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The Medal from Chernobyl

Object Day Regensburg: Boris Wachs

“Show us your story!” – Beginning in 2017, the Jewish participants in the Object Days project have answered this invitation by recounting their migration stories.

Older gentleman in dark jacket holds medal and a document in his hands

Boris Wachs, born 1938 in Kohowka, USSR, today Ukraine.
In Germany since 1994.
Radio operator.

I lived in Zhytomyr, not far from Chernobyl. I was a radio operator. We were able to make connections. You would build your own radio set-up and could get in contact with the whole world. Back when the Chernobyl disaster happened, I was working as a radio operator in the department that covered this region. I was also involved in organizing the clean-up efforts. I was perpetually in that zone, in Chernobyl. I received a medal of honor and a certificate for participants in “liquidating the impacts of the accident.”

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