A Sick Child

We called Telehealth Ontario because Alex’s temperature was going up again.  They misdiagnosed her as just a normal cold and said that’s good.  I don’t blame them as they’re not there in person, but we do know now not to take their word for anything.

I had to take Alex to hospital and sit there for five hours before the doctor analysed her urine and found that she has ANOTHER urine infection.  The doctor was worried and admitted her to the hospital.  Lorraine stayed with her overnight.  Apparently the strain of bacteria that had given Alex her previous urine infection was resistant to the Amoxycilin so they’ve given her Novo-Trimel this time.

I got sick of waiting in the hospital and actually signed the form to leave against medical advice as there were no emergencies coming in.  The receptionist convinced me to stay and I’m very thankful she did.  I’ll never try to leave the hospital because of long wait times again.

New Desk

I got a rather good ‘L’ shaped sectional glass topped desk.  My previous desk used to have tempered glass on the top which broke before I got the new one.  The boss got Pro Auto Glass to make a slab of glass to put on the top which worked quite well.

That is until it snapped in half yesterday freaking the hell out of me.  So for about half a day today I was working on the broken piece of glass.  I sliced my elbow which bled quite profusely.  It wasn’t that big a deal so there’ll be no compensation claim to Rob’s worker insurance.  He put two layers of duct tape over the crack and we went to the store to get a new desk.

We got into a little debate about where my computer monitor should be.  I can’t handle having it directly in front of me or where people can look over my shoulder and see my screen without me knowing first.  Eventually I got what I wanted.  Trying to impress upon my boss that I need to be happy in my job is hard.  I’m hoping I can stick it out.

Standing By Your Principles

I recently heard that someone has renewed their contract with the United Church of Canada for a grand a month to do some blogging stuff. At first I was jealous and wished I had that sort of offer. But then almost immediately I realised who the employer is. The United Church of Canada is one of the main culprits in in which tens of thousands of aboriginal children died, tens of thousands were raped and sexually abused and many more simply disappeared.

I started thinking real hard about that and realised that there’s a small possibility that my work MIGHT get some sort of design work out of it. It hasn’t even arisen yet or been mentioned in any form, but the prospect isn’t nice. Would it be morally right for me to work for an organisation that had committed genocide and still, in an ongoing process, makes efforts to cover up their nefarious deeds? If it comes down to it, I will simply refuse to work on that website. I hope my employment won’t be terminated, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take and a possible consequence I’m willing to face. I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I did any work for the United Church of Canada.

So watch this space eh?

Oh… for those who are wondering what the text in the header graphic says… it’s ‘Product of Mauritius. Built for life in Canada’ – that’s exactly what I am.

The secret history of the Nazi mascot

Alex Kurzem came to Australia in 1949 carrying just a small brown briefcase, but weighed down by some harrowing psychological and emotional baggage.

Tucked away in his briefcase were the secrets of his past – fragments of his life that he kept hidden for decades.

Alex was forced to keep his Jewish identity hidden

In 1997, after raising a family in Melbourne with his Australian bride, he finally revealed himself. He told how, at the age of five, he had been adopted by the SS and became a Nazi mascot.

His personal history, one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from World War II, was published recently in a book entitled The Mascot.

“They gave me a uniform, a little gun and little pistol,” Alex told the BBC.

“They gave me little jobs to do – to polish shoes, carry water or light a fire. But my main job was to entertain the soldiers. To make them feel a bit happier.”

Painful memories

In newsreels, he was paraded as ‘the Reich’s youngest Nazi’ and he witnessed some unspeakable atrocities.

But his SS masters never discovered the most essential detail about his life: their little Nazi mascot was Jewish.

“They didn’t know that I was a Jewish boy who had escaped a Nazi death squad. They thought I was a Russian orphan.”

His story starts where his childhood memories begin – in a village in Belarus on 20 October 1941, the day it was invaded by the German army.

When the shooting stopped I had no idea where to go so I went to live in the forests, because I couldn’t go back. I was the only one left

“I remember the German army invading the village, lining up all the men in the city square and shooting them. My mother told me that my father had been killed, and that we would all be killed.”

