Lviv Central Station, at three in the morning.

Tightly packed women, children, babies, people with blankets, people with sleeping bags, lying, sitting, standing.

Ice clouds in front of the face, because it's cold, and the crowd not only fills the magnificent hall from the time of the Emperors of Austria, but also the forecourt.

Big suitcases block the way, you have to run a slalom to get through.

The helpers set up tents in front of the train station, poorly heated and drafty, but tents nonetheless.

The people are lying on the floor, and those who were smart brought a sleeping pad.

If you don't have one, you can make camp out of suitcases and roll yourself up.

Konrad Schuller

Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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Helpers in safety vests or with yellow bandages around their arms stand behind soup kettles, behind heaps of wrapped sausage sandwiches and sorted sweaters, coats, and hats.

They come without being asked.

"The soup is still warm," they say, "take it."

They are very friendly and only get annoyed if someone says to them: "But the soup is only lukewarm." Or if someone only wants cheese and not sausage.

But that doesn't happen often because people are hungry.

The people are the refugees fleeing Russia's war in Ukraine.

Lviv in western Ukraine, Lemberg in German, is the last stop before Poland.

Anyone willing to wait hours and days can come along.

The trains run without any timetable, but they run.

Packed to the brim with women, children and old men.

Men under 60 are not there because they are not allowed out because of the mobilization.

Anyone who speaks otherwise could be a spy

But some men drive in the other direction.

From the west into the Ukraine.

When the train has unloaded its cargo in Poland, it fills up again over there.

Not quite, but at least half: Ukrainians from all over Europe returning home to fight.

It's noisy on the train to Ukraine.

You sit among the rubbish, because the cars haven't been cleaned for days, and you talk.

Foreigners should be careful now.

Russia invaded Ukraine, anyone who speaks otherwise could be a diver.

That's what they call spies or saboteurs here.

"Who are you, huh?

What do you want?” Pass out, press card out.

discussions.

The men calm down.

Then everyone sleeps a little.

You know when the train gets to Lemberg it's only three in the morning, but the curfew is until six.

Then you have to see that you can go into one of these tents at the train station, but you don't get much sleep there.

So now a little bunk on the train, hat over your eyes, and knees pulled up, because the wooden bench is short.

Lviv, Wednesday morning.

The city is far from the front lines and it's reasonably quiet.

Putin's howitzers are hundreds of kilometers to the east and north.

They're firing at Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, but here on the Polish border, nobody expects a quick tank advance.

The city therefore seems normal, at least at first glance.

In the first few days after the Russian attack, there were still queues in front of grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and ATMs, but now people have stocked up and most of the queues have gone.