When I hopped on a train from Kraków to Przemyśl, a small Polish town near the Ukrainian border, I expected to be confronted with a humanitarian catastrophe, produced by a million people fleeing their homes due to war. But what I saw was instead the best of humanity.
As Russia has launched a bloody full-scale war against my country, thousands of Ukrainians have escaped by train to this railway station. There, they are met by an enormous banner in front of its entrance that reads, in both Polish and Ukrainian: “You are safe here.” Inside, dozens of Polish volunteers provide Ukrainian refugees with “everything for free”, as another sign says – food, water, clothes, phones with prepaid plans, accommodation, legal advice. While I was there, the volunteers mingled among the crowds, helping displaced Ukrainians find food, hot beverages and somewhere to sit. Little islands of people surrounded power extensions, clinging to their phones for news and texts from loved ones who were still in Ukraine.