“I didn’t want to die, so in the middle of the night I tried to escape. I went to kiss my mother goodbye, and ran up into the hill overlooking the village until the morning came.”

That was the day his family was massacred – his mother, his brother, his sister.

“I was very traumatised. I remember biting my hand so I couldn’t cry out loud, because if I did they would have seen me hiding in the forest. I can’t remember exactly what happened. I think I must have passed out a few times. It was terrible.”

False identity

“When the shooting stopped I had no idea where to go so I went to live in the forests, because I couldn’t go back. I was the only one left. I must have been five or six.”

“I went into the forest but no-one wanted me. I knocked on peoples’ doors and they gave me bits of bread but they told me to move on. Nobody took me in.”

He survived by scavenging clothes from the bodies of dead soldiers.

After about nine months in the forest, a local man handed him over to the Latvian police brigade, which later became incorporated in the Nazi SS.

That very day, people were being lined up for execution, and Alex thought he, too, was about to die.

“There was a soldier near me and I said, ‘Before you kill me, can you give me a bit of bread?’ He looked at me, and took me around the back of the school. He examined me and saw that I was Jewish. “No good, no good,” he said. ‘Look I don’t want to kill, but I can’t leave you here because you will perish.

“‘I’ll take you with me, give you a new name and tell the other soldiers that you are a Russian orphan.’”

Joining the circus

To this day, Alex Kurzem has no idea why Sergeant Jekabs Kulis took pity on him. Whatever his motives, it certainly helped that Alex had Aryan looks. And together, they kept the secret.

“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.”

Alex Kurzem kept the secret from his wife and family for decades

Young Alex saw action on the Russian front, and was even used by the SS to lure Jewish people to their deaths.

Outside the cattle trains which carried victims to the concentration camps, he handed out chocolate bars to tempt them in.

Then, in 1944, with the Nazis facing almost certain defeat, the commander of the SS unit sent him to live with a Latvian family.

Five years later, he managed to reach Australia. For a time, he worked in a circus and eventually became a television repair man in Melbourne.

All the time, he kept his past life to himself, not even telling his Australian wife, Patricia.

“When I left Europe I said ‘forget about your past. You are going to a new country and a new life. Switch off and don’t even think about it.’

“I managed to do it. I told people I lost my parents in the war, but I didn’t go into detail. I kept the secret and never told anyone.”

It was not until 1997 that he finally told his family, and along with his son, Mark, set about discovering more about his past life.

After visiting the village where he was born, they found out his real name was Ilya Galperin, and even uncovered a film in a Latvian archive of Alex in full SS regalia.

80s Oh The Eighties

I’m not really sure what prompted me to start downloading music from the 1980′s, but it’s been the best decision I’ve made in about three months.

I’m an 80′s child… I was born in 1979 and grew up through the 80′s listening to the likes of A-Ha, Petshop Boys, Simply Red, The Bangles, and Belinda Carlisle. As I’ve said before I have a sometimes obsessive habit of reminiscing and daydreaming of when I was younger. I get an adrenaline rush and feel elated when I remember how I thought and acted back then when I had no responsibilities of any sort, and then feel sad as I start thinking of all the childhood crushes I had. There weren’t many, but when I crushed it was long and hard. As cheesy as it sounds, music has a fantastically strong ability to control my emotions – more than anyone I’ve ever met so far.

I mixed some eighties music with nineties music and came up with the following playlist:

• Ah-ha – Take On Me
• Belinda Carlisle – Circle in the Sand
• Belinda Carlisle – Heaven Is A Place On Earth
• Billy Idol – Wild One
• Pet Shop Boys – Go West
• Pet Shop Boys – It’s A Sin
• Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls
• REM – Losing My Religion
• Savage Garden – Truly Madly Deeply
• Simply Red – Holding Back The Years
• Simply Red – Money’s Too Tight To Mention
• Simply Red – Something Got Me Started
• Simply Red – Stars
• The Bangles – Manic Monday
• Tony Rich Project – Nobody Knows