LVIV — On Ukraine’s roads and rails, the scale of the country’s unfolding human catastrophe becomes painfully clear.
Fleeing civilians crowd onto trains, sleep on station floors and walk for hours — sometimes days — in their efforts to escape the Russian assault.
It’s here that Ukrainians who only days before lived predictable and conventional lives find themselves transformed suddenly into refugees. Now they are dependent on the goodwill of strangers if they are to find a place to lay their head. Now they need handouts for a cup of hot tea to drink, or diapers for their babies. They set out on perilous journeys with small children in tow and pets in cages, leaving their homes behind as they head to a safe haven — Poland, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Israel and more. It often doesn’t matter, so long as it’s anywhere else.
On my journeys in and out of Ukraine these past few weeks, I traveled amid these confused, anxious crowds, and experienced the kindness of strangers.
I would certainly never claim to be in any way close to being a refugee. My home is not under attack, my family is safe, and most importantly, I made a choice to enter and leave Ukraine. My future remains mostly stable and in my control.
But when traveling in and out of wartime Ukraine, no matter why you are making the trip, you very quickly become tired, hungry and dangerously cold. You jostle and are jostled, hop on buses and trains when they arrive simply because they’re heading vaguely in the right direction, and get off wherever they stop.
There was a major difference, on my final journey, coming home from Ukraine last week. Thanks to Israel’s diplomats on the Ukraine-Poland border, what could have been a harrowing, multi-day ordeal was a mostly calm, and certainly safe, 10-hour bus ride. But even the Israel-bound citizens and families who were also ushered and shuttled into Poland by the same Foreign Ministry operation ended up at night in a refugee depot, lost and confused.
But let’s start at the beginning…
Going in the wrong direction
The central station at the Polish border town of Przemysl (pronounced psheh-mshul) was teeming with activity when I sought to enter Ukraine on February 28. Polish soldiers and police patrolled the entrance and parking lot. Volunteers offered free rides further into the country and hot soup to the thousands of refugees getting off the trains from Ukraine.
There was even a range of animal welfare groups, making sure the anxious dogs and cats Ukrainians refused to leave behind were fed, watered, and reasonably comfortable.
I was looking to go in the other direction, and I hoped that a Ukrainian named Igor could help. I met him in a coffee shop across from Przemysl’s train station.
Igor, a Kyivan Ukrainian Railways employee in his forties, had been in the United States for work when his wife called, telling him frantically that she could see Russian shells falling. He immediately flew to Germany, then traveled to Przemysl via Warsaw.
Igor didn’t have a schedule to share with me, because the trains weren’t operating according to any schedule. They left Lviv when they were packed to their absolute limit with travelers, and headed back in as quickly as the humanitarian aid could be loaded
He was able to get his wife and children to a small town in western Ukraine, far from the fighting. But he noticed that humanitarian aid was not making it to Lviv efficiently. He decided to stay on the border and began coordinating the trains moving in and out of the country. They unload thousands of refugees in Przemysl, then are packed with supplies and whatever few souls, including me, want to head into Ukraine.
Igor didn’t have a schedule to share with me, because the trains weren’t operating according to any schedule. They left Lviv when they were packed to their absolute limit with travelers, and headed back in as quickly as the humanitarian aid could be loaded.
Despite his best efforts, the journey was anything but pleasant for passengers, Igor said, as his phone beeped with messages and rang with urgent calls.
“It’s usually two hours from Lviv to Przemysl,” he said. “Now it can be 28 hours. A lot of women, a lot of children on these trains. It’s psychological pressure.”
Igor recommended I show up at the station later that day and get in line for the next train to Lviv, whenever that would be. I thanked him, but before he let me leave, Igor insisted on letting his rage be known.
“I don’t believe it’s real,” he said, becoming more animated as he spoke. “This is madness… I feel strong anger toward Russians. I feel anger not only to Putin, but also Russian society, because they allowed this to happen. I have many relatives in Russia, but I can’t imagine I’ll be able to forgive and forget.”
My Polish translator and fixer, a onetime anarchist and current journalist named Piotr, saw on a group on the Signal app that a train that was unloading refugees would likely be leaving Przemysl to Lviv at 5:40 p.m., and so we prepared to try and board it.
