Ukrainian refugees leave everything behind, except these few treasured items, as they flee Russian attack

CHELM, Poland – The things they carry: small pillows with embroidered flowers, mottled, well-loved teddy bears, pets, a water polo swimsuit, quietly controlled worry, and invisible, aching absence.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine, the majority of whom, like 22-year-old Olana Newrzhycka, have been transiting through train stations in tidy, modest provincial towns such as Chelm, in southeastern Poland, that dot the border.

After arriving in Chelm on Monday night, Newrzhycka was resting her head on a pillar in a corner of the station and scrolling through her phone searching for news from home. All around, children played or cried, mothers clutched passports, and volunteer stewards passed out soup and water.

"I just had to have these with me. They remind me of my family," Newrzhycka said as she tucked her hair behind one ear to reveal an earring – precious to her – that belonged to her grandmother.

In Newrzhycka's small, squat suitcase beside her was a bracelet, given to her to as a present by another relative. This, too, was what she grabbed as Russian shells descended on her apartment building, blowing out the windows and making it untenable for her to stay in Zhytomyr, a few hours west of Kyiv.

Newrzhycka hopes to eventually find work in Krakow. She is trying to not think too much about that for now.

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Refugees leave everything behind – except a few treasured items

The life of a refugee is about leaving everything behind: family, house, job, school. It often means fleeing with little more than the clothes on your back and whatever you can carry. Many flee with just the most basic necessities to keep their families warm or to stave off hunger.

Yet many also refuse to part with items or tokens whose value is exceptionally important to them, more for the memories they invoke or the emotional comfort they afford than their monetary value.

For 17-year-old Anastasia Oleksienko, from near Kyiv, it was her high school diploma. She escaped Ukraine for Poland this week with her family. Russian missile attacks and artillery shut down all the schools in her area. Oleksienko has ambitions to be a lawyer. Those dreams are hold for now. She wore a matching pink sweater and beanie hat with a pompom and exuded giddy excitement despite the circumstances.

For Yusef Grinchak, 15, it was two swimsuits for playing water polo, both with Ukraine's national colors of blue and gold. Yusef and his mother, Irina, fled from Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, which has suffered some of the most heavy bombardment from Russian forces. At least 21 civilians have died in Kharkiv. Before the war, Yusef diligently trained in the sport twice a day – early in the morning and late at night.

He is too sad to talk about his swimsuits now, but his mom said he insisted on bringing them with him. He has been playing water polo since he was 7 and hopes to become a coach.

“He wants the war to end and come back to home and swim as soon as possible,” Irina Grinchak said.

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Olena Zaiceva arrived in Chelm at 4 a.m. on Tuesday with one suitcase. She had nothing it in for herself. All the extra space was taken up by books for her daughters, ages 3 and 5.

As Zaiceva, 40, spoke with USA TODAY, her daughters plucked stuffed animals out of a nearby donation box, hugging them for a bit before dropping them back in. Their father, unable to leave Ukraine because of the government's mandate that men ages 18 to 60 stay behind to join the war effort, is a firefighter.

For the older daughter, Zaiceva brought math and reading textbooks, and for the younger child an assortment of Ukrainian fairytales that she reads again and again. One of her favorites is a story about a neglected dog and an old wolf who become friends in a forest and try to persuade the dog's owner to take him back.

'I can't answer that question. I simply can't'

On the 13th day of the war, Ukraine appears to be holding key cities and territory as Russia faces a crippling economic response from the U.S. and Europe. In Washington, President Joe Biden announced a ban on the U.S. import of Russian oil and gas on Tuesday.

But across Ukraine, humanitarian corridors for fleeing civilians are continuing to come under attack, pushing waves of refugees like Dasha Kosyanechuk into eastern Europe.

Kosyanechuk, 19, carried her favorite pillow from Odesa, in southern Ukraine, to Chelm – a journey that took four days.

“I can’t sleep on any other,” she said Tuesday at the Chelm station, where three or four trains arrive each day from Ukraine full of people hoping the worst is behind them but facing a new universe of uncertainty.

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They are greeted by police, firefighters, medics and various civil society representatives who offer them a helping hand off trains, sustenance, shelter and even legal and mental health support if they need it.

For some, it is not clothes or comfort or memorabilia that matter.

"There was no way I was leaving home without my dog," said Angalina Osipenko, 22, a nurse from Kharkiv, as she stood outside the Chelm train station waiting to be picked up by a relative who lives in Poland.

Osipenko brought one small backpack, barely enough to hold a change of clothes. Her dog, Tmatri, a tiny Maltese-type breed, shivered in the cold. Osipenko had worried she would be stopped at the border with Tmatri because she had seen many boxes full of abandoned pooches at the Kharkiv train station. When she left home, she zipped Tmatri up in her coat and hoped for the best. A day later they made it to Chelm.

"She's a well-traveled dog," Osipenko said. "She's been to Kyiv 12 times."

Still, most are also weighed down by what they've left behind.

"Please, I can't answer that question. I simply can't," said the mother of Anastasia Oleksienko, the 17-year-old who wants to be a lawyer. Her husband stayed behind in Ukraine to fight.

One of the unspoken tragedies of this conflict is whether husbands and fathers will ever see their wives and children again.

"He will be alive," she said. "He will not die."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine refugees leave everything behind save a few prized belongings