3
“Messauod Hai Victor Perez” was not a name to light up boxing arena marquees. But when shortened to “Young Perez,” it meant sold-out arenas. The double-barreled name not only lit up marquees, it turned out to be an incandescent invitation to boxing fans all over France. He was a winning and charismatic athlete whose skill, stamina, and friendliness attracted a large number of fans. The attraction of Young Perez was not just for male boxing fans but for female ones as well. Women turned out in large enough numbers to see Perez fight that promoters saw them as a new customer base. They were the ticket buyers who were targeted by advertisements promoting Perez’s matches. There was something about Young Perez that drew women to him. It was not his pint-size, 5'1" frame and 119 pounds of muscle. One woman said she found him adorable and sexy. He did have a handsome face; it wasn’t the face of a typical boxer: mashed-in nose, cauliflower ears, thickly scarred eyebrows. Perez’s face was boyishly handsome; his slicked-back, wavy black hair and large, dark, doe-like eyes were exotic. He was truly Semitic in appearance: Jewish and Arab. Or as he described himself, a towel-headed Jew. His smile was warm and eager and without guile. It was an invitation to a seduction. He projected a joie de vivre that seemed infectious. Women took pleasure in his company, and he took pleasure in theirs. He loved the company of beautiful women. Models, actresses, and dancers were his dates and bedmates.
Perez was born on October 18, 1911, in Dar-El Berdgana, the Jewish section of Tunis in French Tunisia. His parents were Khomsa Nizard and Makhlouf Rene Perez. He was one of five children but was closest to his older brother Benjamin, who began training as a boxer when he was a teenager. Benjamin encouraged Victor to join him at a boxing gym called Club Maccabi, and soon the younger Perez was an enthusiastic budding pugilist. To distinguish the brothers one from the other, the gym created sobriquets for the brothers: Victor became known as Young Perez and Benjamin as Kid Perez. They were talented regulars at Club Maccabi, each imitating the style of their boxing idol, Louis Mbarick Fall, known as Battling Siki, a French-Senegalese boxing champion. Siki, who had biceps like shiny black cannonballs, had knocked out George Carpentier and reigned briefly as the light-heavy champion. Siki had a brief, turbulent, bacchanalian life, one filled with beautiful white women, drunken orgies, fast cars, and profligate spending. The high life ended sadly: while walking drunkenly near his apartment on 42nd Street in New York City, he was shot in the back and died. He was twenty-eight years old.
Nevertheless, Siki would always remain an admired champion to the Perez brothers, who would spend hours at the gym. There they were trained by Joe Guez, who also trained the notable fighters welterweight Billy Smadja and lightweight Edmond Zerbib. Guez, who was considered the best Tunisian boxing trainer, was a clever, sharp-eyed trainer who honed the skills of the Perez brothers, believing that they had the makings of champions. He helped them eliminate their mistakes, smoothing their rough techniques and thus improving their defensive skills. He extended their endurance through long-distance runs; he taught them to block and slip punches; he taught them how not to telegraph their punches; he taught them the importance of appropriate tactics and strategies; he encouraged them as they hit the speed bags and heavy bags. Both brothers developed a fast-moving, aggressive style of nearly pushing their opponents to the ropes.
Kid Perez made a name for himself on April 2, 1928, when he became the flyweight champion of North Africa by defeating Jean Soler with a 10th-round knockout. It was the most memorable fight of the Kid’s career. That same year, after three years of intense training, Young Perez, age seventeen, was impressing local boxing fans by beating most of the talent in his flyweight division. Young Perez had become a more determined and ambitious boxer than his brother. While Young’s boxing career was about to take off, Kid’s career stalled. Young Perez, driven by strong ambition, felt that the time was right to make his move, and that meant going to Paris. He didn’t know when he headed to the City of Lights that he would be one of France’s luminaries and martyrs.
By the time he arrived in Paris, he had 15 fights on his record, consisting of 13 wins and 2 draws. Following his arrival in Paris, he got one fight after another for a total of 15. From 1928 to 1930, he lost only 2 fights, 1 by knockout, the other on points. Five of those fights were declared draws. Then on February 7, 1930, following the negotiations of his manager, Leon Bellier, Perez was given a shot at France’s flyweight championship. Joe Guez had told Bellier that Perez was ready to take the title and any additional fights would not enhance his skills. Bellier found the doors open to a Perez championship bout for the fighter was a crowd pleaser, a money maker who was the favorite of bettors across France. He was performing at the top of his game. Perez had developed a style all his own. He used his rapid-fire punches and high-octane energy to dominate his opponents.
