Harry Haft's unspeakable fight

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. This is Harry Haft's unspeakable fight from the BBC World Service. Warning, this episode describes upsetting scenes from the Holocaust, including baby and other killings, domestic abuse, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Alan Haft remembers the abundance of food when he was a kid, growing up in 1950s New York City.

1:17He used to be overweight, same as his parents. My refrigerator was stocked, chock full of food, and we were encouraged to eat steaks for breakfast. It wasn't because the Hafts were wealthy. On the contrary, Alan's dad, Harry, ran a modest fruit and vegetable stand. It was because Alan's dad knew all too well what not having enough food was like. My father survived five years in concentration camps. No one survived five years. Harry Haft was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. There was a series of green numbers tattooed along his large forearm. At the family home, Harry's friends, who also survived the Holocaust, would come by to play cards and chat in their native tongue, Yiddish.

2:04They used to come over my house and they would say, your father's a killer. Alan didn't know what happened to his father in the Holocaust, or whether these friends were telling the truth, but he believed them. Well, I was terrified of him anyway, because at any point he could blow up. You know, my house had plenty of broken windows and, you know, coffee on the ceiling from a coffee cup that he launched when he was angry. He said I was a bad kid and I deserved the beatings I got. I don't know. Are there bad kids? Alan may not have understood what was going on with his father, but he grew up with the horrors of the Holocaust in his New York City home.

2:44I'm a second-generation Holocaust survivor. I consider myself a survivor because I had to survive having a parent who was a survivor. For me, it was just, growing up was just pure hell. So Alan distanced himself from his father and the trauma surrounding him. Once, when Alan was in his 20s, Harry tried to share with his son what he had been through. I didn't want to hear anything about his life. He was such a terrible parent that at that time I was just angry and I don't want him to find a way to have an excuse, you know, for all the abuse. Even though Harry got out of the camps, he never really got out of survival mode.

3:36You're listening to Harry Haft's Unspeakable Fight for Heart and Soul from the BBC World Service with me, Jake Warren.

3:48My father was born in 1925 in a small town in Poland called Belkhotel. Harry's own father died when he was 10, leaving all nine children for his mother to provide for on her own. Harry and his family were part of a very religious Jewish community. They dressed differently, spoke Yiddish instead of Polish, and segregated themselves into a small section of town. And because he was poor, he could not go to the Jewish for-pay schools. So he went to the public schools where he experienced an extreme amount of anti-Semitism. This was before the war, but anti-Semitism was still rampant in Poland. The Christian kids would attack the Jewish kids.

4:40Harry learned early that violence was part of ordinary life, and he was built for it. I mean, he was barrel-chested, dark, black, wavy hair, green eyes that just pop out. He had movie star looks. But in 1939, Harry's youth abruptly ended when Germany invaded Poland. They brought with them new rules for the Jews who were living there. They had to wear, of course, the yellow star. They were restricted from a lot of their social activities and confined to what was a ghetto. Just before Harry's 16th birthday, the Germans posted flyers instructing all Jewish men over the age of 16 to report to the firehouse.

5:29Harry's older brother Aria complied, but when he didn't return home that evening, Harry was sent to find him. Harry arrived at the firehouse, realizing that his brother and the other men were locked inside. Well, my father creates a commotion, helps his brother escape, but they grab him, put his hand in the door, break his hand and throw him into the firehouse. And that was how he began his journey through the Holocaust. Along with the other Jewish men, Harry was forcibly taken to a Polish work camp. Harry's first experience of forced labor during the war was working the railroads. But right from the start, his survival instincts were in full swing.

6:15He quickly struck up a partnership with a German-allied Polish officer. Harry would steal goods from the train and trade them for food and protection. And on occasion, Harry would even be allowed to join this officer on trips out of the camp. On one particular outing, the officer went to sell his goods near Harry's hometown of Belhutteau. Harry convinced the officer to bring him along and make a stop to visit his family. But when they arrived, the town was quiet. Everybody was being evacuated and they pulled up to his sister's house and she had just given birth, maybe hours, hours before they got there.

