Stranger than fiction: Uncovering Hitler’s Jewish soldier

Nazi mascot or Holocaust hoax? Filmmaker and journalist DAN GOLDBERG tracks down the truth in his latest documentary.

It’s a story 20 years in the making – and one that seems too strange to be true.

As a young Jewish boy during the Second World War, Alex Kurzem recalls watching his entire village, including his family, murdered by an execution squad. Kurzem had fled to nearby Belorussian woods, where he survived for several months, until his fateful capture by a Latvian battalion that was later incorporated into the SS military.

Instead of killing Kurzem, the battalion gave him a new name, fake birthdate, pint-sized uniform and rifle – and turned him into their mascot: a Nazi child soldier.

That is the story Kurzem told, but could it possibly have happened? That is the question posed in Hitler’s Jewish Soldier? – the first instalment in the new season of Australia Uncovered, SBS’s critically-acclaimed documentary collection.

When the Russians invaded, Kurzem was fostered by a Latvian family and migrated to Australia, where he later married and had three children. He kept his survival story secret for almost 50 years, until a cancer scare forced his confession to his children.