While Perez was attracting an ever-increasing number of fans, he was also the target of nasty verbal darts of anti-Semitism. There were numerous organizations in France during the1920s and 1930s that promoted anti-Semitism and declaimed against immigrants from North Africa. Perez, in response to an anti-Semitic jibe, would proudly and disarmingly reply that he was not only a Jew but also a towel head. Annoyed that Perez didn’t rise to combat an anti-Semitic thrust, his antagonist would turn and stride off in a state of frustrated animosity. Perez would grin and bid his defeated antagonist a sarcastic shalom.
For Perez, boxing was far more important than dealing with the ignorance of anti-Semites. He was doing well, defeating opponent after opponent in bouts that mostly took place at the Central Sporting Club of Paris. He was excited to have a shot at the flyweight title of France. The title was vacant, and the winner of the bout would be the new champion. His opponent was Kid Oliva, who had fought Kid Perez to a draw in 1929. In January 1930, Kid Perez had lost again in a rematch with Oliva. Now it would be the younger brother’s chance to wear the crown that his brother had failed to capture. Oliva and Young Perez were evenly matched, close in height and reach. They were both eighteen years old. Oliva’s record was slightly better than Young Perez’s. Oliva had won 12 of his fights by knockout, whereas Perez had won 8 by knockouts. The fight would take place at the Cirque-Theatre Municipal in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France. Young Perez trained diligently for his fight, and following his string of wins, he was confident he would defeat Oliva and be crowned the flyweight champion. But Kid Oliva proved to be a tougher opponent than Perez had anticipated. The two traded rapid-fire punches throughout the first three rounds, each attempting to drive the other into a defensive crouch against the ropes. It was a fast-paced fight and the crowd roared their approval. Though scheduled for 15 rounds, the fight suddenly ended in the 4thround when Young Perez went down for the count. He rose from his defeat and shook off the cloudiness in his head only to wear an expression of deep disappointment. He did not accept defeat as the final chapter in his career. He was determined to take the crown if it was the last thing he did.
Eleven days later, he was back in the ring to fight Frankie Nour, whom he beat on a TKO in the 7th round of a scheduled 10-round bout. Perez thought he was on his way to another shot at the flyweight crown. He won his next 3 fights, and then fought to a draw with Britain’s Johnny King at King’s Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, on March 11, 1930. He had 4 more fights, winning 2, drawing 2, before losing by a TKO to Joe Mendiola at the Central Sporting Club in Paris on January 7, 1931, but he went on to beat Mendiola on points on February 14, 1931. He had 6 subsequent fights, all of which he won, 1 by a knockout, 1 by a TKO, and 4 on points.
He now felt primed to take the flyweight title. His opponent would be Valentin “Tintin” Angelmann. It would be a 15-round fight, and the smart money was being bet on Perez. Up to that point, Perez had won 41 bouts, 12 by knockouts, and Angelmann had won 26 bouts, 6 by knockouts. To boxing fans, Perez was noted as the superior fighter. In his eighteen-year career, Angelmann did compile an impressive record consisting of 175 bouts (winning 120, 38 by knockouts; losing 39, 3 by knockouts; while 15 ended in draws). He would go on to win the International Boxing Union World Flyweight title and the National Boxing Association World Flyweight title. Though of Jewish heritage, he managed to continue boxing during the Nazi occupation of France.
The championship bout, which took place in Paris, lasted the full 15 rounds, with both fighters giving their all, each desperate to win the title. After the final round and after the fighters returned to their respective corners, Perez heard the announcement he had wanted since age fourteen. He was declared the French Flyweight champion. He received a standing ovation and loud cheers from his fans. Following a shower and a rub down, he was eager for a celebratory night on the town. He wanted to bask in the reality of his dream come true and imbibe, as if champagne, the congratulations from friends and fans.
Though elated by his win, Perez had an additional goal in mind: the World Flyweight Championship. There would be a fight to decide that title in October 1931. His opponent for the title would be the American boxer Frankie Genaro, who would be a more formidable opponent than anyone Perez had fought. Genaro had won the flyweight gold medal at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, just two days before his nineteenth birthday. While still an amateur, he had won the American National Flyweight Championship. He would end his career after fighting 134 bouts and winning 96, 19 by knockouts. He fought numerous world champions, including Fidel LaBarba, Pancho Villa, Bud Taylor, Newsboy Brown, Emile Pladner, Joey Archibald, Valentin Angelmann, Jackie Harmon, Victor Ferrand, Midget Wolgast, Frenchy Belanger, Ernie Jarvis, and—of course—Young Perez. RingMagazine named Genaro the third-best flyweight boxer of all time.