6:58And the soldiers came in and Harry is watching from the car as they take his sister and put the sister in the back of the truck. As Harry's sister screamed for her child, a German soldier emerged from the house carrying the newborn. Suddenly, he flung the child towards the back of the truck, where Harry's sister reached with her arms outstretched. But the baby didn't make it. The baby goes onto the pavement and is quickly shot. my father witnessing that that was the day that he lost his belief in the existence of god from that day forward there was no such thing but his horrors were far from over days months and years all blended together then around 1942 three years after harry had been imprisoned he was stuffed into a train car along with the other prisoners they were taken on a multi-day train ride to auschwitz auschwitz does not need much explanation But Harry wasn't sent towards the infamous showers.

8:18Harry was sent to the labor camp section of Auschwitz. Along with another prisoner, he would take the bodies of those killed in the gas chambers and throw them into burn pits. One day, his partner sees his wife in one of the wagons and breaks down. And my father breaks down, you know, with him, gives up, does not want to work anymore, goes to the ground. He's 17. You know, what a horrible life. So he gave up. For the first time since he was captured, Harry surrendered. He did not want to continue. But before he was shot, in walks a German officer who says, I could use that man. And once again, his savior is another officer tasked to oppress and exterminate his people.

9:11Once again, Harry is saved by a remarkable intervention. Another stroke of luck. Another officer who saw something in Harry. Likely because he was young, fairly healthy and fit. And as Alan says, He was crafty. He was uneducated, but he was super smart. The German officer's name was Schneider. Like the Polish officer before, Schneider has Harry smuggle goods for him. This time, Harry would steal diamonds from the valuables stripped off Jewish prisoners in exchange for food and protection. And that agreement worked for a while, until Harry's stash was discovered. But before Harry was shot, Schneider intervened again and put him on yet another train, this time to a mining camp.

10:06Harry is underground in a makeshift mining shaft, packed with other prisoners. The men load explosives into the rock under the watch of their German and Polish supervisors. Later, Harry, shrouded in layers of soot, emerges squinting into the blinding sunlight, only to be greeted by a familiar face. Schneider shows up again, finds my father, provides him with food, makes him, you know, stronger, and he tells him, you're going to be an entertainer. Well, my father didn't know what entertainer meant. One Sunday morning, Schneider comes to get Harry from the camp. He walks him through the grounds towards the army barracks.

10:54He's taken to the officer's quarters and there's a makeshift ring. Around the ring are Nazi soldiers, laughing and drinking. A few prisoners play instruments for the forming crowd of officers. Schneider turns to Harry and tells him. These are going to be bare-knuckle fights, and they bring him his first opponent. My father's shocked at what he sees. He sees a skeleton coming towards him. a half-dead Jew who volunteered to fight because his only way of surviving was to get the extra bread at the end of the match. Well, the rules for the fight, Schneider tells my father, are it's the last man that's standing.

11:42But really, it was for the officers to be entertained by watching a Jew who was not starved kill another Jew with his bare hands. although my father felt shock and horror he turned back and he looked at schneider and schneider said to him well if you don't do it then which would you prefer a bullet or the gas my father had no choice at age 17 18 if he wanted to live he had to kill the other man at this point harry is not the same teenager who lay down in the crematorium at auschwitz The horrors of the camps have hardened him. The abuse, the torture, the starvation. If faith had ever sustained him before, all he had now was a deep set of fury.

12:37Harry easily wins the fight and his opponent is dragged away. Harry has survived, again. And from then on, every Sunday, for at least six months, half a year, he fights in these death matches. Based on how long Harry was in the camp, it's estimated that he fought for his life over 70 times. We use a term like survivor as if it's something simple. It's not. The cost of surviving in Harry's case was immense. It came to define his very existence. It became his identity. When he would discuss what he did, much later, he would call it that his selection to be a boxer and have his life saved was a privilege.

13:31He didn't seem to have any guilt about what he had to do to stay alive. Harry does survive. In 1945, just as the Nazis, facing defeat, were about to begin liquidating the camps, Harry escapes. The amazing thing about my father's story is that he survived five different slave labor and extermination camps in the six years that he was there. No one survived five years. No one survived three months in a concentration camp. By three months, you'll work to death or starved. After the war, Harry decided to escape Europe entirely. So he begins again in America. But for Harry, America was not a clean beginning.

