Nazi war mascot was Jewish
Mascot ... Alex in SS uniform with grinning Latvian death squad in 1943
By TIM SPANTON
June 15, 2007
The Sun
IT looks like a typical wartime photo.
In fact it is evidence of one of the most remarkable stories of the Second World War that has only just emerged.
The smiling soldiers are members of a Latvian-based SS death squad that hunted down Jews for Nazi Germany.
The boy is their mascot who was lauded in propaganda newsreels as “the Reich’s youngest Nazi”.
But the filmmakers didn’t know the little boy was, in fact, Jewish.
He had seen most of his family massacred by men — possibly from the same military unit.
The lad survived the war by hiding his identity and later emigrated to Australia where he raised a family of his own.
Now Alex Kurzem has broken 60 years of silence to tell his story in a book written by his son Mark.
Survivor ... Alex Kurzem today
Alex was born Ilya, the eldest child of Solomon and Hana Galperin from the village of Koidanov in what is now Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union.
On October 21, 1941, the Jewish men of the village were rounded up and executed by a Latvian militarised police unit.
The women and children were also rounded up but sent back to their homes when a sudden rainstorm struck.
“My mother had said, ‘We are all going to die tomorrow’ but I didn’t want to die,” he recalls.
That night Alex, who was five or six — he cannot remember his exact birthday — fled in his nightclothes through a small hole in a fence.
He says “I fell asleep by a tree and woke the next morning to the sound of screams.
“If only I had not looked, but I could see soldiers forcing people down a hill, using bayonets.
“Then I saw my family. I wanted to call out, I wanted to go to my mother, but I couldn’t. The soldiers shot my mother and put bayonets into my brother and sister.
“I had to bite my hands to stop myself screaming.”
Alex lived in the woods for nine months, eating mainly berries and sheltering under a greatcoat he took from a dead soldier.
He also begged at farmhouses until, in July 1942, he was handed over to a Nazi patrol.
He was lined up with other civilian prisoners but impulsively ran forward to the soldiers and begged on his knees for bread.
The soldiers were from neighbouring Latvia — possibly the very same men who had earlier massacred Alex’s family.
The patrol’s commander, Sergeant Jekabs Kanis, took pity on Alex who, despite his Jewish ancestry, had “typically Aryan” blond hair.
The orphan was given the name Uldis Kurzemnieks, in honour of Kurzeme, the west Latvian region where the soldiers originated, and he was adopted by the unit as its mascot.
In 1943 the unit was given SS status and new uniforms, so the soldiers clubbed together to give Alex, by now seven or eight, his own miniature uniform complete with replica gun.
Alex even featured in a German newsreel where the Latvians boasted of him being “the Reich’s youngest Nazi”.
The film is typical propaganda but Alex, young as he was, realised he was living a double life. He witnessed bloody massacres of Jews and Soviet citizens suspected of opposing the Nazis.
He admits: “I hated the soldiers’ brutality but at other times I loved being the centre of attention.
"All the time I was terrified they would discover my real identity and I would be shot for my faith.”
By 1944 the tide of the war had changed and the Soviets began reconquering Latvia.
Alex was sent to live with a prominent Latvian family. They survived the war and in 1949 emigrated to Australia and his name was anglicised to Alex Kurzem.
He later settled in Melbourne, worked as an electrician, married and had three sons.
It took Alex and one of his sons, Mark, many years and frequent trips to Belarus and Latvia to piece together the full story.
At one point Alex received hate mail from fellow Jews who claimed he was an accomplice of the Nazis — not one of their victims.
But now his life is studied by Australian children learning about the Second World War and post-war migration Down Under.
It is a remarkable and ultimately inspiring memoir of a tragic time.
The Mascot: The Extraordinary Story Of A Young Jewish Boy And An SS Extermination Squad, by Mark Kurzem, Rider & Co, £16.99.
thesun.co.uk
Mascot ... Alex in SS uniform with grinning Latvian death squad in 1943
By TIM SPANTON
June 15, 2007
The Sun
IT looks like a typical wartime photo.
In fact it is evidence of one of the most remarkable stories of the Second World War that has only just emerged.
The smiling soldiers are members of a Latvian-based SS death squad that hunted down Jews for Nazi Germany.
The boy is their mascot who was lauded in propaganda newsreels as “the Reich’s youngest Nazi”.
But the filmmakers didn’t know the little boy was, in fact, Jewish.
He had seen most of his family massacred by men — possibly from the same military unit.
The lad survived the war by hiding his identity and later emigrated to Australia where he raised a family of his own.
Now Alex Kurzem has broken 60 years of silence to tell his story in a book written by his son Mark.
Survivor ... Alex Kurzem today
Alex was born Ilya, the eldest child of Solomon and Hana Galperin from the village of Koidanov in what is now Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union.
On October 21, 1941, the Jewish men of the village were rounded up and executed by a Latvian militarised police unit.
The women and children were also rounded up but sent back to their homes when a sudden rainstorm struck.
“My mother had said, ‘We are all going to die tomorrow’ but I didn’t want to die,” he recalls.
That night Alex, who was five or six — he cannot remember his exact birthday — fled in his nightclothes through a small hole in a fence.
He says “I fell asleep by a tree and woke the next morning to the sound of screams.
“If only I had not looked, but I could see soldiers forcing people down a hill, using bayonets.
“Then I saw my family. I wanted to call out, I wanted to go to my mother, but I couldn’t. The soldiers shot my mother and put bayonets into my brother and sister.
“I had to bite my hands to stop myself screaming.”
Alex lived in the woods for nine months, eating mainly berries and sheltering under a greatcoat he took from a dead soldier.
He also begged at farmhouses until, in July 1942, he was handed over to a Nazi patrol.
He was lined up with other civilian prisoners but impulsively ran forward to the soldiers and begged on his knees for bread.
The soldiers were from neighbouring Latvia — possibly the very same men who had earlier massacred Alex’s family.
The patrol’s commander, Sergeant Jekabs Kanis, took pity on Alex who, despite his Jewish ancestry, had “typically Aryan” blond hair.
The orphan was given the name Uldis Kurzemnieks, in honour of Kurzeme, the west Latvian region where the soldiers originated, and he was adopted by the unit as its mascot.
In 1943 the unit was given SS status and new uniforms, so the soldiers clubbed together to give Alex, by now seven or eight, his own miniature uniform complete with replica gun.
Alex even featured in a German newsreel where the Latvians boasted of him being “the Reich’s youngest Nazi”.
The film is typical propaganda but Alex, young as he was, realised he was living a double life. He witnessed bloody massacres of Jews and Soviet citizens suspected of opposing the Nazis.
He admits: “I hated the soldiers’ brutality but at other times I loved being the centre of attention.
"All the time I was terrified they would discover my real identity and I would be shot for my faith.”
By 1944 the tide of the war had changed and the Soviets began reconquering Latvia.
Alex was sent to live with a prominent Latvian family. They survived the war and in 1949 emigrated to Australia and his name was anglicised to Alex Kurzem.
He later settled in Melbourne, worked as an electrician, married and had three sons.
It took Alex and one of his sons, Mark, many years and frequent trips to Belarus and Latvia to piece together the full story.
At one point Alex received hate mail from fellow Jews who claimed he was an accomplice of the Nazis — not one of their victims.
But now his life is studied by Australian children learning about the Second World War and post-war migration Down Under.
It is a remarkable and ultimately inspiring memoir of a tragic time.
The Mascot: The Extraordinary Story Of A Young Jewish Boy And An SS Extermination Squad, by Mark Kurzem, Rider & Co, £16.99.
thesun.co.uk
