Despite being surrounded by thousands of people, Maryam Rezaie, who wears red-rimmed glasses and has a moon-shaped face, feels all alone.

Still a teenager, she left Kabul by herself after getting separated from her family in the chaos on the way to Kabul airport. The family was fleeing the Taliban, she said, afraid they would be targeted because her father had worked for an American company.

Now she is thousands of miles away in Germany, under gray skies and in tears. She says she can’t reach her family, they’re not online.

“I’m here all alone and I have no one,” Maryam said Monday, while crying. “I really don’t know what will happen to my family.”

Maryam and other Afghans who traveled here are in purgatory, caught between the hell of Kabul and their uncertain new lives. They left with almost nothing, taking only what they could carry and wear.