14:20It was another place where he had to survive.

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15:28Choose the smart way. Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart. Get wise. Download the Wise app today. T's and C's apply. You're listening to Harry Haft's Unspeakable Fight from the BBC World Service with me, Jake Warren. We're looking at Harry Haft's extraordinary life and I'm speaking to his son Alan Haft as he reckons with his father's legacy. In 1940s America, boxing was extremely popular, second only to baseball.

16:16Geoffrey Sussman is an author and wrote a book about some of the people forced to box during the Holocaust, including Harry Haft. One of the reasons that boxing was so popular, it was a sport that was open to poor people. And it was a quick way of making a decent amount of money. Harry arrived in America in 1948. He was 22 years old. He was staying in New Jersey with his Uncle Sam. Yes, an actual Uncle Sam, but didn't have a job. Harry didn't have money, he didn't speak English very well, and he couldn't read or write. Even though Harry had escaped Europe, anti-Semitism was still rampant in America.

16:57Jewish people were limited to certain careers, schools, and even neighbourhoods. So Harry returned to the one thing he knew, boxing. There were actually 3 ,000 amateur and professional Jewish boxers in the United States from 1905 to 1941. They comprised between a third and 40 % of all the boxers at that time. Harry was a raw fighter. He didn't take direction well and wasn't technically proficient. Even though he had trainers, Harry lacked the ability to follow instruction or the instinct for self-preservation. And yet, he won his first ten fights. My father had the Star of David, the Jewish star, on his trunks to identify that he was a Jewish boxer.

17:48How ironic is that? When the Germans took over, he had to wear the yellow Star of David to identify being Jews for the Nazis. And now in the United States, in boxing, he's wearing the Star of David to identify being Jewish. Even after being taken from his family, being subjected to five years of horror in the concentration camps, watching people killed in front of him may have crushed any belief in God. But it did not make Harry any less proud of being Jewish. He kept his cultural identity and discarded the religious one. But as he trained for more bouts, it was not the opponents in the ring that were the only problem.

18:33At least 50 % of all the fights in the first half of the 20th century in some way or another were influenced by organized crime. You see, the sport was heavily influenced by the mob. And one year after Harry arrived in America, he was about to face his most famous and toughest competitor yet, Rocky Marciano. If that name sounds familiar, it's because his fighting style and name were the inspiration for the famous Rocky film franchise. Marciano is the only world heavyweight champion to go undefeated throughout his professional career. And Harry Haft was about to go toe-to-toe with him. According to Harry, he was getting ready in his dressing room when...

19:17Two men, well-dressed, came into the dressing room and told him that he had to lay down in the first round. They came in, they showed him the guns. He said they were little guns, but, you know, at the time they looked like cannons. You know, so he had lived, you know, the last six years teetering in life or death situations. That's the irony. Think of the irony of what he was asked to do. He was asked to lay down to save his life. In those 75 fights in the camp, he couldn't lay down to save his life. He had to win, you know, he had to win to save his life. Now it was the opposite way. He had to lay down to save his life.

20:00In the camps, lying down meant death. In America, he was told it might save his life. So finally, Harry chose to stop fighting.

20:13Well, not exactly. He didn't go down in the first round like he was told. He went three rounds before Marciano won. That's Harry's story anyway. Some experts have cast doubt on whether this specific fight was rigged, and whether that's how the mob tended to apply pressure to fighters. And experts agree that Marciano was not a dirty fighter. Alan said his dad admitted that Marciano was a much better fighter anyway. He would have won no matter what. But this is Harry's account. What is for certain is that for whatever reason, this fight, his biggest fight, was his last fight. Harry never boxed again.

20:55According to both Alan and author Geoffrey Sussman, Harry Haft is the only known Holocaust survivor to become a professional boxer in the United States.

21:08After the Rocky Marciano bout, Harry opened a fruit and veg stand, met an American woman and started a family. And in 1950, Alan was born. For those who survived the Holocaust and found themselves back in the world, their trauma followed them. At this time, there wasn't an understanding of PTSD, let alone generational trauma. Harry did not talk about what happened to him, but the story came out anyway. He saw a swatsticker on a book and he went out into the park to hide. When Harry slept, he had constant nightmares. And when he was awake, the rage pent up from his time in the camps would be directed at his kids, his wife, and of course, Alan.