Because he was determined to meet the challenge that Genaro represented, Perez trained like a demon of ambition. Just twenty-three days before his bout with Perez, Genaro had beaten Angelmann by a decision in a 15-round fight. Genaro was primed to meet Perez, who seemed in awe of such a talented pugilist. The fight would take place in the famous Palais de Sports in Paris. During the first round, Perez seemed slightly intimidated by Genaro’s reputation and didn’t fight well. He wasn’t as aggressive as he usually was. The crowd booed his uninspired performance. On points, he would have lost that round, having suffered a profusion of rapid fire blows from Genaro. Perez was fortunate that he was still on his feet as the round ended. In his corner, his trainer yelled that he would lose unless he employed all of his skills and aggressively went after Genaro. In the 2nd round, Perez came out of his corner like an angry bull out of the chute eager to gore the torero. Genaro seemed surprised by Perez’s change of tactics. It was as if he were fighting a different man. Perez was outboxing Genaro, who lacked Perez’s speed. Genaro telegraphed a left hook, which Perez easily blocked, then belted Genaro’s chin with a devastating right hook. In just ten seconds, Perez ended the fight by knocking out Genaro, who went down for a count of 8 then unsteadily rose to his knees but couldn’t continue the fight. As Genaro returned to his corner, the referee raised Perez’s right arm in victory. According to a headline in the New York Times, “The Throng Is Wildly Excited” by Perez’s knockout of Genaro. The article went on to note that it was only Genaro’s second knockout. Genaro would have 1 more fight in Europe, which he lost, and then return to the United States, where he had an additional 11 fights. Altogether he had 109 fights: 79 wins, 21 losses, 8 draws, and 1 exhibition.
Perez now held the International Boxing Union and the National Boxing Association World Flyweight title. He was the youngest French citizen to win a world championship title! He was a star, feted by Paris society as one of the hot young celebrities. He was invited to movie premiers, art show openings, and various sporting events. He barely had time to train for another fight.
In the midst of his new celebrity status, he met and began dating the French-Italian film actress Mireille Balin, herself a major celebrity. Soon the couple were filling up paragraphs of gossip columns. Photographers followed wherever they went. Photos not only appeared in newspapers but also in news, fashion, and fan magazines. For Perez the reality of being a champ now seemed like a dream, and he could barely believe his good fortune. Yes, he had reached his goal of winning a title, but he hadn’t anticipated all the social benefits that would be his. He had no experience of being so sought after for interviews and photos. He was in a glorious playland of festivities. Though many champion boxers eventually learn that a life of nightclubs, parties, and heavy drinking will deter their careers, Perez didn’t consider the damage he was doing to his body. As long as the champagne flowed and the adoration continued, he was a happy man. Furthermore, his love life had become far more satisfying to him than training. He still managed to put in a few hours of training when nothing more important distracted him. He managed to rely on the value of his pugilistic skills and had sixteen fights before October 1931. Balin remained impressed by his ring performances, and the two of them would celebrate in a nightclub after each win. From a nightclub, they would go to her apartment, their little love nest, where they wouldn’t arise until late the next day. Perez was deeply in love with Balin. Years later, he would say that she was the love of his life. Whether she reciprocated his love is debatable for she was known as an opportunist who would set the sails of her ambition to catch the changing winds of opportunity as she sailed into spheres of influence.
