AT THE SERBIAN-HUNGARIAN BORDER (AP) — At the edge of a Balkan vineyard, Mohammed al-Haj lay down under a tree to collect his thoughts. Come nightfall, he and the other Syrians with him would make a run for it, past the fence of chain-link and barbed wire being built along the Hungarian border to keep them out, past the armed border guards. The dream of normalcy after a life destroyed by Syria's civil war had sustained the 26-year-old throughout his journey. Through rain and muddy fields, crowded train stations and long bus rides, lack of sleep, confusion, impatience, exhaustion, fear and anger — the constant barrage of every emotion, except one. Mohammed's voyage was part of an historic movement of humanity as more than 600,000 migrants this year have crossed land and sea, seeking sanctuary in Europe. Countries there have been struggling to cope with the biggest wave of migration since World War II. Ahead of them were the railway tracks, the cornfields — and the border guards. When the uprising against President Bashar Assad first began in early 2011, Mohammed immediately joined the protests, singing and dancing in the streets. [...] by 2012, the uprising had descended into the hell of civil war, dragging Mohammed's home city of Aleppo into its crosshairs. Syria's largest city, once the jewel of the country's commerce and culture, was a battleground, torn between government- and rebel-held zones. The military's onslaught of bombardment and barrel bombs had reduced neighborhoods to rubble. Mohammed, a member of Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, was a volunteer at a front-line hospital, where The Associated Press first met him in October 2012. For weeks at a time, the facility was overwhelmed by an unrelenting stream of wounded and dead civilians and rebels. The young man, who had just graduated from high school a few years earlier, was constantly cheerful and energetic. At the head of the family was the hospital's senior doctor, Osman al-Haj Osman — "Dr. Osman," to his staff. Quiet but authoritative, he was so dedicated he moved his wife and children into the hospital so he wouldn't have to leave his patients. [...] in November 2012, a barrel bomb hit a building next door housing rebel fighters, heavily damaging the hospital. Among them was a young woman volunteer who only days earlier had married a fellow staffer, a romance born in war and quickly snuffed out by it. [...] a small border town has no future for a young man who, back in Syria, had intended to go to university to study literature, until the war wrecked that dream. "Syria is finished for me," said Mohammed, whose leg is scarred by shrapnel he suffered from a barrel bomb in Aleppo. When Germany rejected his application for a student visa in late August, his mind was made up. Through two hours of high waves, they loudly recited verses from the Quran, "Say, he is Allah, who is One, Allah the Eternal," hoping for God's protection. The crowds of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans languished around Lesbos' capital Mytilene, sleeping on sidewalks and in parks, some in tents, some on cardboard. Fights broke out among migrants, broken up by riot police who waded in shouting, shoving and swinging batons. Mohammed heard that mass registration of refugees was being held at a soccer stadium outside Mytilene. Inside the half-empty lounges, Greeks and Western tourists stretched out across the seats to sleep or sat on sofas watching television. The hundreds of migrants were told to cram onto the eighth level, a bare room with plastic chairs. The open-air upper deck, exposed to the cold night breeze and rain. The Serbian town of Presevo, about 10 miles in from the Macedonian border, teemed with migrants and refugees trying to get a Serbian registration document, required before they could move on to the Hungarian border. Only two days after the broiling heat of Lesbos, families huddled for warmth around fires in barrels in the streets. Sitting among suitcases and plastic bags full of clothes, children trembled in their parents' arms. In a grimy hole-in-the-wall restaurant run by ethnic Albanians, the kids behind the counter smoked cigarettes as they cooked up burgers. Locals had a roaring trade selling the documents, obtained from friends in the police. Street peddlers were making a killing, too, selling clothes and blankets to the bedraggled travelers. For 10 hours, Mohammed and his companions stood in line at the local hospital serving as the registration point, as arguments broke out between migrants and police. The brother came out of the hospital and started asking Mohammed about the Islamic State group and the situation in Aleppo. On the other side, 500 yards down the railroad tracks, was the office where the Hungarians were registering and fingerprinting migrants. When night fell on Sept. 12 — 10 days and 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) by boat, bus, train and foot from Killis, Turkey — Mohammed and his colleagues left the vineyard. Please! Mohammed screamed as the dog stood on his chest snarling in his face, the police flashlight in his eyes. Along with Mohammed and his companions, the Hungarian police also detained an AP television reporter, Luca Muzi, and only released him after forcing him to delete footage of the dog attacking Mohammed. Squatting on the ground at the train station in Jennersdorf, Austria, Mohammed was on five different WhatsApp chats with other Syrians in Germany, trying to determine which states ignored the Hungarian registration and would grant asylum. Mohammed's obsession — keep moving, rush through any open door — served him well. Two days after he crossed into Hungary, it slammed its border with Serbia shut, complaining that it must "protect Europe's borders" if Greece was not up for it. With 4,000 asylum-seekers a day still landing on Greek shores and making their way through the Balkans, desperate migrants were tossed from country to country, facing only closed doors. Abdul-Rahman was safe and already in Saarland, the German state where Mohammed was heading and where Dr. Osman lived. [...] instead of being detained or thrown back, they received a welcome that was everything Mohammed could hope for. At a processing center set up in a gymnasium, they were given a lunch of rice and chicken with apples, bananas or ice cream for dessert. There were washing machines and Arabic-language signs giving directions to sparkling clean bathrooms. Quit smoking — cigarettes drain your money. Germans will look down at you if they know you live off government handouts.
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