K.O. Auschwitz

In the largest slaughterhouse of innocents ever known... Auschwitz. They say that there, on the other side, behind the barbed wire, right there where man was never a man, but a beast, a Nazi once asked: Who knows how to box? Some said yes and others said no; but whether it was yes or no... There it was not living, but dying. They say that there, where the man for not having had no name, he was only a number, triangle or star and a color, a bored SS, tired of killing, was looking for fun; a time off to distract from the lethargy of murder. And then he asked again: Who knows how to box? And they say that there, behind the barbed wire, where the prisoners were not prisoners, but cannon fodder; human beings, more than a million, all murdered and turned into smoke, ash and coal; some good men entered the ring out of obligation, to entertain the damned SS who was looking for fun. And perhaps that was his salvation, because there, between filth, famine, disease and much pettiness, in boxing matches he earned a little soup, butter and bread. This is how Noah Klieger and the other 'Auschwitz boxers' remember him. Overwhelming testimonies of those who put on the gloves to survive in the Nazi concentration camp. Noah, that nonagenarian with clear eyes and skin marked by misfortune. Stained by that infamous old worn tattoo that marred his forearm. 1-7-2-3-4-5, the number of death. Noah, the survivor who during his visit to Madrid, one day in January 2018, dressed all in grey, light, dark and charcoal, perhaps as a reminder of what he had to live through. Ash colored times. His nonagenarian body was shrunken, stooped with age, but his mind was clear. Willing to remember. Noah, the one who says that there, on the other side, behind the barbed wire, one day he heard: Either you know how to box or you go to the gas chamber. This book tells the harrowing story of the prisoners who had to box to survive in Auschwitz, a story conceived with the memories of Noah Klieger, Tadeusz Pietrzykowski, Jacko Razon, Judah Vandervelde, Solomon Roth, Salamo Arouch, Andrzej Rablin... and many more.