We dutifully showed up at the train station around 5 p.m., as refugees were still slowly exiting the station toward the crowds of friends and relatives below. Piotr and I walked up to the guards at the entrance, as people straining to spot their loved ones tried to push us out of the way. The guards told us there were thousands of refugees on the train, and that it would take two hours to unload them all.
Everyone had their own reasons for going into a war zone while others were trying to leave. One gregarious German man was heading to Kyiv to extract his mother-in-law. A tall Ukrainian veteran wearing a camouflage backpack explained brusquely that he had been called up to fight
So like the several dozen others heading back into Ukraine, we waited as the sun, and temperatures, went down. Everyone had their own reasons for going into a war zone while others were trying to leave. One gregarious German man was heading to Kyiv to extract his mother-in-law. A tall Ukrainian veteran wearing a camouflage backpack explained brusquely that he had been called up to fight.
As it grew colder, travelers increasingly depended on the Polish volunteers at the station to help them keep warm. I felt uncomfortable even thinking about partaking in the energy bars and tea: Here I was being paid to write about the conflict, while around me there were people in truly trying circumstances.
But cold is cold, even for a journalist trying and increasingly failing to retain some detachment. The sense of gratitude I felt for the kindly boy scouts and Christian volunteers who were braving the cold alongside us was overwhelming. They gave me tea, insisted I take one of a large pile of ham sandwiches — I was too cold and tired to explain that I couldn’t eat the non-kosher food, so I dutifully put it on my pack — and played music on portable speakers for the crowd.
Finally, after 9 p.m., the soldiers at the entrance beckoned the travelers forward. We surged through the station, had our passports stamped by border control, and moved onto the chilly platform. There, too, volunteers in orange vests pushed bags of food into our hands. With no idea when I would next be able to find anything to eat, I took one.
I found a berth with the German man and two Ukrainian women headed for Kyiv. We sat anxiously in the dark for over an hour waiting to head out. Like a scene from a movie, trains from the east pulled up creakily next to us, packed with families illuminated in the windows, each bearing their own tragedy.
Finally, with an annoyed jerk and hiss, the train set out. The Polish border villages were quiet in the winter night, and most travelers started to nod off, as eventually did I.
I handed over my Israeli passport, and expected the burly soldier to take a cursory glance then continue on. But he called over another guard, and they conferred before saying something to me in Ukrainian. I indicated that I did not understand. He pointed toward the exit. “Your luggage,” he said
We were rudely woken at the Ukrainian border, as mostly female soldiers began moving through the cars, banging on the doors of the compartments and asking to see documents.
I handed over my Israeli passport, and expected the burly soldier to take a cursory glance then continue on. But he called over another guard, and they conferred before saying something to me in Ukrainian. I indicated that I did not understand.
He pointed toward the exit. “Your luggage,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“You go Poland.”
I began to protest but he was in no mood to argue, certainly not in English. I followed a middle-aged woman in fatigues off the train into the chilly air, clambered down onto the tracks awkwardly while lugging my two backpacks, and struggled to keep up as we hurried into a Soviet-era building looming behind the station.
I followed the soldier to a second-floor room with two rows of computers. Border guards went in and out of an office next door. I tried to look nonchalant as they occasionally came over to peer at me, especially if I made noise shifting on my chair.
After half an hour, a young male soldier asked me where I was heading in broken English.
“Lviv,” I said, and began to explain I was a journalist.
“Stop,” he instructed, putting his hand out, before disappearing into the office.
Minutes later, the same woman who had pulled me off the train signaled for me to grab my bags, and I followed her back out into the night, still unsure whether she would tell me to wait for the next train to Poland or put me back on the Lviv train.
My train had advanced a few hundred meters, and she walked briskly toward it, as I stumbled over the tracks in the dark, one bag on each shoulder. When we reached the train, she banged on one of the doors, and handed me my passport. I never found out what had nearly led me to be turned back.
I clumsily hoisted myself up onto the last car, and began making my way toward my berth. I knocked on the door, and one of the Ukrainian women opened it. When they saw I was back, they let out a cheer. “Friend!” exclaimed one of the women. And for the next several hours, as the train crawled toward Lviv, they were the closest thing I had to friends in Ukraine.
