Nazi 'Mascot' was actually a Jewish boy

JERUSALEM: Sixty-years after World War II, a book titled 'The Mascot' reveals the secret past of a Jewish boy who was forced to hide his identity and used as aNazi mascot in propaganda videos.

Alex Kurzem of Australia revealed to his family ten years ago that he survived the war by being adopted by the SS at the age of five, following which his son, Mark, decided to make his story public through the book published in London recently.

"Only after my son decided to dedicate himself to research did we realise that I was documented in Nazi propaganda ads and Nazi press and Nazi newsreels where the photographs appearing in the book were taken from," Kurzem told daily 'Yediot Ahronoth.

"In newsreels I was nicknamed 'The Reich's youngest Nazi. Only one Nazi knew I was Jewish, and he made me swear not to tell," he said.

"This was a daily struggle, because I was troubled by it every day. Luckily, I did not look Jewish, but more German than the Germans, and so, despite my fears, no one ever doubted my identity," the WW II survivor added.

'The Mascot' told the daily that he does not remember Adolf Hitler, but was documented in a Nazi newsreel as being paraded before him and being hailed by the Fuhrer as an "upstanding example to German youth".

The photograph on the cover of the book showing Kurzem dressed in a little SS uniform and armed with toy gun makes him look like a real Nazi.

The story begins in 1941, when his Belarusian village was invaded by Germany.

The five-year-old boy managed to escape the massacre,but witnessed the death of his mother and two siblings, along with the rest of the villagers.

After wandering through the woods for nine months, surviving on wild berries and handouts, Kurzem was handed over to the Latvian police brigades, which later got incorporated into the Nazi SS.

The Latvians were convinced by his looks that he was a Russian orphan of German descent.

"They were sure I was a German orphan, and that's why I deserved to become their mascot," Kurzem said.

"I don't even know my exact age. I didn't have any documents and I never found my birth certificate, but I have discovered that my real family name is Galperin and that I was born near Minsk," he told the daily.

The young boy was given menial jobs like polishing shoes and lighting fires, and when the Russian army approached Latvia, the Nazis sent him to live with a Latvian family in Riga.

"When the Russians approached we fled to Germany and ended up in Dresden just as the horrible bomb set the city ablaze," he reminisces.

From there Kurzem was transferred to a refugee camp in Hamburg, where in 1949 representatives of allied countries asked him if he was interested in going to Australia with other refugees.

Asked why he was taken in and used as a mascot, he said, "maybe they wanted to feel more humane in the midst of the atrocities that they caused.