Monday, May 04, 2009
Salamo Arouch, Jewish boxer, dies at 86
Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp by fighting fellow prisoners in bloody exhibitions staged by their Nazi tormentors and who returned decades later as a consultant on a film about his captivity, has died. He was 86 and had lived most of his life in Israel.
Weakened by a stroke 15 years ago, he had been in declining health since late last year, according to his daughter, Dalia Ganon. She gave no precise cause of his death, which occurred April 26 at a geriatric hospital near Tel Aviv.
Arouch's harrowing series of win-or-die bouts during the final two years of World War II was immortalized in 1989 in "Triumph of the Spirit," the first major motion picture filmed on location at Auschwitz. The film, along with Arouch's inspirational postwar speeches, became part of his legacy in Israel. It has been shown to hundreds of Israelis preparing for visits to the site of the infamous Nazi camp in Poland.
Arouch was a young middleweight boxing star in his native Salonika, Greece, when German forces seized him along with about 47,000 other Jews from the city in 1943 and sent them in boxcars to Auschwitz's gas chambers and labor camps.
When a German officer asked whether any of the new inmates were boxers, Arouch was pushed from the line by acquaintances, he recalled in a 1990 interview with People magazine.
The officer asked whether he was ready to fight.
"I was very scared," Arouch said. "I was exhausted from being up all night, but I said yes."
The bouts were to amuse the officers and the rules were simple: "We fought until one went down or they were sick of watching. They wouldn't leave until they saw blood."
Defeat meant almost certain death. "The losers would be badly weakened," he said. "And the Nazis shot the weak."
Arouch, who weighed about 135 pounds in the camp, fought at least twice a week, often against much larger men. His deft footwork, which earned him the nickname the Ballet Dancer, helped him remain undefeated. By his count, he won 208 bouts in the camp and fought to two draws.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salamo-arouch4-2009may04,0,6733086.story
Weakened by a stroke 15 years ago, he had been in declining health since late last year, according to his daughter, Dalia Ganon. She gave no precise cause of his death, which occurred April 26 at a geriatric hospital near Tel Aviv.
Arouch's harrowing series of win-or-die bouts during the final two years of World War II was immortalized in 1989 in "Triumph of the Spirit," the first major motion picture filmed on location at Auschwitz. The film, along with Arouch's inspirational postwar speeches, became part of his legacy in Israel. It has been shown to hundreds of Israelis preparing for visits to the site of the infamous Nazi camp in Poland.
Arouch was a young middleweight boxing star in his native Salonika, Greece, when German forces seized him along with about 47,000 other Jews from the city in 1943 and sent them in boxcars to Auschwitz's gas chambers and labor camps.
When a German officer asked whether any of the new inmates were boxers, Arouch was pushed from the line by acquaintances, he recalled in a 1990 interview with People magazine.
The officer asked whether he was ready to fight.
"I was very scared," Arouch said. "I was exhausted from being up all night, but I said yes."
The bouts were to amuse the officers and the rules were simple: "We fought until one went down or they were sick of watching. They wouldn't leave until they saw blood."
Defeat meant almost certain death. "The losers would be badly weakened," he said. "And the Nazis shot the weak."
Arouch, who weighed about 135 pounds in the camp, fought at least twice a week, often against much larger men. His deft footwork, which earned him the nickname the Ballet Dancer, helped him remain undefeated. By his count, he won 208 bouts in the camp and fought to two draws.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salamo-arouch4-2009may04,0,6733086.story
Comments:
Post a Comment
