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

After reading a highly favorable review in the New York Times, I rushed down to the bookstore where a friend works to see if they had this book, and was shocked to find that they did not have it and that no one had been asking about it.

It's such an amazing story--a young boy escapes death in just the first of an unusual set of circumstances and developments, twists and turns, leading to events that cripple him later as a husband and father until he feels compelled to reveal his story to his son, the author of this book.

I have read a number of "survival" books about the Holocaust. Surely this is the most unusual. It reminded me in some ways of Martin Gilbert's THE BOYS, but this is a completely different story. This is a Jewish boy who was adopted by Latvian troops collaborating with the Nazis, and as an adult, he has clearly suffered from guilt and confusion such that the reader experiences the journey as well. As I read on, I found myself wondering if the truth would turn out to be different from what the boy's memories were, just as the author clearly did as he listened to his father's story, a tale slowly revealed over the course of a few years in the late '90s, almost fifty years after the original events in Russia and Latvia in 1941-45.

And there are several levels on which this story works. In the WWII period, you get a feeling for village, or shtetl, life in Russia through the initial memories of the boy as well as later when he and his son do further investigations. You get what seems to be a likely accurate picture of the soldiers, higher officials, and collaborating civilians the boy came to know. There are vivid depictions of the later war years.

Later on, after the author begins to find out the fuller story, father and son confront mixed reactions from scholars and Jewish organizations as well as the Latvian community in Australia, where the author grew up not knowing he was Jewish until his father felt compelled to find out who he really was and where he came from.

I really liked the way the book was organized, mostly short chapters, and here, the author or his editors really did well in observing that sometimes "less is more". Thus, there is not an extensive discussion of some minor characters, colleagues, friends, and others whom the author consults and confronts as the story of his father unfolds, yet we understand pretty well where these characters are coming from.

Finally, I commend the book for its helpful index, maps, and of course the fascinating photos that are reproduced showing the young "Alex" in his SS uniform. It's a little puzzling that the modern photos are rendered in the same grainy way as the old ones, but that is a minor complaint.

Like the reviewers before me, I cannot praise this book highly enough. It's an absolutely riveting story, filled with twists and turns and has a remarkably satisfying ending, if one dare to say that. The interweaving of the son's reactions and the father's revelations that join together finally in a concerted search for the father's origins and the validation of his memories is spellbinding. Like others before me, I couldn't put it down. As these belated stories of survival surface, particularly regarding those who were children at the time, one can only stand in awe again at the variety of human experience (and resilience). The father paid a heavy price for his silence to his family all those many years, but he was caught between Latvian complicity with Nazi crimes (which local Latvians tried to suppress) and his own shame at an identity he could neither abandon or verify. The father and son were interviewed on NPR in November (it's archived on line) and well worth a listen.

Many times I'm asked why I study history, specifically that of the Second World War. This book is what they should read if they want to understand my answer. Even today, over half a century later, the Second World War affects lives and more so helps make up national character for a multitude of countries throughout the world. This story first attracted me when I read an article about it online, a Jewish child used as a Mascot by those fighting on the side of Nazi Germany? Was I surprised? No, reading "Europa Europa" was more than enough to convince me that history is more powerful than any human imagination. Thus, while I wasn't surprised I was intrigued, how did the child survive?

This book, while starting out slowly (I kept yelling at it to pick up the pace and get to the point within the first hundred or so pages) picks up pretty quickly after that, 2-3 days reading is more than enough to tackle all of its 400 pages. The beginning of the book is mainly a rendition of memories, by bits and pieces, of a man who is trying to recall who he was in an almost past life. By the time one gets to the end, much of what seemed like it couldn't possibly mean anything takes on a whole new meaning. I would hate to ruin any of it for future readers so I'll only say a few words.

A boy escapes into the forest and witnesses the death of his mother, brother, and sister. He survives to be found by Latvian soldiers in the service of the Germans and is raised partly by them and partly by a rich Latvian and his family who owns a chocolate factory. It took him over half a century to finally tell his story to his family and with the help of a few people the mysteries that he could never understand, words he could never put into context, were all solved for him. Easily one of the better books I've read in a long time about the Holocaust, even though the concentration is less the Holocaust as a whole and more a struggle of one 6 year old boy to survive and over 60 years later to find out his true past and identity. Highly recommended.

"The Mascot"makes for rivetting reading. It really tells three stories which are inticately intertwined:The story of a child survivor under horrendous circumstances, the story of the survivor's struggle as an ageing father of adult children to come to terms with his past and how that impacts on his family relations and the story of retracing the past and finding remenants of that troubled childhood.
What makes this book such fascinating reading is it's style. The author is the son of that child survivor who had never told his story, but for some reason now feels compelled to tell one of his sons, Mark.
Mark writes this story almost without analysis or comment. He simply lets us readers sit at the kitchen table late at night and listen to the intimate and difficult conversations with his father. He let's us be there when his father struggles with himself to tell his story and he takes us with them on a journey to the locations of the child's survival.
As a child survior of the Holocaust myself (although my storyis comletely different) I can so well identify with the internal struggles, the nightmares,the emotional turbulence...
This book makes such an important contribution to the need for survivors to know that they are neither alone nor unique. Most importantly, it provides an insight to others, especially those born after WW II into the horrors of that period and how ordinary people were forced to find extraordinary strength and means to survive.

This is a book that once you start reading it you can't put it down. Mark Kurzem has an incredible ability of writing his father's story in a way that just simply flows. It has moments where you just can't believe what your reading is true! I am typically not a fan of non-fiction, but this one I couldn't resist. It give you a perspective of WWII from they eyes of a child. It's the most gripping book that I have read in a long time.

As you read this fantastic memoir you're taken back in time to a place that some may never wanted to have visited. It starts with a man who simply cannot let go of his memories of his childhood and takes you down a path that you can't resist. It has all of the twists and turns of a great mystery. You find yourself wanting to be able to help him out in anyway you can. It's an amazing read. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good book.