Figure 1.--Here Alex is celebrating what was probanly his first Christmas in his Latvian police uniforms, perhaps December 1942. We are not sure if he is with the Regiment here or Sgt. Kulis took him home for the holiday.

Alex's account and the photos are not the only evidence of his incredible account. Latvian records show that the 18th Kurzeme Battalion/18th Schuma (Police) Battalion adopted a young boy whose parents were unknown (July 12, 1942). This traditiion was deeply ingrained in the Russian Army and Latvia was only recently separted from Russian rule. Many Russian units had boys called 'sons of the regimet'. They were the sons of enlisted members of the regiment who wee killed. At the time there were no social safety net for the families which with the man gine faced abject poverty. Of course Alex was different as he was unrelated to the regiment and was not even Latvian. The men gave him the name Uldis Kurzemnieks, roughly meaning "from Kurzeme," a region in western Latvia. (Alex later shortened the name when he moved to Australia.) He writes, "Every moment I had to remind myself not to let my guard down, because if ever anyone found out, I was dead. I was scared of the Russians shooting me and the Germans discovering I was Jewish. I had no-one to turn to. They gave me a uniform, a little gun and little pistol. They assigned me little jobs to do -- to polish shoes, gather firewood, carry water, or light a fire. But my main job was to entertain the soldiers. To make them feel a bit happier."

Created: 5:09 AM 6/29/2012
Last updated: 5:09 AM 6/29/2012