Videos of the little Ukrainian girl singing in a shelter in Kyiv have made the rounds on social networks. She has now left the country for Poland where she sang on Sunday in front of more than 10,000 spectators at a charity concert.
She left her Ukrainian shelter for the imposing Atlas Arena in Poland. Sunday evening, in front of some 14,000 people gathered in this room in the city of Lodz, a hundred kilometers from Warsaw, a small child’s voice rises. Microphone in hand, white dress, blond braids, Amelia Anisovych, 7, appears on stage. A cappella, she sings the Ukrainian anthem in front of a tide of smartphone flashes, opening the charity concert “Together for Ukraine”. At the end of the piece titled Ukraine is not dead yet, his serious air gives way to an embarrassed smile when the public gives him a frank ovation.
Two weeks ago, the young Ukrainian was far from the spotlight. When war broke out in her native country and the first missiles fell on Kyiv, Amelia, at the time totally unknown to the general public, took refuge in an underground shelter with her parents and her 15-year-old brother. “We were there for a whole week, without enough food, tells his mother to the British tabloid The Sun. To go to the bathroom, we had to run upstairs because his missiles passed over our heads. The children were terrified.”
As one can imagine, the atmosphere in the small bunker is rather tense. Especially since as the hours pass, the refugees there are more and more numerous. Up to 200 people are crammed into the shelter at the height of the shelling. Little Amelia passes the time as she can, pushes the ditty to occupy herself.
A video that went viral
Seduced by her voice, Marta, a woman presents her sides in the shelter, decides to film her. Amelia then sings in Ukrainian Let It Gothe song from the Disney movie Snow Queen. As soon as the first sounds escape from his mouth, everyone stops to listen to him in the bunker. Even babies’ crying stops momentarily.
On March 3, Marta posts the video on her social media. Quickly, the sequence of less than two minutes becomes viral: the shares do not stop and the voice of the little girl reaches tens of millions of people. Amelia becomes, somewhat in spite of herself, the symbol of the destiny of civilians and of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
The video is same relayed by singer Idina Menzel, who performs the original version, in English, of the song. But also by the songwriter, Kristen Anderson-Lopez. “Dear little girl with the beautiful voice. My husband and I wrote this song which tells the story of the healing of a bereaved family. The way you sing it is like a magic trick that spreads light in your heart and heals all who hear it. Keep singing! We’re listening !” she writes on her social networks.
Since then, Amelia has fled the bunker to join, like more than two million Ukrainians in recent weeks, neighboring Poland. She now lives there with her brother with their grandmother, while her parents are still in Kyiv, where they participate in their own way in the fight against the Russians, preparing meals for the troops defending the capital.