New revelations about ‘Hitler’s Jewish soldier’

Now the documentary will shed new light on the story through resurfaced footage and other evidence which Dan Goldberg, the filmmaker behind the project, concludes makes the “essence of Alex’s story” true.

Alex, who was given the name Uldis Kurzemnieks by his captors, foraged for food in sub-zero temperatures for several days after witnessing the Nazis massacre his family and village, and at night tied himself to the boughs of trees to avoid wolves.

Eventually he was found by a Latvian police soldier then acting as Hitler’s local Nazi SS enforcers in German-occupied Belarus and taken back to the battalion’s base. Alex later said of that encounter: “I would have gone with the devil if he had taken me by the hand.”

There he became their “mascot”, complete with miniature SS uniform and a new name. Alex – who became Uldis – travelled alongside his captors for two years and witnessed them commit atrocities and torture against his fellow Jews. The experience deeply traumatised Alex, who for decades didn’t tell his story.

Alex Kurzem in his SS uniform (Credit: SBS / Australian Uncovered)[Missing Credit]

Later, in 1944, as the Soviet army regained territory from Germany in occupied Estonia and Latvia, Alex was housed with a family who later emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. Later in life he became a television repair man in the country and stuck by his story for decades despite its detractors.

Hitler’s Jewish Soldier? will feature previously unseen pictures and footage of a young Alex playing with Aryan children and will uncover records of a massacre that took place in 1942 in the Belarus village of Koidanov.

It will also examine extracts from a diary written by a soldier in the 18th Kurzeme Police Battalion in which the soldier records that his battalion picked up a “foster son” and given the name Uldis Kurzemnieks.

Alex died in 2021 due to complications from Covid-19.