In an interview with Insider, Francesco Malavolta shared the story behind the now-viral photo of strollers at the Polish train station.
Francesco Malavolta/AP Photo
A now-viral image of empty strollers on a train platform in Poland is touching the hearts of parents around the world who know how much those prams would unburden a mother who has had to carry her child to freedom in tired arms.
Photographer Francesco Malavolta captured the heartbreaking image on March 3, at the Przemysl train station in Poland, just eight miles from Ukraine's border.
Malavolta told Insider the strollers were brought to the platform by local mothers and women's associations. The strollers wait to be taken by those who need them, demonstrating how mothers can support each other.
"The arriving women had left their strollers in Ukraine to speed up the journey and because many of them were traveling without husbands because they remained fighting," Malavolta said.
The war photographer spoke to one of the women who left a stroller on the platform and had also delivered baby gear to a local school. The Polish mother told Malavolta she was happy to donate the gear out of solidarity with the incoming people from Ukraine.
The now-viral image of the strollers awaiting refugee families captured a moment of calm in a sea of uncertainty and human suffering, said Malavolta.
"The thing that struck me before taking the photo was the absence of people around, while two meters away there were miles of people. It seemed surreal. I thought of them both about the solidarity of those who brought the strollers and the dramatic stories of mothers fleeing the war," he explained.
Malavolta's stunning image has been shared by mothers all over the world, including celebrities like Amy Schumer and Glennon Doyle.
The Polish government estimates that nearly a million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Poland, many with precious few belongings and children clinging to them. At Przemysl, refugees are moving from the train station to a crisis center set up in a former shopping mall. There, mothers are able to charge their phones, get something to eat, and try to plan their next move — one that may be a little easier with the help of a stroller and other donated baby gear.
American journalist and father Tony Dokoupil of "CBS Mornings" also photographed the strollers being brought to the station by Polish parents to help their Ukrainian counterparts.
As Dokoupil points out in his Instagram caption, the trains and buses ferrying families from Ukraine to relative safety are so full, there is simply no room for strollers and other items that make parenting a little easier.
The Polish mothers of Przemysl know this, and they did what mothers around the world do in times of crisis: They gave what they could because they know what mothers need.
