If Victor Perez's story ended with his boxing career, it would still have been rather notable. The Tunisian-born Jew became the youngest world champion in boxing history when he took the flyweight crown shortly after turning 20. He didn't stay on the top for long. A love affair with a French actress and a hard-partying lifestyle derailed his career. He soon lost his title, and couldn't regain it. When World War II came, Perez thought that he would be safe in Paris. He was sadly mistaken, as the Nazis caught him and sent him to Auschwitz. And this is when the storyline veers. When the Nazis found out about Perez's boxing past, they forced him to fight for their amusement, often against boxers twice his size. He kept emerging victorious, using the food he won to feed his fellow prisoners. When the Nazi defeat became all but certain, Auschwitz's prisoners were taken on a Death March. Four months before the war would end, Perez was caught giving bread to another prisoner. He was shot on the spot. .................. From www.boxrec.com: Perez was arrested by local police on October 10, 1943, and deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. According to reports, Perez was forced to fight in the bi-weekly boxing matches at the camp. The fights were bet on by the Nazi officers in command of the camp. The winners of these matches were awarded with bread and soup, while the loser was executed. Perez's first fight in the camp was against a German-Jewish heavyweight (inmate) named Iorry. Even though his opponent was over a foot taller, and 50 pounds heavier, Perez scored a knockout. Perez went on to fight twice a week, every week, for the next 15 months, reportedly scoring 140 straight knockout victories. In 1945, Perez was evacuated from the camp. It was reported that on the road near a camp called Gleiwitz, Perez attempted to pass bread through a fence to another inmate, and was shot and killed by Nazi guards. Some sources list his death in January 1945, others in March. ........................... Perez was a fighter who was full of energy; He was not a power hitter but was a non-stop puncher; He lost only 28 of 134 bouts and scored 27 knockouts; During his career, he won the NBA Flyweight Championship of the World, the IBU Flyweight Championship of the World and the Flyweight Championship of France Victor defeated such men as Frankie Genaro, Emile Pladner, Valentin Angelmann, Nicolas Petit-Biquet, Eugene Huat, Kid Francis, Aurel Toma, Vittorio Tamagnini, Kid Socks and Carlos Flix Perez was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1986 http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6ewpFN1du...s/mDkoklMpaoU/s1600/perez-victor-young-11.jpg
which is a similar story in a lot of ways to harry haft... ................. The story of Harry Haft who was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp in WW2, surviving by winning bare-knuckle fights in which the loser died during the fight or was executed. Eventually he escaped the camp and his life brought him to professional boxing and to a fight with Rocky Marciano. .................. "Harry Haft was born in Poland in 1925. “It was anything but good fortune to be born a Jew in Poland in 1925,” wrote his son. “Harry would think back on his birth as his first act of survival in an increasingly miserable time.” One of eight children, Haft was sturdy and strong from the day he was born. His mother, who was so heavy she did not even know she was pregnant with him, was working over a basin when he dropped from her body, landing headfirst on the floor. His father died when he was three years old, and from the time he was a youngster, the wide-shouldered and extremely muscular fatherless Haft had a fiery temper, which was displayed mostly against anti-Semitic youths. Early on it was obvious that if provoked, he had no qualms about finishing arguments with his massive fists. In 1939, when he was 14 years old, Haft witnessed the German occupation of Poland. Under Nazi occupation, Haft together with his older brother ran a smuggling business. In 1941, at aged 16, Haft was deported to Auschwitz because he was Jewish. He spent nearly six years in slave labor. During those six years Harry had been shot, bayoneted, beaten half to death and starved. Because of his strong physical stature an SS overseer trained him to be a boxer, and had him compete at fights to the death in front of the military personnel. The fights took place at the concentration camp Jaworzno, which was situated at a coal mine north of Auschwitz. Haft fought 76 fights at this concentration camp. When the camp in Jaworzno was dissolved because of the advancing Soviet Red Army, the inmates were sent on death marches. (Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into the Baltic Sea and shot) Having witnessed countless acts of horrific sadism, Haft made his escape while on his death march. He stole the uniform and weapon of a German soldier whom he had killed with his bare hands. He then tried to pass himself off as a lost soldier to an elderly German couple who he encountered at their farmhouse. When they suspected—or he thought they suspected—that he might not be who he said he was, he feared that they would turn him into authorities. Knowing he would be tortured or killed if that occurred, Haft shot them to death without giving it a second thought. After eventually journeying to America, via the assisstance of American liberators, Haft arrived in New York and began boxing out of desperation. While boxing in America, Haft encountered even more problems, especially when gangsters Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo tried to take control of his career. He won his first twelve fights, but lost against a more experienced boxer in Westchester County Center on 5 January 1949. After this loss, his career never recovered. His final fight was against Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium, in what was Marciano's 18th professional fight. Haft claimed that he was threatened by the Mafia and forced to throw the fight against Marciano. As Haft warmed up in the dressing room, he said three men entered and threatened to kill him if he did not go down in round one. After they departed, Haft asked his manager what he should do. The manager just shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know. Having already survived Nazi death camps, the undeterred Haft refused to go along. An article in the Providence Journal described him as “a rusher with very little style,” and said that he “landed the first good punch of the fight, a hard right to Marciano’s midsection.” Marciano hurt Haft in the second with a right hand that sent him reeling into the ropes. Two follow-up lefts had Haft groggy at the bell. “Two hard punches to Haft’s head—a left and a right—were Marciano’s openers in the third,” reported John Hanlon in the Journal. “At the halfway mark, Haft rallied briefly. But it was too late.” Marciano hit Haft with a left to the gut that he followed up with his fabled right hand. Haft was finished. According to the Journal, he “received a fine reception as he left the ring.” After his loss to Marciano, Haft retired. He married in 1949 and opened a fruit and vegetable store in Brooklyn. In April 2007, Haft was included in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He died in November of the same year, aged 82. (Wikipedia / Robert Mladinich) .............. which recently became a comic graphic novel... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6c3FYeHX_A
