He was born in Bełchatów, during World War II he was a prisoner of the Auschwitz camp, worked in a crematorium, survived the death march. He hid the truth about his life from his loved ones. Until. Once, Harry Haft sat down with his son and told him about why he was called "the Jewish beast" in Auschwitz.
Harry Haft, a famous boxer, hid his past from the press and his family. In 1990, however, he gave an interview to William B. Helmreich. The journalist collected material for a book about Jews who managed to survive the camp nightmare and succeed in the USA (Against All Odds:Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America). Helmreich asked Harry if he had told his children about the war. Then he heard: Not much. Actually, very, very little. I'm too soft. ”
It has changed. The result is the book Harry Haft. Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocku Marciano (Polish edition. Harry Haft. The story of a boxer from Bełchatów. From hell of Auschwitz to the fight with Rocky Marciano). It was written by Alan Scott Haft, the son of a former prisoner. He only found out about his dad's past as an adult.
How hope is lost in man
Harry Haft's biography is teeming with events that no writer would think of.
Harry, or rather Hercka, was born on July 28, 1925 in Bełchatów. It was Hinda's eighth pregnancy. She was glad that the baby was born healthy. However, this did not change the fact that the family, barely making ends meet, would have to feed the tenth person. Embroidery has never had it easy.
Archival photos from Bełchatów from 1925-1941
The boy quickly lost his father, and when he was a teenager, the war broke out, tragically affecting the whole family.
Hercka fell into the hands of the Nazis . They transferred him along with other young men from one labor camp to another. For some time he ended up in his hometown of Bełchatów. He was trying to find his family and love.
Harry watched paralyzed as the soldiers threw his sister and husband out of the house and made them board the crowded truck. He heard Brandel's pleading screams as she kept calling from the car as it started to move. Then Harry saw a soldier come out of the house with an infant in his arms and run after the truck. The German threw the newborn in the direction of Brandel's outstretched arms, but missed and the baby fell to the ground. Another soldier took out his revolver without hesitation and fired. The child's body was left in the gutter
- describes Alan Scott Haft in the book.
Harry was 16 at the time. He lost both faith in man and hope that he would see someone from his family alive again.
A beast from a camp full of beasts
Hercka ended up in the Auschwitz camp. He was assigned to work in the crematorium. The description of what he was doing there is extremely terrifying:
At their feet, carts full of naked bodies of men, women and children brought straight from the gas chambers were unloaded. They were supposed to throw them into the oven. Harry tried not to look at the faces of the dead, but he couldn't help it. It took two men to throw an adult into the fire, but Harry had to handle the children's bodies himself. For the first time he regretted that he was strong enough to work and thus stay alive.
Harry knew that only the strong survived in the camp . He also knew that by negotiating with German soldiers, you could save your skin. That's how he got involved with a soldier named Schneider. He stole for him, smuggled goods, and Schneider fed him and got him a doctor when possible.
In the end, the German decided to make him a star. Harry began to take part in fights organized for the entertainment of the SS officers . Knocked out amateur boxers ended up in barracks or crematoria, but Harry told himself that they had no chance of surviving anyway.
Embroidery boxed to live. This is how he lived to see the end of the war. When the SS led the prisoners out of Auschwitz, he miraculously survived.
It was hard for them during the day, but the real terror began at night. They were now going through a nightmare as none of them had ever experienced before. Prisoners fighting for their lives were getting rid of the remnants of their humanity.
After the war, Harry Haft made a tremendous career
Business and career
Harry escaped from the inhuman death march in the uniform of an SS man and ended up in a displaced persons camp in Germany. There he became acquainted with American soldiers who, in order to help former prisoners, took houses from German soldiers and gave them to Jews. One was given to Harry.
He quickly became known as a man who can arrange everything. Americans took advantage of this. In Haft's house ... a brothel began to function.
Within weeks, Harry became a local celebrity. Many clients posed for commemorative photos with him and the naked girls. They came to his house amateurs of intoxicating evenings from institutions distant even several hundred kilometers.
- his son writes in the book.
When soldiers showed such a photo to a group of surviving concentration camp prisoners, one of them, a recent participant in the death march, recognized his brother in the smiling man. This is how Harry found himself with Perec. For some time they managed the house together and organized the work of the women who lived with them.
Harry had the opportunity to face Rocky Marciano himself (in the photo)!
But the Eldorado alongside the Americans could not go on forever. Harry became interested in the Jewish Boxing Championship and a new chapter began in his life. After winning the competition, he made it to the USA, where he was the only white man to train under the watchful eye of the champions.
It's amazing how much one man's CV can hold ...
The article is based on the book Harry Haft. The story of a boxer from Bełchatów. From the hell of Auschwitz to the fight with Rocky Marciano, which was recently released on the market by Otwarte Publishing House.