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

One mans struggle with memory and prejudice on the way to recovering his past Mark Kurzem was happily ensconced in his academic life at Oxford when his father, Alex, showed up on his doorstep with a terrible secret to tell. When a Nazi death squad raided his village at the outset of World War II, Jewish five-year-old Alex Kurzem escaped. After surviving the Russian winter by foraging for food and stealing clothes off dead soldiers, he was discovered by a Nazi-led Latvian police brigade that later became an SS unit. Not knowing he was Jewish, they made him their mascot, dressing the little corporal in uniform and toting him from massacre to massacre. Terrified, the resourceful Alex charmed the highest echelons of the Latvian Third Reich, eventually starring in a Nazi propaganda film. When the war ended he was sent to Australia with a family of Latvian refugees. Fearful of being discovered as either a Jew or a Nazi

Alex kept the secret of his childhood, even from his loving wife and children. But he grew increasingly tormented and became determined to uncover his Jewish roots and the story of his past. Shunned by a local Holocaust organization, he reached out to his son Mark for help in reclaiming his identity. A survival story, a grim fairy-tale, and a psychological drama, this remarkable memoir asks provocative questions about identity, complicity, and forgiveness.

Well, this book would be fascinating even if I didn't happen to be vaguely near the area it happened in. Although the forests we've been travelling thru have certainly fueled my imagination.

I have said before that I adore books (and movies) that leave you wanting to scour the internet, searching for more information and this along with the next book I read on the Trans-Mongolian train have both inspired exactly that reaction in me.

This book is fascinating although I didn't always like the way it was written. I would highly recommend it. I loved that it included photos and although the story-telling was always interesting and I did struggle to ration my reading on the train, I found I wanted there to be more factual investigation alongside.

Anyway, again, an unbelievable life story and I think you should read this!