Object of Fortune
by Lena Gorelik based on voices and testimonies from then and now / Direction: Martina van Boxen / Theater der Jungen Welt Leipzig
Kyiv 1941, Leipzig 2025. Two boys, two stories. And the question: how does the past affect the present? Motja is 14 and in love for the first time. But there is little space for that in 1941. The German Wehrmacht has just occupied Ukraine. Like all other Jewish people from Kyiv, Motja, together with his mother and grandfather, must obey the occupiers’ order to gather at an assembly point. None of them know that the Germans are planning to kill them all. Only a few will survive the Babi Yar massacre. Motja is one of them, as is the puppet player Dina, whom he meets on his flight, shortly before he is shot dead.
Yuri is 14, too. He fled from Kyiv with his mother before the Russian attack and now lives in Leipzig. Here he can go to school and live in safety. But Yuri is finding it hard to get used to living in a foreign country. Fortunately, there is Sveta, who also comes from Ukraine. How wonderful it would be to be able to tell her that he has fallen in love with her, but even here, over 1,000 kilometres away, the war remains always present for Yuri.
