Salamo Arouch: Jewish boxer who survived Auschwitz by fighting for his life

Salamo Arouch | Obituary | The Guardian

Salamo Arouch, who has died at 86, was a Jew from Salonika who survived Auschwitz by fighting for the entertainment of Nazi officers. His life depended upon his ability to reduce other boxers to a bloody pulp. Had he not done so, he would have met the fate shared by more than 200 of his opponents, and been summarily shot or despatched to the gas chambers. The murder of his family, and the urge to tell the rest of the world what had happened to them, gave him this extraordinary, troubling variant on the will to survive.

Arouch was a Sephardic Jew whose dock-worker father encouraged his son's middleweight boxing. His footwork brought him the nickname "the Ballet Dancer", a potential place in the Greek Olympic team and middleweight supremacy in the Balkans. But in 1943, the Germans invaded Greece, and Arouch's family were among those rounded up and sent to Auschwitz.

His mother and sisters were in the group sent first. Spotting a friend when he arrived, Arouch asked: "Where are the others?" When told that they were dead, all gassed and burned, he refused to believe him, believing the man to be crazy. His forearm duly tattooed with the number 136954, Arouch soon learned that the horrors were real. At one assembly of the prisoners, a German officer demanded to know whether any were boxers. Arouch hung back but was pushed forward by friends.

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What an amazing story of survival. I haven't even heard about the movie about him. "Triumph of the spirit". I'm going to try to find this movie. Thanks for sharing this story.

 

me too,will have to get looking,sounds good..

 

Thanks for sharing Michelle, I had heard of the fellow through another poster on a diferent forum. Dennis is a writer for the boxing sport, and lives in Scotland. He too is getting up in years, and has stories of many boxers who managed to "survive" in spite of being Jews, by boxing for the SS at smokers and such.

Thanks again.

 

saw that movie, great show

 

I just saw triumph of the spirit. I had to order it, had to wait a week.. But it was defenetly worth the wait.

Excellent movie.

Another one I can add to my ww2/holocaust movie collection..

Thanks guys for sharing that info!

 

An amazing and at the same time disturbing tail...



Thank you for sharing.