I see a photo on Twitter of a building that has been bombed. I immediately recognise it as my own. That was my home.
I don’t exactly know how much time we spend underground. Two, three days, maybe? When we finally make it out, we take a train to Lviv. We have to stand upright for 22 hours—the wagons are simply overcrowded. We are going very slowly in anticipation of nearby bombings and explosions. We cannot eat, sit, sleep, or even contact our families to tell them that we are alive. I wonder what they’re thinking.
In Lviv, we purchase tickets for a scheduled train, but it never comes. Some trains pass and don’t open their doors, already at full capacity. Others open the doors to only one car, leaving passengers to shove their way onboard.
In Uzhhorod, there is meant to be a bus, but it never shows up either. It is way too cold. We cannot spend the night here. So we catch a ride from a van headed to the Romanian border—we’ve heard reports of racism and even imprisonment at the Polish border.