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

Without reciting all of the details, this is a must read for people interested in understanding the Holocaust.

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.

I read this book in one day. Truly. I just couldn't put it down. The story of a 5-year old child in Eastern Europe (to give away details of exactly where the story begins is to give away a big revelation in the story itself) who survives a mass killing by Nazis and is then "rescued" by an SS brigade and adopted as its mascot, this book is a provocative look at memory and identity. What really distinguishes this book is that it is two parallel stories: the story of the boy and the story of the writer uncovering the truth about his subject, who also happens to be his father. I highly recommend this book.