Perez was having such a good time drinking, partying, making love with Balin, and living what was a dissolute life for a boxer that he paid little attention to his career. He was still the champion and still bathed in the accolades and privileges that warmed his ego. This would soon change. On October 31, 1932, he was scheduled to fight Jackie Brown in a 15-round contest for the International Boxing Union World and the National Boxing Association Flyweight title. The bout was held in King’s Hall, Belle-Vue, Manchester, England. It was apparent to all who saw the fight that Perez was not up to his previous performances. His stamina stalled early and his skills had rusted. As the fight went on, try as he did, Perez could not compete against Brown. He struggled to land punches that missed. His blocks and slips were awkward. His right crosses were easily deflected. The referee had to stop the fight (an RTD, or referee technical decision) in the 13th round when Perez could not get out of his corner. He had run out of fuel, and the engine of his stamina could not be restarted. The fight was scored as a knockout win for Brown. Those close to Perez blamed his loss on less-than-diligent training brought on by inordinate drinking and regular partying and his obsessive romance with Balin. His trainer commented that Perez had sacrificed his career for the love of a movie star. The loss came as a shock to Perez, and he briefly devoted himself to more rigorous training, winning his next 6 bouts. Thereafter he again reduced his devotion to training, winning and losing intermittently. He thought a rematch with Jackie Brown might prove his original loss an anomaly. He still didn’t train rigorously for he was still addicted to the partying and bright lights of Paris. The rematch with Brown took place on March 7, 1933. Again Perez was outboxed by Brown, who won the fight on points.
Rather than staying in his weight division as a flyweight and returning to a rigorous regimen of training, Perez decided to move up to the bantamweight division and signed to fight Panama Al Brown for the International Boxing Union World Bantam title. Brown had also been trained by Joe Guez, who confided to friends that he thought Brown was a better fighter than Perez. Many thought Perez had made a mistake to move up a weight division and sign on to fight Al Brown. Perez was eight inches shorter than Brown and had a much shorter reach. It was a desperate act of redemption for Perez to have agreed to such a bout, but the crowd that showed up to see the fight in the Palais des Sports in Paris was enormous. Tickets to the match had quickly sold out.
Panama Al Brown was one of the most talented bantamweight fighters of all time. In addition to fighting in the bantamweight division, he had fought as a flyweight and a featherweight. For Perez to beat him, he would require a sledgehammer. Panama Al Brown, whose original name was Alfonso Teofilo Brown, was Latin America’s first world champion and has been named the fifth-best bantamweight by www.boxrec.com. He had won the National Boxing Association and International Boxing Union bantamweight titles in 1930. When not boxing, Brown appeared as a song-and-dance man in gay nightclubs in Paris. He had a long-term relationship with writer, film director, artist, and actor Jean Cocteau. While there was some prejudice against homosexuals then, there was little against Brown, though many people found it hard to accept that a world-class boxing talent could be gay. Yet Brown was not only popular with boxing fans, he was also the toast of the town among the gay demimonde of 1930s Paris, and especially after he appeared on stage with the beautiful, sultry Josephine Baker, who regularly performed at the Folies Bergère, where she was either scantily clad or entirely naked. In America, some readers of newspapers and magazines were shocked upon learning that Baker had performed in a nightclub wearing a skirt of artificial bananas and a skimpy necklace across her otherwise bare breasts. Letters were written to editors of local newspapers decrying Baker’s loose morals. Nevertheless, straight and gay audiences in Paris flocked to see Baker and Brown singing and dancing.
By 1939, Brown was residing in the safety of New York. He won several fights in the city then moved to his native Panama where he was much admired and had 7 fights, wining 4, losing 2, and ending the last with a draw. He hung up his gloves in 1942. His life after the end of World War II was neither glamorous nor fulfilling. He boxed as a sparring partner for meager sums at a boxing gym in Harlem. He drank heavily and became addicted to cocaine. What little money he had went to support his drug habit. He died penniless in 1951, age forty-eight.
But Brown was so highly regarded for his pugilistic skills in the 1930s that the boxing community bet heavily on Brown to defeat Perez. They were right to do so. Brown won his 15-round championship bout against Perez by a unanimous decision. However, Perez would not give up his ambition to defeat Brown. He trained for a rematch, and on February 19, 1934, the fight took place. It was held at the Parc du Belvedere in Perez’s native city of Tunis, where he was the sentimental favorite, the neighborhood kid who had succeeded in one of the world’s toughest sports. Though Perez was nine years younger than Brown, age would not be an advantage. Of Brown’s 127 fights, he had won 113, lost 14, and won 47 by knockouts. Of Perez’s 90 fights, he had won 76, lost 14, and won 22 by knockouts. In the 10th round, Brown raised his winning total to 114, and his knockout total to 48.
The two fighters met for their third and final bout on December 22, 1937. It was a 10-round fight held in Paris. By then Brown had won 122 bouts, lost 18, and raised his knockout total to 52. He had 11 draws. Perez had won 91 fights, lost 26, and had 28 wins by knockout. He had 15 draws. In round 5, Perez went down for the full count of ten. He finally gave up his dream of winning the bantamweight title.