There was misery in the air, and I searched vainly for a cab to take me to the hotel I’d booked. Again, I turned to a volunteer, standing dutifully by a tent with the logo of a Christian charity. He said that no taxis were allowed near strategic sites like the train station, and that I would be better off walking
We arrived in Lviv in the middle of the night. Przemysl’s train station had certainly been crowded and unhappy, but Lviv’s seemed a throwback to Europe’s twentieth-century conflicts. The smell of burning rubber filled the air. Every inch of wall space was occupied by travelers, many wrapped up in blankets as they slept on the floor. Police and soldiers moved through the crowds as babies cried and dogs barked.
Outside a light snow was falling. Groups of travelers huddled around fires in trash cans. Ukrainian rock music blared from speakers. There was misery in the air, and I searched vainly for a cab to take me to the hotel I’d booked.
Again, I turned to a volunteer, standing dutifully by a tent with the logo of a Christian charity. He said that no taxis were allowed near strategic sites like the train station, and that I would be better off walking. He patiently explained how to get to my place of lodging.
God bless these people, I thought as I apprehensively began my walk.
A way out
During my week and a half in Lviv, I spoke to Israelis taking a “rescue bus” out of the country, met Lviv’s mayor and a local military commander, encountered Ukrainians signing up to get weapons, interviewed students and artists grappling with the war and saw some of the Jewish and Christian response to the conflict.
As the time approached for my departure, and with horror stories emerging from the excruciatingly long lines at the border crossings, I was dreading the potentially dangerous journey back.
But thanks to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, there was far more certainty on my way out of the country than on my way in.
The staff at Israel’s Ukraine embassy, now stationed in a Przemysl hotel, has been organizing buses out of Lviv for Israeli citizens, leaving from the parking lot of its honorary consulate.
On Tuesday, March 8, I sent Lilach Attias, the embassy’s consul general, a message on WhatsApp that I was trying to get out. Minutes later, she told me there would be a bus the next morning at 9:30 a.m., and asked for my details.
Just like that, I had a way out of the country. No tickets, no payment.
I arrived at the consulate, situated next to an Austro-Hungarian Imperial era factory, the next morning at 9 a.m. Families were already in the parking lot waiting for the Israel bus. Everyone was speaking Ukrainian and Russian, and three burly security officials dressed in black with earpieces kept an eye on the surroundings.
Surprisingly, at 9:32 a.m., a red bus pulled into the parking lot very much on time, and the crowd moved toward it.
One of the guards raised his hand, said something in Ukrainian, and the families moved away from the bus. Holding a list, he called people up by name, checking passports and other documents. Some, but not most, had Israeli passports.
The bus was entirely full. Like other Ukrainian refugees, the travelers on the bus brought their pets along. I counted four dogs, two cats, and one blissfully unaware turtle making the trip with us.
Reassuringly, one of the guards took a seat next to the driver, and we set out.
A family of four from Kharkiv — a grandmother, mother, son and daughter (and two funny-looking little dogs) — sat to my right. The grandmother spoke some Hebrew, having lived in Netanya for many years.
A couple from Kyiv sat behind me. The husband told me in English that he had lived in Israel for two years, but decided he liked Ukraine far more.
I asked the passengers near me where the bus was heading. Oddly, no one knew, and no one seemed too worried about it
“In Israel, I was a bellboy,” he said. “Here, I’m a director of a company.”
The sense I got was that almost all were eager to return to Ukraine once the fighting ended.
I asked the passengers near me where the bus was heading. Oddly, no one knew, and no one seemed too worried about it.
Instead of heading straight for the Medyka crossing near Przemysl only 70 kilometers away, we began winding our way north. Again, I seemed like the only one intent on figuring out where we were going to cross.
Every hour or so, we came across a hastily assembled military checkpoint in the middle of the road. The bus drove around the waiting cars, and the security guard spoke to the soldiers for only a few seconds before we were waved through.
The bus wound through a land of ghosts. We passed signs pointing out where Galician synagogues once stood, and memorials to Jewish communities eradicated in the Holocaust. Three generations ago, those with one Jewish grandparent were sent on transports to their deaths. Now, the same ancestry meant a protected ride to safety, organized and funded by the Jewish state.
In the early afternoon, we turned left at the town of Volodymyr, and reached the Ustyluh border crossing.
