Salamo Arouch

Salamo Arouch (; ; 1 January 1923 – 26 April 2009) was a Greek-Israeli boxer and Holocaust survivor. The Middleweight Champion of Greece in 1938 and the All-Balkans Middleweight Champion in 1939, his career was cut short due to the outbreak of World War II in the following year. During the Axis occupation of Greece, Arouch, along with his entire family, was deported to German-occupied Poland, where he was interned at the Auschwitz concentration camp. There, he survived the Holocaust by being made to engage in makeshift boxing (over 200 bouts) with his fellow prisoners for the entertainment of German military officers. His story was the subject of the 1989 film Triumph of the Spirit, in which he was portrayed by the American actor Willem Dafoe.

Biography

Early life and boxing career Salamo Arouch was born in 1923 Arouch said that when he was 14, he fought and won his first amateur boxing match in 1937 in Maccabi Thessaloniki, a Jewish youth center and gymnasium. He also fought with the colors of Aris Thessaloniki. He won the Greek Middleweight Boxing Championship, and in 1939, won the All-Balkans Middleweight Championship, an achievement he was best known for. After compiling an undefeated record of 24 wins (24 knockouts), Arouch was drafted into the Greek Army. He became a member of Greek Army's boxing team, winning three fights by knockout.

World War II and Axis invasion of Greece

Deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau and coerced boxing In 1943, Arouch and his family were transported by boxcar and interned in German Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in present-day Poland. knowing that prisoners who lost would be sent to the gas chamber or shot. Fights generally lasted until one fighter went down or the Nazis got tired of watching. Arouch and Yechiel wed in November 1945 and raised a family of four.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-occupied Poland

|Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-occupied Poland

|Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-occupied Poland

|Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-occupied Poland

Thessalonica, Greece

|Thessalonica, Greece

|Thessalonica, Greece

|Thessalonica, Greece

|Thessalonica, Greece