While Brown’s boxing career was in high gear, Perez’s career slowed as he focused his attention on his affair with Balin. She attended his fights, filling him with pride whether he won or lost. He drove her around Paris in his large American convertible. They were photographed by paparazzi, and fans wanted both of their autographs. Perez could not stay away from Balin. She was his siren call, his aphrodisiac, and she would ultimately be his femme fatale.
So who was Mireille Balin? In the 1930s she was considered one of the most glamorous and beautiful stars of French cinema. She appeared in two of the most popular French movies of the 1930s: Pépé le Moko (1937) and Lady Killer (1937), both opposite Jean Gabin, who remained a popular screen star after the war. (Unlike Balin, Gabin left France during the Nazi occupation, went to Hollywood to make forgettable movies, then joined the Free French forces and fought against the Nazis in North Africa. He returned to unoccupied Paris a decorated war hero, and audiences regarded him with an affection that went beyond his being a movie star.) Balin, by contrast, was so wedded to her French celebrity status that she would remain in Paris throughout the Occupation. She enjoyed the attention of her fans, who flocked to her movies; she was flattered that women imitated her hair style and couture and that men, it was reported in gossip columns, fantasized that she was their mistress. She was well aware that she was considered not only beautiful and glamorous but also one of the best French cinema actresses of her time. Perez could hardly believe he was lucky enough to have earned the love of such a desirable and celebrated woman. His love of her seemed to supplant his love of boxing: he often gave up days at the gym just to be with her. He was drunk with his infatuation. When he saw her on the screen with Jean Gabin, he felt both privileged and jealous. When Balin would tell him that a screen romance that required one take after another was hardly a romance in progress, Perez felt reassured. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Balin’s love of Perez was like a drug, and it made him feel super confident. He was so confident, in fact, that he agreed to a boxing match against Ernst Weiss in Berlin in 1938. He lost the match but felt he was welcomed by boxing fans as an athlete, not as a Jew. It was an extraordinary commitment for a Jew to fight in the heart of Nazism. Yet he came through the event with only his professional pride bruised and without a hint of being persecuted as a Jew. It would be the basis of an illusion that would prevent him from fleeing Paris following the Nazi occupation.
When the Nazis occupied Paris, the fates of Balin and Perez were headed in dramatically different directions. Balin existed in a different world than the one inhabited by Perez. Under the occupation she would be safe and secure. As a movie star, she was beloved and feted by Wehrmacht officers who felt honored to be in her company. Though the occupiers saw Balin as a magnetic screen star to whom they wanted to attach themselves, she saw the occupiers as her devoted protectors. Many, however, viewed her as a consummate opportunist.
For many actors to remain successful, they feel they have no choice but to be opportunists. It comes with the territory, and to be overtly principled about politics or friendships can lead to a diminishment of work. In the worst cases, it can lead to banishment, to the complete collapse of a career. It would be an irony, not an opportunity, that would exact a high price for Balin. Opportunities and the lack of opportunities during the Nazi occupation determined the course of the lives of Balin and Perez.
The Nazis, in their handsome uniforms, marched into Paris as if the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile had been erected in their honor. Down the Champs-Élysées they marched, the proud and arrogant conquerors. Hitler, not known for his spontaneous love of whimsy, danced a little two-step, his revenge taken for the humiliation Germany endured under the burdens of the Treaty of Versailles. For the French, the arc memorializes all those who died for the French Revolution and in the Napoleonic Wars. Beneath its vault lies the grave of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. The common soldier and generals honored by the arc must have spun in their graves. For Hitler, it was a sweet and just revenge that he had dreamt of since Germany’s defeat at the end of the Great War.
For Balin, the Nazi occupation meant a change of plans and allegiances. To love a Jew was not only impractical, it was dangerous. She cast Perez aside and moved on to an affair with Tino Rossi, a popular singer and actor. They announced to the media that they were engaged to be married. Rossi’s romantic ballads that had made him so popular with women were thought to have been inspired by Balin. Wherever he performed, he did so in sold-out theaters, especially in Paris. While Balin remained politically silent, not wishing to endanger herself, Rossi assisted the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation and even served three months in prison. For Balin, this was not a good move. As she became ever more popular and a darling of high society, she endeavored to ensure her safety. Her engagement to Rossi withered and then died; Balin moved on to what she claimed was the love of her life, Birl Desbok, an officer in the Wehrmacht.
