The Inspiring Jewish Teenager Who Survived the Holocaust by Beating His Opponents

Harry Haft was a Jewish teenager imprisoned in multiple concentration camps by the Nazis. He survived the Holocaust by becoming a boxer. Every Sunday, he would be challenged to new fights to entertain the guards. Lose you were executed, win, and he got to survive another week in a concentration camp.

When the war ended, Haft went to America to become a professional boxer, taking the memories and horrors from his early life.

Haft Takes the Place of his Brother

Harry Haft was born Herschel Haft on 28th July 1925. He grew up in Belchatow, Poland and was the youngest of eight children. Daily he would be met by discrimination and antisemitic chants. He was expelled from school at a very young age for throwing a rock at a teacher who had made antisemitic statements toward him.

He first boxed in school and was considered a powerful fighter. As he turned sixteen, he had a girlfriend, Leah, who would play a significant part in his life later. During the same year, 1941, the police demanded that all men in Belchatow register with the police. Harry's brother, Aria, thought that this was for work purposes and went to sign up. Harry personally was not expected to sign up as a fifteen-year-old, he was one month from his sixteenth birthday.

When Aria failed to return from registering, Harry went to look for him. He found a number of the young Jewish men huddled together in the firehouse. Harry caused a distraction so that his brother could escape. The plan worked, but unfortunately, Harry was captured in his place. That evening he was loaded onto a truck and sent to his first concentration camp.

The Horror of the Camps

The first camp that Harry was situated at was Poznan in Western Poland. When he arrived, the men were divided into two lines, left and right. Harry was put in the group to the left. The men who were sent to the right were never seen again.

In the camp, Harry recognised a guard as someone from his hometown. "I made friends with a German officer and we made a deal," Haft said. "He will get me through the German time and I will get him through after the war."

Harry was placed into the work detail that sorted the clothes of the new arrivals. He started to steal diamonds from the clothing, hiding them in a small bottle in his bed. When a search was conducted, these were found; he was thrown into the punishment block. The officer that had befriended Harry knew he would not survive more than three days there and saved his life by transferring him to Auschwitz.

Harry was transferred to a subcamp of Auschwitz called Jawozna camp, where the work was predominately mining. Within a couple of weeks, the officer from the previous camp arrived. He devised the plan that Harry would fight every Sunday; he would be given extra rations and lighter duties in the mine as a reward.

Fighting for his Life

Throughout his time in Auschwitz, he fought seventy-six fights against other prisoners. He would have certainly known some of the men he boxed against, as many were sent from the same area. Harry learned early on that the more brutal he was, the more the guards cheered. So successful was the young Harry that the guards nicknamed him 'Jewish Animal.'

There was an extra incentive to win the fights; not only were there extra rations if he performed well, but each fight's losers were executed.

Not all the fights were easy to win. During one Sunday, he faced a French heavyweight champion who had also been given extra rations from the guards. Despite this, Harry defeated him. He then stated the man was taken away; he heard two shots and never saw the Frenchman again.

When his brother was transferred to the camp, he too was given privileges because of Harry's reputation. But unfortunately, he failed to recognise his brother when he first saw him, saluting the well-fed man, thinking he was a guard.

Escape at Last

Harry had been in camps for five years when in 1945, it became clear that the war was taking a nasty turn for the Germans. Harry was transferred from Auschwitz with his brother Perez to Flossenburg, Germany. Here, he witnessed starving men killing each other to eat; the conditions were so bad.

When Flossenbury was bombed, the brothers were again moved to an airfield outside Amberg. During the bombing of the airfield, Harry urged his brother to run, but he was reluctant. So instead, Harry ran with another man. Unfortunately, the guards opened fire; his comrade was hit; Harry hid down a foxhole with the dead body on top of him.

After this, Harry came across a German guard bathing and shot him with his gun, stealing his uniform to travel the country in disguise. During his escape, he stopped in two farmhouses acting as an injured soldier, hoping to gain some food. Unfortunately, both times the families became suspicious of him, resulting in him killing them for his safety.

Finally, he was hiding when a group of soldiers approached him. Determined to take his own life rather than go back to a camp, he was ready to fight; he walked out with his hand high when he heard the American accent. Making the sign of St David in the sand with his finger, he was rescued and sent to a displaced person camp.

During his time at the camp, he signed up for a boxing tournament in January 1947. He was named the outstanding boxer of the tournament, awarded by American General Lucius Clay.

In 1948, at the age of just twenty-three, he fled to the USA on board the Marine Marlin.

Professional Boxer

Harry went straight into boxing. He hoped to get his name in all the papers for his fights. He wanted people to know he had survived the camps; more importantly, he wanted his girlfriend Leah to see his name. Despite desperate attempts to find her, he had failed to locate her during the war years. He hoped, if still alive, she would see his name and come to find him.

He won fourteen of his twenty-two fights over two years throughout his boxing career. His last fight was against heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano on 18th July 1949. He lost to Marciano, although he later stated that several mobsters had come into this locker room before the fight threatening to kill him if he did not fail.

Life After Boxing

After Harry lost his last fight, he married in 1949. The couple went on to have three children. Harry became a professional businessman, first as a professional driver and then owning several fruit and vegetable stores.

The fight he never won, though, was that with his past. He was tormented forever by World War II. He would be constantly plagued with nightmares and psychotic episodes. His children remember him as a violent presence in their life; although his wife understood his rages, his children considered him an abusive father who they crept around.

I grew up in the United States in the 1950s with a father who couldn't speak much English, couldn't read and write, who you couldn't talk to because he might explode at any time - Alan Haft.

As for the love of his life Leah, twenty years after the last time he had seen her in 1963, he was reunited with her. She had also moved to America and was married with children. Although Leah, unfortunately, had terminal cancer and was very frail, the couple talked. Alan believes this finally gave his father some closure.

In 2003, Harry tried to make up for his brutal behaviour by sitting his son down and telling him his life story. His son, Alan, turned the stories into the book 'Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano.' The story has recently been turned into an HBO film, 'The Survivor.' Harry Haft died of cancer in 2007.

My regrets were the lives that passed through my hands. - Harry Haft

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Originally published on medium.com