How old was Holocaust survivor and boxer Salamo Arouch when he died?
Born in Greece of Jewish descent, Arouch became middleweight champion of the Balkans, but his professional career was cut short by the Second World War and the German invasion of his homeland. Like thousands of other Greek Jews, he and his family and friends were deported to Auschwitz. Ordered to fight other prisoners for the entertainment of the Nazi guards, Arouch escaped the gas chambers. At the end of the war he emigrated to Palestine and witnessed the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948. His story was the basis for Triumph of the Spirit (1989) starring Willem Dafoe, much of which was shot on location at Auschwitz, with Arouch making an emotional return to the site as an adviser. Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5258959/Salamo-Arouch.
Salamo Arouch, 86, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp in World War II by fighting other prisoners in bloody bouts for the amusement of his Nazi captors and whose harrowing life story was portrayed in the 1989 film “Triumph of the Spirit,” died April 26 in Israel. His family said his health had deteriorated after a stroke. Arouch had been a young boxing sensation in his home town of Salonika, Greece, before he was seized by Nazi forces in 1943 and shipped in a boxcar to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Soon, Arouch was boxing two or more times a week as entertainment for German military officials at Auschwitz. “They wouldn’t leave until they saw blood,” he told People magazine in 1990. Sources: http://www.startribune.com/local/44234542.html?
Salamo Arouch, who died on April 26, 2009 aged 86, survived the Auschwitz concentration camp by fighting exhibition boxing matches for Nazi officers. Born in Greece of Jewish descent, Arouch became middleweight champion of the Balkans, but his professional career was cut short by the Second World War and the German invasion of his homeland. Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5258959/Salamo-Arouch.
Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp by fighting fellow prisoners in bloody exhibitions staged by their Nazi tormentors and who returned decades later as a consultant on a film about his captivity, has died. He was 86 and had lived most of his life in Israel. Weakened by a stroke 15 years ago, he had been in declining health since late last year, according to his daughter, Dalia. She gave no precise cause of his death, which occurred April 26 at a geriatric hospital near Tel Aviv. Sources: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salamo-arouch4-2009may04,0,6733086.
