The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood

After seeing his mother lined up at a pit and shot, and his siblings bayoneted, young Alex Kurzem flees into the forest and survives a season alone before being found by soldiers. Instead of killing him, the unit adopts him and uses him to boost morale. In uniforms tailored to his small frame, he hands out chocolates, visits the invalids in hospital and attends ceremonies. Eventually they send him to a family in Latvia but he self-identifies as a solider and, due to his behavior, is sent back to the unit. When WWII ends, he is returned to the family and spends four years in a refugee camp before immigrating to Australia.

The elderly Alex, who has kept his past from his family, begins having night terrors and decides to reveal what show more little he can remember to his son, Mark. Together they embark on finding out Alex's true name and his village. They received little help from Holocaust groups, who stated that Alex might have been born a Jew but he did not suffer as a Jew did and he was not one of them. Even psychologists doubted that Alex was telling the truth, certainly no military unit would take in a child! Alex and Mark continue to explore Belarus to discover the place they came from, the place it all began and, finally, the truth.

I read this in about two sittings. It is very readable, like sitting down hearing a story from your grandfather. It's hard to imagine that soldiers who could so easily slaughter thousands of people would grant mercy to one small boy. Although, as messed up as young Alex was by his trauma, I'm not sure it was a mercy. I can fully see how Alex identified with them as a survival mechanism, they had clothes and food and weapons for protection. An interesting memoir.

"You don't understand the way it was," he murmured. "I just made the best of my situation. I stayed as silent as possible, all my time with them. I was never one of them. Ever! Deep down I knew they were not my people. They were strangers to me. All the time, strangers. They loved me, cared for me, treated me as one of their own. But I always knew what I was, even if I didn't know who I was. I was a Jewish boy. That meant I had to be on guard every moment I was with them. I couldn't risk being discovered. I would have been killed. I feared for my life all the time. The fear was ingrained in me. Can you imagine how it would be for a child to live like that every waking moment?" show less

In a way, this is a story too good to fact-check: According to the spellbinding story, Alex Kurzem (father to the author) is the former boy mascot of the collaborationist Latvian police Schutzmannschaft Battalion 18. Certainly, photographs and survivor interviews support this mascot role. Controversy remains as to whether Alex is Jewish and if he actually witnessed the other Jewish residents of his shtetl massacred by an open pit by (an early Nazi massacre mode I read of in Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning) soldiers allied with those that took him in. That the old man could be incorrect about his childhood memories does not surprise me. That he was a "puppy" in Battalion 18 seems beyond doubt - whether he even is show more Jewish. Regardless, the well-paced story of unraveling this mystery makes for one of the best Holocaust memoir page turners I have read. I hope in years to come, some DNA testing bring some resolution to the matter, as it did (mostly) for the Thomas Jefferson affair as I read of in The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures. show less

The author's father, Alex Kurzem, has been keeping a secret from his family forever. It's only when he is older and all his sons are grown up and long gone that he starts to confide in Mark. Mark grew up in Australia and was living in England when he father, who Mark believed grew up in Latvia, began to reveal his secrets and to ask for help to find out who is really is. He remembers only two words as clues, and remembers that when he was 5 or 6, he saw his mother and siblings shot by the Nazis. He escaped and was later found by soldiers who dressed him up like a little soldier himself, and used him to bolster spirits. The story goes on, and Mark tries to research to help Alex figure out who he really is.

Wow, what an amazing story. As show more Mark tried to get help, some people didn't believe the story, but Alex had photos and newspaper clippings to back up what he remembered. Alex's story coming to light even became dangerous for them all. Of course, it was also extremely difficult and emotional for Alex to relive all these memories. Some questions were answered by the end of the book, but there were still some mysteries surrounding it all. Definitely an intriguing story. show less

This is great story of a father and son trying to piece together a past that has been hidden for 60 years. Mark has chosen to write his father's story in a most spellbinding and compelling way. It feels as though you are in the center of this mystery searching along with him and his father. Alex, a young child, runs away from his home after a Nazi death squad massacres sixteen hundred Jews from his village including his mother. Alex is then found and picked up by Latvian SS soldiers. He hides his Jewish identity and becomes a poster child for the Nazi movement. Alex looses all of himself and becomes this "darling of the Nazis." This is the only way for him to survive. Now sixty odd years later, Alex reveals his secret to his son Mark show more and they start a yearlong journey in search of Alex's true self. This books reads like a good mystery with many twists and turns. At time it doesn't seem real, but then the research proves it is. A remarkable story. show less

Stunning! Many things about this book reminded me of Roots - especially the unbelievable coincidences that make it possible for a person to rediscover their "roots" when it seems impossible or at least unreasonable. A Jewish boy of five escapes murder at the hands of the Nazis only to be turned over to a group and lined up for the firing squad before being "rescued" and used as a lucky charm or a mascot for a troop that kills his fellow Jews. So traumatized that he keeps his childhood a secret for fifty years he finds that he suddenly must talk to his oldest son (the author) who captures the story and the journey back to the homeland. It's a true story that you'll find hard to put down!

when 5 year old Alex escaped the massacre of his mother & fellow villagers, he hid in the freezing Russian forest till he was picked up by a group of Latvian SS soldiers. His father was sent to Auschwitz so Alex hid his Jewish identity and won over the soldiers by being their macot. Sixty-three years of silence THEN Alex revealed his terrible secret to his son Mark. His story is a terrifying account of survival & psychological cost.

I tried hard to get into this book, but I found the writing style to be excruciatingly tedious, overly melodramatic and filled with unnecessary "padding." The recreated conversations and the "voice" which Kurzem gives to his father's vague, exaggerated and perhaps false memories is quite simply not very believable. Here's an example of both the voice and the padding -

"Uncle and I sat quietly for several minutes. He seemed to be coolly appraising me. I could sense his unease, but I hadn't the slightest idea what was bothering him ..." and

"Uncle gave a little smile, before lapsing into silence again. I began to feel on edge, when suddenly he spoke ..."

The book is absolutely loaded with unnecessary "filler" like this, which made me often show more simply throw it down in disgust. After more than two hundred pages of this crap, I finally skimmed over the last half and gave it up as a bad job. I know that this is supposed to be an important new addition to the literature of the Holocaust, but it was simply not a very readable book. I don't care if the NY Times called it "the polished style of a good thriller" and "spellbinding." I thought it was simply awful writing and extremely tedious. It was nearly as bad as a Lifetime movie. show less