Salamo Arouch was a Jewish Greek boxer, the Middleweight Champion of Greece (1938) and the All-Balkans Middleweight Champion (1939), who survived the Holocaust by boxing for the entertainment of German Nazi officers in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. His story was portrayed in the 1989 film Triumph of the Spirit, starring Willem Dafoe as Arouch.
Salamo Arouch
Triumph of the Spirit is a 1989 American biographical drama film directed by Robert M. Young and starring Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos. The screenplay was inspired by true events, the same as the older Slovak film The Boxer and Death directed by Peter Solan. The majority of the film is set in the German POW camp at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and details how the Jewish Greek boxer Salamo Arouch was forced to fight other internees to the death for the SS guards' entertainment.
Theatrical release poster