Jeffrey Sussman - Holocaust Fighters: Boxers, Resisters, and Avengers

Jeffrey Sussman is the author of fifteen nonfiction books. In addition to Holocaust Fighters: Boxers, Resisters, and Avengers, his most recent books are Big Apple Gangsters: The Rise and Decline of the Mob in New York; Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science; Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune; and Max Baer and Barney Ross: Jewish Heroes of Boxing. He lives in New York City.

I am grateful to the following people: Stephen Spataro, East Hampton reference librarian, for his research; Morris Shapow, son of Nathan Shapow, for our conversations about his father; Alan Haft, son of Harry Haft, for our conversations about his father; Christen Karniski, for her editorial acumen and belief in this book; Barbara Sussman, for her suggestions and support; and the numerous concentration camp survivors whose stories have engaged me for many years.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Applebome, Peter. Veteran of the Nuremberg Trials Cant Forget Dialogue with Infamy. New York Times, March 14, 2007. www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/nyregion/14towns.html.

Cohen, Rich. The Avengers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Crowe, David M. Crimes of State Past and Present: Government-Sponsored Atrocities and International Legal Responses. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Dodd, Chris. Prosecuting the Peace of the World: The Experiences of Thomas J. Dodd at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, 194546. Speech given February 15, 2005. www.senate.gov/~dodd/press/Speeches/109_05/0215.htm.

Eisenhower, Dwight. Crusade in Europe. New York: Doubleday, 1949.

Evans, Richard. The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin, 2010.

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1974.

Fleming, Michael. Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Gerwath, Robert. Hitlers Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.

Gilbert, G. M. Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar Straus, 1947.

Gilbert, Martin . The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1986.

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

Gunther, John. Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940.

Haft, Alan Scott . Harry Haft. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006.

Heller, Kevin Jon. The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Himmler, Heinrich. Heinrich Himmlers Speech at Poznan (Posen). Holocaust History Project. https://web.archive.org/web/20120507140239/http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan.

Hss, Rudolf. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz: Testimony at Nuremburg, 1946. Modern History Sourcebook. https:/sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1946hoess.asp.

Hughes, John Jay. A Mass Murderer Repents: The Case of Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz. Archbishop Gerety Lecture at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, March 25, 1998. www.shu.edu/theology/upload/mass-murderer-repents.pdf.

International Military Tribunal. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law no. 10: Nuremberg, October 1946April 1949. https://archive.org/details/trialsofwarcrimi02inte.

Jackson, Robert H. Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal. Robert H. Jackson Center. www.roberthjackson.org/speech-and-writing/opening-statement-before-the-international-military-tribunal/.

Kingsbury-Smith, Joseph. The Execution of Nazi War Criminals. International News Service, October 16, 1946. https://web.archive.org/web/20010312175414/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergNews10_16_46.html.

Landau, Ronnie S. The Nazi Holocaust. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994.

Lanzmann, Claude. Shoah: The Complete Text of the Acclaimed Holocaust Film. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995.

Laqueur, Walter, ed. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

Longerich, Peter. Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Margaritis, Peter. Countdown to D-Day: The German Perspective. Philadelphia, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2019.

Morse, Arthur D . While Six Million Died. New York: Random House, 1968.

Nardo, Don. Nazi War Criminals. San Diego, CA: Reference Point Press, 2016.

Neave, Airey. Nuremberg. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1978.

Nirenberg, Jud. Johann Trollmann and Romani Resistance to the Nazis. Iowa City, IA: KO Publications, 2016.

Pilecki, Witold. Full Text of Witolds Report. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/stream/WITOLDREPORT/WITOLD%20REPORT_djvu.txt.

Polonsky, Antony. The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume III, 1914 to 2008. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2010.

Porat, Dina. The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Press, Bernard. The Murder of the Jews in Latvia. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000.

Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan: Himmlers Scholars and the Holocaust. New York: Hyperion, 2006.

Rees, Laurence. The Nazis: A Warning from History. New York: New Press, 1997.

Rotem, Simha. Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.

Schmeling, Max. Max Schmeling: An Autobiography. Translated and edited by George von der Lippe. Chicago: Bonus Books, 1998.

Shapow, Nathan, with Bob Harris. The Boxers Story. London: Robson Press, 2012.

Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.

Talty, Stephan. The Good Assassin: Mossads Hunt for the Butcher of Latvia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2020.

Thompson, Jonathan. Churchill Wanted a Captured Hitler to Die Like a Gangster in the Electric Chair. Independent, January 1, 2006. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/churchill-wanted-captured-hitler-die-gangster-electric-chair-6112926.html.

Vrba, Rudolf. I Escaped from Auschwitz. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2002.

Wetzler, Alfred. Escape from Hell. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007.

Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 19321945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

WEBSITE

Jewish Virtual Library. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.

MOVIES

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, 2005

The Boxer of Auschwitz, 2018

Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 2005

Triumph of the Spirit, 1989

Though a fan of boxing, Hitler never tied on a pair of gloves, never entered a ring. To imagine otherwise is to envision a comedic scene: the skinny arms flailing about, the eyes flashing anger and frustration, the voice gutturally screaming at his opponent. Yet the man thought boxing a necessary ingredient for becoming a successful Nazi warrior.

There have been many satirical depictions of Hitler in movies such as The Great Dictator and The Producers, but there is a silent 1915 movie titled The Champion in which Charlie Chaplin looks like a young ragamuffin Hitler. In fact, they were born the same year: 1889. Full of his own self-importance, the Chaplin character can only win his boxing match by hitting his opponent with a horseshoe hidden in his boxing glove. Hitler too was a man who imagined himself unbeatable but only if he could resort to lies and overwhelming force to achieve his ends.