
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


As a child, Alex Kurzem faced a choice: be killed or join the killers.
In the midst of the Second World War, he was separated from his family and taken in by a group of soldiers as one of their own. He was made a member of Hitler’s army – a toy soldier with his own rifle and miniature SS uniform.
But what the soldiers didn’t know and what no one would know for decades: he was a Jewish boy masquerading as a Nazi to save his life.
Alex lives with this false identity for so long, he no longer remembers who he was before – forgetting his parents’ faces, his birthday, his own name. But before he dies, Alex is determined to find the identity and family stolen from him during the Holocaust.
This is the story Alex would tell the world decades later, but doubts quickly took hold and wouldn’t let go. Could a story so unbelievable be true? Or is this a con to profit from the Holocaust? Eighty years on, is it possible to uncover who Alex really is? Host Dan Goldberg unravels the true story.
Get lost in someone else’s life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time.
More episodes of Personally: Toy Soldier are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/97PSyD
By CBC4.9
342342 ratings
As a child, Alex Kurzem faced a choice: be killed or join the killers.
In the midst of the Second World War, he was separated from his family and taken in by a group of soldiers as one of their own. He was made a member of Hitler’s army – a toy soldier with his own rifle and miniature SS uniform.
But what the soldiers didn’t know and what no one would know for decades: he was a Jewish boy masquerading as a Nazi to save his life.
Alex lives with this false identity for so long, he no longer remembers who he was before – forgetting his parents’ faces, his birthday, his own name. But before he dies, Alex is determined to find the identity and family stolen from him during the Holocaust.
This is the story Alex would tell the world decades later, but doubts quickly took hold and wouldn’t let go. Could a story so unbelievable be true? Or is this a con to profit from the Holocaust? Eighty years on, is it possible to uncover who Alex really is? Host Dan Goldberg unravels the true story.
Get lost in someone else’s life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time.
More episodes of Personally: Toy Soldier are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/97PSyD

19,014 Listeners

24 Listeners

28,271 Listeners

749 Listeners

47 Listeners

28 Listeners

49 Listeners

2,040 Listeners

255 Listeners

776 Listeners

10,351 Listeners

734 Listeners

270 Listeners

194 Listeners

4,546 Listeners

4,309 Listeners

269 Listeners

1,711 Listeners

1,436 Listeners

27 Listeners

64 Listeners

223 Listeners

4,898 Listeners

379 Listeners

177 Listeners

144 Listeners

2,191 Listeners

189 Listeners

18 Listeners

268 Listeners

49 Listeners

23 Listeners