recently, we assisted a non-Orthodox Jewish community in Wiesbaden in organizing the Purim festival. Ukrainian children were also invited to the celebration, as the story of the protection of the Jewish people from genocide aligns with the modern history of the Ukrainian people.

We started with small projects: joint tea parties with information exchange, where we invited people who could inform refugees about the most important aspects of their new life here, either in Ukrainian, Russian, or with translation.

At the end of 2022, to the delight of all participants and spectators, we prepared and carried out a German-Ukrainian Christmas concert. At the same time, a German-Ukrainian choir or music group was formed.

The Ukrainian part of this music group was invited to perform at the liberal Jewish Community in Wiesbaden for Purim, for which we learned and sang songs in Hebrew and Yiddish.

Our biggest cultural project to date is yet to come, with support from the Rotary Club, Stadtmuseum sam, and the Cultural Office of Wiesbaden.

This is a guest performance organized by the Finborough Theatre from London with the play “Pussycat in Memory of Darkness.” This play, written by one of the most famous Ukrainian playwrights, Neda Nezhdana, was translated into English by John Farndon and performed in London in 2022.

It was named Play of the Year, and actress Kristin Milward (in a one-woman show) was awarded Actress of the Year. The show ran for 6 weeks in London in 2022 and will resume from mid-March, which is relatively rare in London. Kristin Milward will interrupt the performances in London and come to Wiesbaden for 3 days. On April 14th, 15th, and 16th, the play will be performed at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in Wiesbaden.

Theater director Polly Creed and translator John Farndon will be present at the guest performance. Neda Nezhdana will also travel from Kyiv. Now, they will all meet for the first time: Neda, the translator, the actress, and the director! On April 17th, Neda’s evening will take place, where she will speak, and my fellow Ukrainians and John will read excerpts from their new plays and translations. For this occasion, I will hang beautiful posters made by the refugee artist Lena Bondar. This is Pitrimka’s first major cultural project, but there is much more to come. For example, we will start creating archives about Ukrainians here. One more thing: we really want to collect a multilingual anti-war book where I can gather various things, from diaries of Ukrainians to anti-war poems. We would like to invite people from Ukraine, London, Germany, and especially from Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltic states, who are against the war, to come here.