21:58You always ask yourself, am I a bad child? Harry would also threaten to harm himself, sometimes as a way to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. It's not fun to be five or six or seven and have to beg your father not to kill themselves. you know, with tears. Alan remembered one particularly terrifying night when he was a kid. One of my memories is my father drinking a whole bottle of whiskey and telling me he was going to go out and kill his business partner. I had to sleep with a bottle under my pillow in case he came back and wanted to hurt me. Maybe I'm seven or eight years old, sleeping with a bottle to under my pillow to protect myself from my father who's gone crazy.

22:51After he graduated high school, Alan studied psychology as a way to better understand his family life and then eventually law. In 2003, when Harry was 78 and Alan was 52, Harry was diagnosed with lung cancer. So Alan finally agreed to sit with his father and listen to the story that had shaped both of their lives. There were stories that survivors just couldn't tell. My father wanted to release himself of the guilt of everything that he had to do to survive and how it might have affected him, you know, mentally. Somebody once told me about my father that the Nazis may have not murdered his body, but they killed his soul.

23:40over two days alan listened to the story his father had carried for more than 50 years took his belief in god from him killed his family and changed his life forever i got the opportunity to put my arms around him give him a hug and say i forgive you and i think that was the biggest thing that I experienced, you know, from hearing his entire story. I think at the end of his life, he was genuinely sorry for being the kind of parent that he was, and maybe being the kind of husband that he was. For most of his life, Alan said that his father didn't feel guilty about what he did to survive the Holocaust.

24:32According to Alan, this had more to do with the fact that Harry simply couldn't face what he had been forced to do. Alan later asked his father if he had any regrets in his life. And he held up his hands and with tears in his eye, he said that my regrets are the lives that passed through my hands. So he did die with that regret, you know, late in life. Alan is what is known as a second generation Holocaust survivor. The thing about trauma is it does not stay neatly inside one life. Research into Holocaust survivors and their families has shown that it even changes your DNA. I keep telling the story of my father because I want to tell you that the Holocaust happened.

25:19It happened to me. I had to look every day at a man with 144-738 written in green ink on his arm that was tattooed when he arrived at Auschwitz. Alan had his own kids, and although he tried his best and certainly learned a lot of how not to be from his own childhood, he wasn't perfect. Even the third generation has had to deal with their share of trauma, and quite frankly, being a child of a Holocaust survivor, I passed a lot of the bad parenting skills, maybe the impatience, not being able to listen. I was fortunate. I married well. But by writing a book about his father's life and speaking about his experience, Alan has been able to come to terms with his father's story, and to a degree, his own story.

26:16Writing a book for a father who couldn't read or write had meaning. It was one of the last things that I could do for him, you know, for my sense of forgiveness and for his sense of just unburdening himself. So it was important. He was just a brilliant man that never got an opportunity to have brilliance in the right way. Before Harry died, he was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Alan hopes he was able to give back to his father what he was never able to receive as his child. There were flashes of me experiencing his love. And I tried to give him all the love that I could, whether it was successful or not, whether I could break through the Holocaust or not.

27:06I'm happy with how I treated him. Are you proud of your father and his legacy? The word is difficult, proud. I am, I can't use that word. I can't use the word proud. I think my father's life has great meaning, you know, to me because it enables me to show others what can happen when anti-Semitism and human rights run amok in a society. I have a mandate, you know, inside of me to continue to tell my father's story. Harry survived then Alan had to survive Harry Alan continues to share the story of his father the unlikely survivor the brutal boxer the angry parent he doesn't shy away from the hard truth of what it means to survive and the generational healing that continues

28:14Harry Haft's unspeakable fight was a Message Heard production for the BBC World Service presented by me, Jake Warren. It was written by Robin Simon and Jake Warren. It was produced by Robin Simon. Macalester Beckson is the story editor. Mark Kendrick is the executive producer. Kirsty McLean is the production manager. Sound design and engineering is by Lizzie Andrews. For the BBC World Service, the commissioner is Simon Pitts.

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