Harry Haft

Who is Harry Haft?

Harry Haft survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and a professional boxer in the United States during 1948–1949.

His father died when he was three years old. 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, Haft was deported to Auschwitz because he was Jewish. 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. Haft managed to escape from one such march in April 1945. On the run he killed a bathing German soldier and donned his uniform. During the remaining weeks until the end of the war, he moved from village to village. At one point he killed two elderly people who harbored him on their farm because he feared they had discovered he was not a German soldier.