While Balin was having the time of her life, hobnobbing with Wehrmacht officers, Perez was foolishly not keeping a low profile. His brother Benjamin urged him to leave Paris and return to Tunis, where he believed they would both be safe from Nazi persecution. After much urging by Benjamin, Perez finally realized the possibility of being arrested and decided to flee Paris. But then he suffered a change of mind. He was still a celebrity, a popular boxer welcomed into nightclubs and invited to many parties. His celebrity, he decided, would be his shield of protection.
The shield was illusory. On September 21, 1943, Perez was denounced as a Jew and arrested by Milice Francaise, a French collaborationist paramilitary force. Though no one knows for certain who denounced Perez, rumors flew that Balin told her lover of Perez’s Jewish heritage and he sent word that Perez should be arrested. Perez was hunted, arrested, and shipped to Drancy along with thousands of other Jews. Drancy had become an internment camp where Jews were detained before being shipped off to concentration camps. (More than 67,000 French, Polish, and German Jews were interned at the camp, and that included more than 6,000 Jewish children.) By the time that Perez was interned the camp was no longer run by the French but by an assistant to Adolf Eichmann, SS officer Alois Brunner (who, as a war criminal, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in 1954 and again in 2001). Brunner was known and feared for his extreme brutality and use of torture during interrogations. (After the war, he escaped to Syria where he helped the government develop techniques for torture interrogations, especially of captured Israelis.) Brunner enjoyed torturing inmates in order to extract every ounce of information about their backgrounds. He would then categorize them by their degree of subhumanity. (There is now a memorial sculpture at Drancy created by Shlomo Selinger that commemorates those tortured while imprisoned in the camp.)
On October 10, 1943, Perez was pushed into a cattle car at the point of a rifle and transported via rail to Auschwitz. He was one of one thousand prisoners on Transport 60. (He would be one of the thirty-one survivors of that transport.) Shortly after his arrival, he was sent to a subcamp, Monowitz-Buna, to work as a slave laborer for the giant industrial chemical company IG Farben. In addition to Perez, Monowitz slaves included Primo Levi (author of If This Is a Man; The Periodic Table; The Drowned and the Saved; If Not Now, When; and other books) and Elie Wiesel (author of Night, After the Darkness, Dawn, Day, and other books).
Monowitz-Buna held around twelve thousand prisoners, the great majority of whom were Jews. In addition there were non-Jewish criminals and political prisoners. Though IG Farben benefited from the slave labor of inmates, the SS (never ones to forgo an opportunity) charged Farber three Reichsmarks per day for unskilled workers, four Reichsmarks per hour for skilled workers, and one and one-half Reichsmarks for children. For those who were not sufficiently skilled or knowledgeable enough for work, the camp contained a labor education camp, but that was only for non-Jews. Jews who couldn’t work were quickly gassed, their bodies then incinerated. The life expectancy of slave workers was three to four months. Those who survived longer periods were regarded as anomalies. Some were assigned to work in mines outside Monowitz. For those in the mines, life expectancy was only one month.
Perez was one of the lucky ones, for after a brief period as a slave laborer, he was recognized as the former flyweight boxing champion. The guards needed entertainment to maintain their spirits so Perez was told that he would have to fight on a regular basis. If he refused, he would be gassed. To test how well a Jew could stand up to an SS officer, Perez was forced to enter a makeshift ring with a tall, muscular example of Aryan superiority. Round after round the large muscular heavyweight pounded Perez into a bloody, battered specimen of defeated humanity. Perez looked as if he had been repeatedly run over by a locomotive. Blood poured down his face; teeth had been knocked out. After three rounds, he could barely lift his arms. Every time he attempted through typical defensive moves to forestall a beating, the SS officer knocked him to the canvas, where Perez endured painful kicks to his ribs and abdomen. The inmates, who were permitted to attend the fight had to keep their heads bowed, their eyes downcast. If they uttered encouragement, they were taken away. Here and there, an inmate would glance up and see Perez, whose face was a mask of blood; he stood in the ring being beaten, yet refusing to stay down. Every time, he was knocked down, he arose. His endurance came from years of training and pride in his ability as a boxer to withstand punishment. Not surprisingly, his endurance began to inspire the inmates who watched him endure his ongoing beating. Slowly, softly the inmates began to whisper, “Young, Young, Young.” It grew to a whispered chant. Soon all the inmates were chanting together. The coterie of Nazi officers watching the fight took notice but said nothing. It was as if the chants were hypnotic. The chant “Young, Young, Young” seemed to infuse Perez like a shot of adrenalin. His eyes filled with the anger of a ferocious cornered animal. He spit out a mouthful of blood and went after the big Nazi with demonic fury. A series of rapid-fire punches landed powerfully on the Nazi’s face, leaving it bloody and bruised. Welts sprang up like small mounds. Punches to the man’s face were followed by punches to his midsection, then again, uppercuts, left and right hooks to the man’s face. A solid punch to the point of his chin sent him to the canvas. When it was over, Perez could barely stand up. For his win, he was punished, food was withheld, and he was again forced to work as a slave laborer.
