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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expects up to four million people to leave the country. A particularly large number are fleeing to Poland, as more than a million Ukrainians are already living in the neighboring country. A look.
Sirens sound: This is what security sounds like – like police sirens and moving forward. “Do you know how long you have to wait at the border?” asks a man.
It is the border between Shehyni and Medyka, between Ukraine and Poland, between war and peace.
Oksana knows how long you have to wait here: “We stood in line for 14 hours.” 20 kilometers before the border, the queue begins, says the woman. For a week she has been thinking in terms of distances and waiting times. Seven days ago – or was it seven years? – she fled the Ukrainian capital Kiev with her daughter. Was waiting – for buses until it was her turn. “We didn’t get anything to drink while waiting at the border,” she says. Pulled-up hood, backpack – and helplessness. «Where to now? I do not know that.”
Legend:
Oksana has been waiting at the border with her daughter for a long time.
SRF / Kamil Misiek
Nadia doesn’t know where to go either – her sons are clinging to her thick coat. She just had her own business in western Ukraine, then her husband took her to the Polish border: “We woke up under bombs, had to save the two little ones, the older daughter wants to stay in Ukraine and fight.” And the man has to stay – conscript men are not allowed to leave the country.
Legend:
Her husband had to stay behind: Nadia with one of her sons.
SRF / Kamil Misiek
A ring tone rings out: The partisan song “Bella Ciao”: That’s the sound of concern – like drawn out phones, like ring tones like “Bella Ciao”, the song of the Italian resistance fighters in World War II.
Anna stands next to her car, apologizes, she has to make a phone call. Anna is Ukrainian but lives in Poland. She is waiting for her thirteen year old brother, her uncle. Her relatives, says Anna, told her that it was terribly expensive just to take the bus close to the border. “My parents and my grandmother are still in the air-raid shelter in Kiev,” she says with concern.
Legend:
Warming tea and food strengthen the people after the long wait and escape.
SRF / Kamil Misiek
“Tea,” calls Wladyslaw in Polish and Ukrainian. This is what help sounds like. There are also water bottles on the table and sandwiches. Wladyslaw is Ukrainian but studies in Kraków, Poland. «I raised money with some friends. We shopped and drove to the border.” Then Wladyslaw falls silent – his father is fighting in eastern Ukraine. “It’s difficult for me…”
Legend:
Psychologist Anna (left) offers to help. Oksana gladly accepts them.
SRF / Kamil Misiek
For another Anna, on the other hand, everything was simple and clear. She is Polish, psychotherapist. And she went to the border to help strangers. “That goes without saying.” Anna will take Oksana and her mother to her home.
“I’m from Kiev,” says Oksana, “and my mother is from western Ukraine.” Neither of them can speak Polish, psychotherapist Anna can’t speak Ukrainian. “It doesn’t matter, we’ll understand each other.”
Legend:
A big red bus takes the fugitives to shelters.
SRF / Kamil Misiek
Right next to it, the police and fire brigade are conferring. A pregnant woman is in bad shape, an ambulance will be called. A firefighter lets people from Ukraine get on a big red bus. “We bring the people into the warmth, into the towns and villages of the area.” The Polish authorities are helping – shelter, food, medicine.
And that’s what courage sounds like – a woman brought her daughter across the border and is now going back. Why? “What a question, we’re at war, we have to defend the country.”