As the war crept closer to Odesa, Ann heeded the pleas of her friends abroad and fled to Holland. A month later, as she tried to calm her son over the phone while Russian missiles shook the Black Sea port city around him, she decided to return. “I couldn’t stick it,” she says. “I needed to get home.”
The 50-year-old mother moved through a crowd of women and children at Przemyśl train station in Poland on a Wednesday afternoon to board her train. “I do not care what will happen to me,” Ann says. “If something happens to my family, why do I need to live?”
