She showed up. In memoriam: Christine Eliashevsky-Chraibi

Chris showed up. Day after day after day. 

She answered the call for translators on Maidan square in 2014, and never left. 

Chris carried a mission: to make Ukraine visible to the world. She made the invisible visible, every day. 

She translated a photo project with stories of the families of fallen soldiers. She translated stories of Ukrainian composers for a new app promoting them. Because she couldn’t not show up. To my frustration, because the more she was doing the volunteer projects, the less she was with us. 

It had ripple effects. A filmmaker in Australia saw her post about war mothers, about Svitlana from Cherkasy who enrolled in the army after her son was killed defending the Donetsk airport. He left his advertising job and made the film War Mothers, and then a second one, and toured the globe with them. 

She wrote the truth, and the truth traveled. 

The resistance was hereditary. Her mother survived Ravensbrück, incarcerated for being a young Ukrainian political activist. The family moved to Canada. The memory stayed. Chris returned to Ukraine. She cared for soldiers recovering in hospitals. She kept a tally of fallen soldiers religiously. She donated her salary to snipers. She saw the things that needed to be said before I did.

One day, I realized that the spirit fighting for an independent Ukraine had been here before—in the people who risked camps like Ravensbrück and did it anyway. And Chris was one of them. 

Today, Ukraine is alive because of this spirit. Chris carried it.

Whenever things went rough, Chris would say, “I’m so angry at the Russian invasion,” and we would remember what we’re here for. At 79, she said she'd be at the front if she were younger. When we screened a documentary about political prisoners at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, she came on crutches. And through it all, she saw the beauty of the music in Lviv, the new plays and books. And showed it in each daily good morning post.

She had high standards for herself and was merciful to others. When she was in the hospital with a tube sticking out of her on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, she wrote: “I was thinking about all those homeless women and kids.” When I grow up, I want to be like Chris. 

Explore Christine's coverage of Ravensbrück based on the memories of her mother here. And her complete author's archive here.