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The Teddy Bear from Königsberg

Object Day Regensburg: Borys Shleimovych

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

Elderly man holding a red teddy bear in his hands

Borys Shleimovych, born in 1948 in Kiev, USSR, now Ukraine.
Living in Germany since 2008.
Radio mechanic, radio operator, acoustical engineer, sound engineer, book designer, projectionist, IT system administrator.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme

This teddy bear is the only remnant of my childhood. My father fought at the front and reached Königsberg [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. He barely said anything about it. When the battle was over in the city, he was supposed to go out to sea with local German fishermen to help feed the troops and the people living there. That was probably when he found this teddy bear. Later, he gave it to me as a gift. When my parents emigrated to Israel, they threw it out. I found it in the garbage and rescued it. When my wife and I came to Germany, we brought it along. How could we leave it? Now he lives on a shelf in our desk.

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