The guards and SS officers still needed entertainment, and though Perez had angered them by beating one of their own, he was brought back to fight again. Not just once, but again and again he fought, averaging two fights a week. If a scheduled opponent wasn’t available, a substitute was chosen. After knocking out the SS officer, Perez had to fight a Jewish prisoner, a heavyweight named Iorry. He was a foot taller and weighed fifty pounds more than Perez. The Nazis remembered that the tall Panama Al Brown had beaten Perez, so the Nazis bet on Iorry to beat Perez. Unfortunately, they could find few other Nazis willing to take their bets. As a result, they forced a number of Jewish inmates to bet their allotment of bread on Perez to win. It was a double-or-nothing bet.
Perez was anxious about the fight because he wasn’t sure he could repeat his earlier success. However, the motivation for winning was strong. He knew it would be a tough fight: he had to overcome the obstacle presented by a large, heavy man who could use his body mass to force Perez into a corner and then pummel him. Fortunately, Perez was not only a lot faster on his feet than Iorry, but his punches came faster and landed on target. Perez was able to avoid the slow-moving Iorry’s punches and soon knocked him out. Again the Nazis were angrily disappointed and refused to pay off their bets: no additional bread was given to the inmates who had bet on Perez to win. From that fight on, the Nazis could not find anyone to bet against Perez. Since Perez provided such reliable entertainment, the Nazi officers arranged for him to get just enough nourishment thereafter to maintain his fighting weight and fitness. His head shaved and wearing only threadbare shoes and his striped inmate pajamas against the cold, he would do his road work running within a small, barbed-wire-enclosed, slushy, muddy circle. He would have to fight twice a week to keep himself from being starved. After each fight, he would be awarded another piece of bread and stale potato soup. His opponents, having lost their bouts with Perez, were not so fortunate: bloodied and bruised, they were dragged off to be gassed. Over a period of fifteen months, Perez scored 140 knockouts, saving himself but sadly sending most of the losers to their death.
Though American B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators, both heavy bombers, bombed the IG Farben factories at Monowitz four times in 1944, the factories were rebuilt and continued operating. They manufactured nearly all the explosives used by the German army as well as Zyklon-B, the deadly gas used to kill camp inmates. The cost to build the original IG Farben factories in 1942 was 700 million Reichsmarks, the equivalent of more than $2 billion in today’s money.
During 1944, as Paris was about to be liberated from Nazi occupation, Balin and her lover Desbok, knowing what was in store for them, fled the city. They headed for Italy, hiding from those who might interrogate and arrest them. Their luck ran out on September 28, 1944, when they were arrested by the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, which worked with the Free French Forces once the liberation of France was underway. Balin and Desbok were arrested in Beausoleil, which is near Nice. Desbok, despised by the Resistance as an occupier, was quickly executed. As a hated collaborator, a betrayer of her country and its people, Balin was beaten numerous times. Following each beating, she was raped, then finally dragged off to a prison in Nice. Rather than being given special treatment as a famous movie star, Balin was treated more roughly than other prisoners. From the first prison she was transferred to Fresnes Prison near Paris, then released on bail on January 3, 1945. Patriots who saw her on the street either cursed her or spit at her. She was haggard and frightened. A newspaper reported that she was a broken woman who deserved to be shunned. Her aura of cinema celebrity had been shattered. For one year, the government banned her from acting in any movies. Finally in 1947, she appeared in the movie La dernière chevauchée. It would be her last appearance in a movie. Two years later, she had a stroke and nearly died from meningitis. Thereafter, she struggled to survive as she faded into the darkness of obscurity. Of those who remembered her, most disparaged and derogated her as a wartime collaborator. She was a shadow of herself when she died in 1968, almost entirely forgotten and poverty stricken. Throughout the war, Perez had no idea what had happened to the glamorous love of his life.
