Surgery of »Uncle Lonja«, whose real name is actually different, at the Bundeswehrkrankenhaus in Berlin. Projectiles destroyed his ankle while he got under attack. Comrades found injured Uncle Lonja, brought him to the hospital in Zaporizhzhya, then later to Lviv and Poland form where the German Airforce brings him to Berlin.While the surgeries, most of the bone, which got infected, gets removed. A metal construction, named »Fixateur« fixes the ankle, gives back stability to the leg. 

At the ward for orthopaedics and trauma surgery, better known as Station H2, one of the patients is Igor Miroshnichenko from Ukraine. He is being treated at the Bundeswehr Hospital since 2020. Due to an earlier treatment failure after his traffic accident, his injury got infected and 30 cm of bone had to be removed. He first volunteered for the army and then enlisted, got confronted with this war much earlier than 2022. While the endless days at the hospital he started to draw. He draws the staff of the hospital, well known people, details. One drawing, an eye, is still hanging on the wall of his room. The other painting are shown in a gallery in the nurses room. The days in the hospital are long. Igor watches TV most of the time. Or he trains his muscles, lifts weights, prepares for the day he will be able to leave the hospital and return to Ukraine.

DIE ZEIT — No. 28 2022 - photography — Paulina Hildesheim & Hannes Wiedemann - photo editor —Ludwig Ander-Donath - author­ — Caterina Lobenstein