ON THE COVER

TOP/MIDDLE: individuals hold 
signs at a main refugee center 
offering rides to cities across 
Europe. 

RIGHT: Helen, a Ukrainian 
English teacher, fled with her 
dog. They wait for their ride on 
the Polish side of the border.
 
FACING PAGE: 
 Volunteers help in a refugee 
center near the Ukrainian 
border.

continued from page 13

may or may not personally 
know. The connection is made, 
and we hug goodbye.

HOW DID I GET HERE?
My conversation with Anna 
took place at the outdoor refu-
gee area, the first stop immedi-
ately after crossing the border 
from Ukraine to the Polish City 
of Hrebenne. It was 10 days 
after the first bombs fell.
Originally from the Detroit 
area, I currently live in 
Budapest, a city I fell in love 
with after I first visited in 2015. 
My Ashkenazi Jewish roots had 
me feeling at home in Budapest, 
and this current situation made 
me feel the presence of my 
grandparents and great-grand-
parents who had fled similarly 
more than 100 years ago.
Budapest is only about 
an eight-hour drive from 
Hrebenne, but the journey 

had begun five days prior with 
a post on a Facebook expat 
group. Someone had requested 
help getting handheld radios 
from a local store and deliver-
ing them to Steve and Maddie, 
an American volunteer transla-
tor and nurse, at the airport in 
Budapest, before they traveled 
to the border. 
Everything was fluid as get-
ting into Ukraine could be just 
as dangerous as getting out, 
and, as they were meeting a 
team of volunteers, some loose-
ly affiliated with various vol-
unteer agencies including the 
United Cajun Navy, it was still 
undetermined through which 
border they would enter. 
We never secured the radios 
as the two shops that carry 
them in Budapest were out, but 
somehow things snowballed, 
and I became part of the team. 
After a long and winding 

road overcoming stumbling 
blocks of lost luggage con-
taining body armor, impossi-
ble-to-obtain Western Union 
Transfers to bring cash to the 
team, and a farmhouse hotel 
with shady Russians dressed in 
all black and smoking outside, 
we made it to the border city 
of Hrebenne, where Steve and 
Maddie met their contact who 
would help them catch a bus 
the 45 miles to Lviv before cur-
few, as they’
d been warned of 
a high chance of being shot if 
out after.

THE FACES IN THE 
REARVIEW MIRROR
I find a place to sleep that night 
in the last room in a small 
hotel a couple of miles from 
the border. It’s inexpensive. My 
room smells like sewage, and 
the restaurant serves vodka. I 
have no complaints. Many will 

be standing in the cold waiting 
up to 80 hours to cross the bor-
der tonight. I give instructions 
to the hotel that, should any 
evacuees need a room, I have a 
sleeping bag and will sleep on 
the floor and allow them the 
bed. Later, when no one claims 

many faces of war