The scene was from a bygone era. Men hacked at logs with axes to make firewood. Old ladies heated tea and soup on wood stoves. Rickety wooden shacks over pits served as bathrooms. At the border crossing itself, a line of families on foot and cars waited patiently to advance.
It was cold, and most people there were fleeing their homes, but the mood was calm. The food and supplies given out by the volunteers played an important role, I am certain. The women cheerily packed mashed potatoes and pickles onto plates, and doled out steaming bowls of soup from pots wrapped in towels.
We waited outside for around two hours, until a van pulled up next to the bus. A muscular bearded man hopped out, followed by two Israeli women and two men. The diplomats had arrived.
A man climbed onto the bus to collect expired passports, and thirty minutes later, the Israeli citizens had fresh laissez passer travel documents, filled out by hand and stamped by the Israeli diplomats working from their van. They passed out energy bars on the bus, and those travelers who knew some Hebrew said “todah rabah” eagerly.
The bus pulled up to the border, and a tall, blond Ukrainian soldier got on. He asked the men for their passports, looking for Ukrainian citizens between the ages of 18 to 60. By law, they are not allowed to leave the country.
Scene at the Ustyluh border crossing today. I’m eternally grateful to the Ukrainians who volunteer in the cold at the crossing, chopping wood, making tea, and handing out hot dishes that look as delicious as they do treif. pic.twitter.com/CeTGUVyqd0
— Lazar Berman (@Lazar_Berman) March 9, 2022
He stopped at a young man behind me wearing a black hoodie. They spoke for a minute, then the soldier walked briskly off the bus, the young man in tow. His mother hurried after him, clutching the family’s bags as younger siblings followed her.
They never got back on.
Only one country was arranging buses for free from Lviv, escorted by security guards, and had its diplomats meet the buses to issue documents in the field
As the bus headed across into Poland, past the families dragging their suitcases behind them, the magnitude of the Foreign Ministry operation to extract its citizens and their families was apparent to all. Only one country was arranging buses for free from Lviv, escorted by security guards, and had its diplomats meet the buses to issue documents in the field.
It is an incredible service, and a testament to the values of the embassy staff, the Foreign Ministry, and the values of Israel’s people.
Confusion
The operation was jarringly less efficient on the Polish end.
Seeing that I was a Hebrew speaker living in Israel, several passengers approached me to ask how they were supposed to get to Israel. They were disappointed to hear that Israel was not arranging for their travel to the Jewish state, and they began arguing in their family groups about what to do next.
A grandmother asked if she could come with me to Israel. I told her that would be great, but she’d have to buy a ticket.
“How much?” she asked in broken Hebrew.
“Oh not much,” I said, realizing my mistake as the words came out. “Only $300-$400.”
She looked down. “That’s a lot.”
At 7:30 pm, the bus disgorged the passengers at a refugee center near the Korczowa crossing.
Confused, disoriented, the passengers stepped out into the Polish night. They waited around for an Israeli official to meet them, to tell them where to go next, but none were to be found.
Slowly, defeated, they dragged their belongings and kids to the massive warehouse nearby. Handsome young Polish firefighter cadets stood at the entrances. Inside, hundreds of cots lay in rows, occupied by Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Syrians, and others. It was a chaotic scene, and I had no idea what my next move was going to be.
I was tired, sore, and hungry, and I needed to get to Warsaw. Volunteers in orange vests circulated, and told me that buses occasionally left for Warsaw, but they couldn’t tell me when. A volunteer barked out transportation updates into a microphone in Polish, no great help to the vast majority of refugees.
I saw some of my fellow bus travelers frantically making calls. One of them, a teenager, gave me her phone, and on the other end a relative in Israel asked how the girls were supposed to get there. I told her that they would have to buy tickets, and that there was a Ryanair flight from Warsaw the next morning. Apologetically, I handed the phone back to the young lady, gave her my card, and told her I’d try to help if she couldn’t figure anything out.
Along with a Turkmeni couple and two Ukrainian families, I was lucky enough to catch a free six-hour cab ride to Warsaw with a driver who had just unloaded Polish soldiers at the refugee center.
As we drove off, the families trying to get to Israel were still outside, huddled anxiously over their phones.
