This film tells the staggering story of Melbourne's Alex Kurzem, a young boy who escaped the massacre of his family's sh | dG1fYTZRRnVQZk43SHc
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Alex Kersens is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from the war.
00:13The little Jewish boy who became a Nazi mascot.
00:23He was a child who had to conceal his identity, had to lie.
00:28Had to keep it as a secret because I was a Jewish boy amongst Nazis.
00:36The Latvians took him in. They looked after him, they gave him a uniform, a gun.
00:41He was part of the battalion.
00:43And you became a real hero?
00:45Real hero, yeah.
00:47Did you witness any executions?
00:49Oh yeah, all the time.
00:55Dad had no name, no birth certificate, no date of birth, nothing.
01:00I made myself forget my Jewish name because the Germans and the Latvians wouldn't keep a Jewish boy, would they?
01:09Aldi felt deeply that he was nameless.
01:13Once I knew the truth about my father's past, I felt it was a story worth telling.
01:19You grew up here?
01:21In this house?
01:22Yes.
01:23For a century he kept his past a secret. Even his closest family didn't know what he'd done.
01:28Have you found your name?
01:29Well, no.
01:32How can you believe that?
01:35The Jews called him a traitor and the Latvians called him a liar.
01:39This is a lie. I would punch them in the face.
01:42This is not the true story. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
01:49The Holocaust is sacred for us, so the idea that there could be a hoax, it's a big deal.
01:55How do you reconcile this?
01:58The story just kept getting crazier and crazier.
02:01Sorry.
02:06I don't know who I am.
02:19I don't know who I am.