Lena and Natascha On the Run

Lena Reports: After the war started, we decided to take the children out of the war zone.  Since the men are not allowed to leave Ukraine, we went out alone.  Our four children. myself, and the son of the eldest daughter, Natasha, set out for the border. We knew that it would be difficult to leave the country.  We were told that there were a lot of people at the Polish border.  But when we approached the border, we were shocked.  A line of cars of about 30 km was standing in front of the border and there was only one border passage for pedestrians.  At this passage there were about two thousand people – all women with children.  They stood there partly for several days and there was no possibility to sit down anywhere. The border opened every 2-3 hours and only a few hundred people were let through.  When they opened the gates and said that 250 people could go through, the crowd of people ran towards the gate and everyone tried to get in first.  From that point on, there was a lot of chaos and I was very afraid that I would lose my children, or my youngest child would be trampled.  The children were falling down, screaming, and the crowd was pushing.  The police had no control over this situation.  I was very scared. It was dark and already 10 o’clock at night.  Then we (about 500 women and children) stood at a counter to get the stamp in the passport. The time was dragging on and everyone was tired.  The temperature outside was -3 degrees.  After an hour we hardly felt our hands and feet.  My son is 9 years old and was very cold so I put my socks on him.  But it was of little use. Our oldest daughter was there with her four-year-old son.  She held him in her arms the whole time.  It was not until half past two in the morning that we crossed the Ukrainian border.  The Polish border officials gave us blankets, wrapped the children in them and offered us hot tea and sandwiches.  We got seats in a warm bus and they took us to the train station in Poland. My youngest son said that he will never forget this nightmare for the rest of his life.