In car five, Elina is waiting for the westbound journey to continue.

But first the passports have to be checked in Frankfurt an der Oder, which is what will be done here this Saturday with all trains from Poland.

Officials are also taking people off the trains this weekend who are not allowed to continue because their papers do not allow them to do so.

Elina, on the other hand, can continue traveling unhindered with her Ukrainian passport.

Tobias Schrors

political editor.

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The nineteen-year-old's yellow sweater has the name of a city on it: Los Angeles.

It's a special piece of clothing, says the student, because she's always wanted to visit the American city.

But now she is on her way to Berlin.

The train is going through, so she doesn't get off in Frankfurt an der Oder.

For everyone else who changes trains here, the civil protection officers have set up heated tents and toilets on the station forecourt, and volunteers are distributing water, gummy bears and bananas.

Bags were packed for children with cuddly toys and painting materials.

Passport control takes so long that the train only leaves the border station 23 minutes late.

The air in the fully occupied carriages is a bit stale, and worries and luggage are piling up between the women and children.

A middle-aged woman sits on a pile of bags, her pale eyelids closed, her head leaning against the wall.

In the corridor in front of Elina's six-seater compartment, a young man looks out the window and lets the Brandenburg landscape pass him by with a lost gaze.

With the passengers on this train, Elina is part of a large stream of refugees that is constantly growing.

Countless have set out.

On Sunday, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi spoke of the "fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War".

According to estimates by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine so far, most of them to Poland.

By Sunday morning, the country had around 922,400 refugees from Ukraine, and according to the Interior Ministry, 37,786 were registered in Germany.

But the number could be much higher.

turning point

Elina wanted to build a life in her home country.

She moved from Lviv in western Ukraine to Kyiv, studied English and German.

Because of her good grades, she received a scholarship.

She also taught English on the side and was even an entertainer for tourists in Egypt for a short time.

In the past few weeks she has been living in a hostel in the middle of Kyiv because Corona makes her lonely and she wanted to be around people again.

But that now sounds like a story from another time.

Everything has changed since February 24th.

In the early morning of that day, Elina is woken up by another young woman in the shared room of the hostel.

She received news from her parents from the port city of Mariupol: the war has begun.

Elina doesn't have to think twice.

She clears her bank account, takes her things and takes the train to her parents in Lviv in the west.

The fear travels with you and the thought of leaving.

Elina's parents have doubts about the idea of ​​fleeing, but the war drives them away too.

The decision is soon made: Elina will go, the parents will stay.

Like all men between the ages of 18 and 60, the father is not allowed to leave the country.

The mother doesn't want to go without him, nor does she want to leave her work and the cat behind.

That's how Elina tells it.

Her mother still hopes that everything will be fine.

You don't have that hope yourself.