SBS will kick off its Australian Uncovered documentary strand for 2024 with Mint Pictures’ Hitler’s Jewish Soldier?, airing February 8.
The collection of standalone docs, now in its third year, is designed to explore untold Australian stories and reveal new insights into issues facing Australians today.
Hitler’s Jewish Soldier? investigates whether the story of a young Jewish boy who became Hitler’s youngest soldier was in fact true – or a Holocaust Hoax.
During the Second World War, Alex Kurzem says he recalls watching from a tree as his entire village, including his family, were murdered by an execution squad. Having escaped certain death by fleeing into the frozen woods of Belorussia, Alex says he survived for several months before being captured and taken in by a Latvian battalion that was later incorporated into the SS. Instead of killing Alex, the battalion made him their child soldier, their ‘Mascot.’ They gave him a false name, fake birth date, adorned him with a pint-sized uniform and armed him with a shorn-off rifle. When the Russians invaded and the fighting was deemed to be too dangerous, Alex was removed from the Front and fostered by a Latvian chocolatier named Jekabs Dzenis. The Dzenis family migrated to Australia in 1949, taking Alex with them. Building a new life in Melbourne, Alex married and had three children, working in the circus before becoming a TV repairman. He kept his secret for almost 50 years, until – facing a cancer scare – he told his children his survival story.
Hitler’s Jewish Soldier? explores if Alex’s incredible survival story – as well as the discovery of his long-lost Jewish family in the late 1990s – is real.
The doc is directed by Dan Goldberg, a Jewish journalist and the creative director of Mint Pictures, and written by Jaya Balendra and Goldberg. Benjamin Strum co-produced, with the executive producers Craig Graham and Adam Kay. Mark Middis was the editor and Nathan Barlow the DOP.
Principal funding comes via Screen Australia and SBS, with further support from Screen NSW.
Abacus Media Rights is the international distributor.