Ein Glücksding - Nach Stimmen und Zeitzeugnissen von damals und heute

In the organizer's words:

Kyiv 1941, Leipzig 2025: two boys, two stories. And the question: how the past affects the present.

Motja is 14 and in love for the first time. But there is little room for that in 1941. The German Wehrmacht has just occupied Ukraine. Like all other Jewish people from Kyiv, Motja, his mother and grandfather have to follow the occupying forces' orders to report to an assembly point. None of them know that the Germans are planning to kill them all. Only a few will survive the massacre of Babyn Yar. Motja is one of them, as is the puppeteer Dina, whom he meets on his escape, shortly before fatal shots rob him of his young life.

Yuri is also 14, having fled Kyiv with his mother to escape the Russian attack and now lives in Leipzig. Here he can go to school and live in safety. But it is not easy for Juri to find his way around in a foreign country. Fortunately, there is Sveta, who also comes from Ukraine. How nice it would be to be able to tell her that he has fallen in love with her, but even here, over 1000 kilometers away, the war remains very present for Yuri.

Yuri and Motya share a passion: drawing. It helps them to see and understand the world in their own way. And even though there are over 80 years between their lives, the two boys are able to meet each other in this way - just like us.

The fact that Motja really did exist is told by testimonies from the puppeteer Dina Pronitschewa, who reported on the Babyn Yar massacre in trials after the Second World War. These documents provided the basis for Lena Gorelik's play, as did interviews with people from Ukraine who now live in Kyiv's twin city of Leipzig. What they all have in common is the question of how the past affects the present.

Author Lena Gorelik, born in St. Petersburg in 1981, came to Germany with her Russian-Jewish family in 1992. She has received several awards for her work and was nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize and the German Children's Theater Prize

The production EIN GLÜCKSDING is being produced in cooperation with the Ariowitsch-Haus e.V. cultural and meeting center.

Supported by the Department of International Cooperation of the City of Leipzig and the Department of Strategic Cultural Policy of the City of Leipzig as part of "Tacheles - Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony"