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A PSALM OF DAVID: BLESSED BE THE LORD, MY ROCK, WHO TEACHES MY HANDS TO
BATTLE AND MY FINGERS TO FIGHT” PSALM 144
VICTOR “YOUNG” PEREZ:
A JEWISH CHAMPION: IN & OUT OF THE RING
By Yossi Katz
Boxing is arguably the greatest Jewish sport. Daniel Mendoza, the famous English Jewish champion, invented scientific boxing in the late 1700’s and gave persecuted Jews in Great Britain a reason to walk with pride among their gentile countrymen. His fellow Anglo- Jewish pugilist, Dutch Sam Elias, invented the uppercut punch. Legend even has it that the most basic boxing term “jab” is an acronym for Jewish Anglo Boxer!! Benny Leonard, the great Jewish Lightweight champion is considered, pound for pound, one of the best boxers to have ever entered the ring. Barney Ross became the first champion to win World titles in two divisions and later, as a US Marine, won the Silver Star for his bravery in World War II. Ross, a proud Jew & Zionist, also helped smuggle guns to
Israel during the 1948 War of Independence. Many Jews held World Boxing titles in the 1920’s, 30’s & 40’s. The Star of David often adorned their boxer’s trunks as these Jewish ring-warriors earned the pride & respect of the world. In the 1930’s one of the greatest world boxing champions was a Tunisian Jew named Victor “Young” Perez. His heroism both in & out of the ring made him a modern day Maccabee.
Victor “Young” Perez was born on
October 18, 1911 in Hafsia, a working-class neighborhood in the North African city of
Tunis in
Tunisia. The feisty and handsome young Jew weighed 110 pounds and stood only 5’1” but was an outstanding athlete. Victor Perez began a career as a professional boxer in
Tunis and eventually moved to
Paris, where on
October 26, 1931 he knocked out the American Champion Frankie Genero in the 2nd round of their bout to win the World Flyweight Boxing Championship. Victor “Young” Perez at 21 years old became the youngest Frenchman ever to win a World Boxing title. In the 1930’s champion boxers were the world’s “Superstars” and “Young” Perez became rich and famous. He loved to party & enjoy life and was frequently seen in the company of beautiful women including the famous French actress Mireille Balin. Perez fought 133 professional bouts and his record was 92 Wins (28 Knock-Outs) - 26 Losses and 15 Draws. He lost the World Flyweight title a year later to the Englishman Jackie Brown in
Manchester. Perez then moved up into the Bantamweight class and in 1934 fought
Panama’s Al Brown for the world championship but lost on a 15 round decision. One of Perez’s last bouts was in 1938 in
Berlin where he was booed by the Nazi crowd but still proudly wore the Star of David on his trunks.
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Perez swore that he would only return home to
Tunis after regaining the World Boxing Title but tragically he was caught in
Paris when World War II broke out. “Young” Perez was arrested in 1943 by the Milice, the collaborationist French Nazi Police Force that specialized in rounding up Jews and French freedom fighters. In October 1943 Perez was deported from
Drancy,
France with 1000 other French Jews on the infamous “Convoy 60” to the Nazi concentration camp of
Auschwitz. Perez was assigned to Auschwitz Camp #3- Monovitz, or as the Prisoners called it-“Buna”. Auschwitz 3 was a Slave Labor camp based around the German I. G. Farben Synthetic Rubber Factory and its prisoners were worked near to death and then sent to the gas chambers in
Auschwitz 2-Birkenau. The Nazi commandant of
Auschwitz 3 was not only a mass-murderer & sadist but he also was an aficionado of boxing. At Monovitz the commandant organized a cadre of prisoners who had been amateur & professional boxers and ordered them to put on bi-weekly boxing exhibitions for the enjoyment of the camp’s staff. Among these Auschwitz boxers were the former Greek Champions Salamo Arouch & Jacko Razon, on whose lives the film “Triumph of the Spirit” was based, and of course, the former world champ Victor Perez- who was the commandant’s favorite. The boxers were given 2 special benefits: each week they were given a day off from their duties as slave laborers so they could train and each night they received an extra bowl of soup. Perez fought his first fight in the camp against a former German heavyweight champ who was a foot taller than “Young” & weighed 50 pounds more than him. Perez scored a lightening knock-out and went on to fight twice weekly for the next 15 months in the camp winning a 140 straight bouts.
What really made him a champion however, was his behavior & heroism outside of the ring. At Auschwitz 3 Victor Perez was assigned to work in the camp kitchen. Each night he stole a 50 liter container of soup and gave it out to starving prisoners. He took special care of his fellow Jewish prisoners from France & North Africa – never afraid to risk his life for others. He kept scores of his fellow Jews alive for months with the stolen food rations. When friends warned him that he would be hanged if caught, he answered,”Human beings were created in order to help others- We live, in order to help!” A real fighter at heart, Perez tried to escape from
Auschwitz but was captured and tortured for two weeks in the infamous “Bunker”. By 1945 the Soviet Red Army was advancing west and the Nazis decided to evacuate
Auschwitz. The Germans last hope at winning the war was developing the V-1 & V-2 rockets and for this project they needed slave labor. Over 57,000 survivors of
Auschwitz were forcibly marched for months by foot thru the freezing Polish winter to factories in
Germany. Among these prisoners was Victor Perez who was one of only 31 survivors of the original group of 1000 Jewish prisoners sent from
France on “Convoy 60” back in 1943. In all, less than 20,000 prisoners survived the deadly trek that became known as the “Death March”. (The annual “March of the Living”, held in our own times, is in many ways the Jewish People’s answer to the 1945 Nazi “Death March”.)
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On
January 21, 1945, the fourth day of the “Death March”, the starving, exhausted & freezing Jewish prisoners were stopped outside the Glievitz Concentration Camp near the Czech border. “Young” Perez snuck away from the group and entered the abandoned German camp and found a large sack of bread in the kitchen. Perez put the sack on his shoulders and rushed back to feed his friends. As he approached the group and stood in front of a small ditch, a German guard pointed his machine gun at Perez & ordered him to halt. Victor tried to explain to the guard, “These are my friends and they are starving. I’m just bringing them some bread”, but the Nazi insisted Perez not move. “Young” ignored the SS guard and leaped across the ditch hoping to give the sack of bread to his starving friends but the Nazi aimed his machine gun at Perez & fired several shots, killing the former champion instantly. Victor “Young” Perez lay dead in the snow- counted out at the age of 33.
Though he never regained the World Boxing Title he lost in 1932, Victor “Young” Perez died as a true champion & hero. His legacy of Jewish strength, courage & caring for his fellow Jewish brothers is one that young Jews would do well to emulate today. In 1986 he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame located at the Wingate Sports Institute in
Netanya,
Israel. This great champion’s example both inside & outside the ring will be an inspiration for generations to come.
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Yossi Katz was born in the great boxing city of
Philadelphia and made Aliyah to
Israel in 1978. He works as a Jewish educator at the
Alexander
Muss
High School in
Israel. Yossi is the former Israeli National Boxing Champion.
to read about Young Perez in hebrew - כדי לקרוא על "יונג" פרז בעברית הקליקו כאן
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