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Meet Harry Haft, the man who survived Auschwitz and went on to fight Rocky Marciano
Harry Haft is not a name many boxing fans will recognise — which is a shame because this is a man who endured more than anyone who’s ever laced up the gloves, who quite literally had to fight to survive.
Born Herschel Haft in Belchatow, Poland, 1925, Haft was Jewish and during the German occupation of his country he was incarcerated by the Nazis just shy of his sixteenth birthday. He was held at various camps before ending up at Auschwitz in 1942. There he was beaten, starved, and seemingly destined for an early death. However due to his natural strength and impressive physique — half starved nothwithstanding — Haft was provided with a lifeline by an SS camp overseer, who selected him to take part in bareknucke fights against other inmates for the entertainment of the officers. These fights were held at the Jaworzno concentration and labour camp, an Auschwitz subcamp whose inmates worked at the coal mine located there.
Though it might make for a tidy good v evil narrative to paint Haft as a saint in land of sinners, real life is more complex than that, as are human beings— especially when forced to navigate an…
