Finding your next obsession
Finding your next obsession

This film tells the staggering story of Melbourne's Alex Kurzem, a young boy who escaped the massacre of his family's shtetl in Belarus in 1941. He survived in the woods during one of the coldest winters on record, only to be captured by a Latvian battalion. Instead of killing him, they took pity on him and gave him a new name, adorned him with a uniform and a gun, and made him their child mascot, “Hitler's youngest soldier.” Building on the international bestselling book ‘The Mascot’ and an award-winning ABC documentary, the film goes above and beyond, tracing Alex’s journey to Australia with his adopted Latvian family, and his eventual life in the Melbourne suburb of Altona.
LUXEN Decision Guide
A real-world choice where the subject itself is the reason to press play, making curiosity and context part of the experience.
Best fit
Who it is for
Best suited to viewers who want to leave a watch with something concrete to think about or learn from.
Commitment
Light commitment · 1h 25m
Use the runtime as a quick check against how much time you have tonight.
Start here
Read the synopsis, then check the trailer.
Read the synopsis, then check the trailer, then use the documentary cues to decide whether the tone fits.
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