The misery of the inmates at Auschwitz and Monowitz was about to come to an end. Allied forces were well on their way to a major victory over the Third Reich. Nazis were surrendering while armed members of the Hitler Youth were conscripted into service to fight the onslaught of Russian, American, British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand troops who would bludgeon them into total capitulation. As the Russian army advanced, the Nazis decided to abandon Auschwitz and Monowitz in January 1945. Rather than fight against a ferocious Russian assault, the Nazis decided it was more important to kill all the imprisoned Jews who were too weak to make a trek back to Germany, where those who were able could still be used as slave laborers. To that end, SS officers began what they euphemistically called Evakuierungs (evacuations), but which the prisoners accurately called death marches. While suffering defeat on all fronts, the Nazis believed that the war against the Jews would be their only victory. Adolf Eichmann on his last visit to a concentration camp, commented, “I shall gladly jump into the pit knowing that in the same pit there are five million [Jewish] enemies of the state.”1
Tens of thousands of starving, beaten, ragged inmates were marched to Germany to help sustain the defense of the fatherland. If they couldn’t endure the long marches, they were shot, their bodies left in woods, along roads, or in ditches. As Martin Gilbert reported in his definitive account, The Holocaust, “during an air raid alert they [the Jewish prisoners] had scattered for protection in the forest, and then tried to remain there in hiding. But SS men surrounded them and opened fire, killing all but a hundred. The survivors were then marched on again, westward.”2
Gilbert also quotes one of the men on the death march, Menachem Weinryb, who reported that
one night we stopped near the town of Gardelegen. We lay down in a field and several Germans went to consult about what they should do. They returned with a lot of young people from the Hitler Youth and with members of the police force from the town.
They chased us all into a large barn. Since we were five to six thousand people, the wall of the barn collapsed from the pressure of the mass of people, and many of us fled. The Germans poured out petrol and set the barn on fire. Several thousand people were burned alive.
Those of us who managed to escape lay down in the nearby wood and heard the heart-rending screams of the victims.3
From concentration camps in conquered territories endlessly streaming marches went on day and night. The death marches lasted up to one month and often covered distances of hundreds of miles. In many cases the prisoners were loaded onto trains. With an average of seventy people jammed into a single freight car, they suffered from lack of oxygen, water, and food and soon perished. In January of 1945, hundreds froze in freight cars. It is estimated that in all the death marches between 250,000 and 375,000 were murdered. The brutal acts and killings frequently took place in the public streets before the eyes of German civilians. Some civilians joined in the killing sprees, angry that Jews had caused the war and betrayed Germany.
Auschwitz and its subcamps, such as Monowitz-Buna, were ordered to be evacuated on January 17, 1945. The inmates were marched to a camp named Gleiwitz. Over a period of five days, from January 17 to January 21, more than 56,000 prisoners were marched westward under the most brutal conditions. Most of the prisoners were without adequate clothing to keep themselves warm during that brutal winter; many did not even have shoes. The bedraggled, starving remnants of the camp achingly marched on, knowing that a pause or a complaint would be resolved by a bullet to the head or into one’s back. Prior to the evacuation, a small number of relatively healthy prisoners risked their lives by hiding themselves throughout the camp. They anxiously awaited the arrival of Soviet troops, who would liberate and feed them. Those in hiding were a mere handful compared to the 35,000 to 40,000 prisoners who reached Gleiwitz but not their freedom. The SS stuffed them into railroad freight cars to be transported to concentration camps in the fatherland. Of those, 9,000 to 15,000 died of exhaustion, starvation, or cold, or a combination of all three. Others were shot for not being able to keep up with fellow prisoners or for attempting to escape.
On January 18, 1945, Perez was one of the inmates on his way to the Gleiwitz concentration camp, which was near the Czech border. It was a trek of thirty-seven miles, undertaken with neither food nor water. Once in Gleiwitz, Perez was near the camp’s kitchen. He spotted a stale loaf of bread, grabbed it, tore off a chunk for himself, and then attempted to hand pieces to other inmates. A guard saw what he was doing and, without a shouted order to stop, raised his rifle and quickly fired several bullets. Perez was hit multiple times and collapsed as blood flowed from his wounds. As a boxer with a powerful will to survive, he had depended on his strength and skills; as a kind and generous man, he died on January 21. He was thirty-three years old.