The Mascot (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Amazing book! Gripped me from start to finish. On the one hand a fascinating and harrowing account of the atrocities that went on eastern Europe in the early 1940s. On another level, a highly intelligent psychological insight into a man who has lived a whole lifetime fighting the demons of his childhood, and the pain of the struggle to come to terms with these memories. This tells the story of one of the less obvious, yet most tragic victims of the war. Well worth a read. The personal expressions of emotion by the author enhance the power of the narrative.

I have read many books about the WW2 period and found this book informative and captivating. The struggle of Alex seeing his family murdered and then being picked up by an SS extermination squad is a story of survival and human cruelty at its worst. As a young Jewish boy mixed up in the world of Nazism and ethnic cleansing this story is both shocking and impossible not to put down. Alex's memory is all that he has to go by and it shows just how much children remember in the most horrendous conditions.

An amazing read.

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.