Mark Kurzem Views

• Books

In 2002, Kurzem's son Mark (died November 2009) wrote and produced a documentary (with Lina Caneva) entitled The Mascot, which detailed his father's childhood among the Latvian Nazi SS. Mark later wrote a book, also called The Mascot (2007), which tells the same story, although it conflicts in many details with the earlier documentary.

Tras la IIGM, en 1949 llegó a Australia, con tan solo una pequeña maleta color café. Mantuvo en secreto su pasado, que no le contó ni siquiera a su esposa, hasta que finalmente, en 1997 se lo reveló a sus familiares. Él y su hijo comenzaron a investigar sobre su pasado, fruto de estas averiguaciones es un libro publicado por Mark Kurzem, su hijo, titulado La mascota , editado en 2007, y publicado en España en 2008. Reside en Australia donde se hizo reparador de televisores, se casó y tuvo tres hijos, muriendo su mujer, Patricia, en 2003.

This is the third book after The Book Thief and the Hitler Book that Ir’ve read this year dealing with the subjects of Nazism and genocide during WWII. But this book is more explicit and very very much more personal. The Mascot is told by Mark Kurzem, who relates the journey of self-discovery by his aging father, Alex Kurzem who reveals to him the dark secret he has kept his whole life, from the time he was a boy in Belarus up until his eventual migration to Australia after the war. In short, 60 years of silence.

In closing, Mark Kurzem wrote s– m‘I had my answers to the questions I had harboured since that day at the Cafe Daquise in London when my father had suddenly become a stranger to me. I believed that now I was closer to an understanding. There was no resolution, no absolution, no closure, no moving on, no getting over it, no pop psychology solution. Only an accommodation of the past. My father had somehow known this all along.s’