#American boxer who killed his wife movie

Like in The Survivor HBO movie, Haft boxed in three to four matches against other prisoners on Sundays, and the matches ended when one fighter could no longer get up.

#American boxer who killed his wife movie

In researching how accurate is The Survivor movie on HBO, we learned that while at the Nazi concentration camp Jaworzno, which was located at a coal mine north of Auschwitz, Harry Haft fought in a total of 76 bare-knuckle matches for the amusement of the SS guards. The movie portrays Officer Dietrich Schneider to be more heartless and vindictive than the book describes him as being in real life. By that point, Officer Schneider could see that the war was going very poorly for Germany. It's historically accurate that the high-ranking German officer Dietrich Schneider was helping Harry Haft so that Haft would vouch for his kindness when American and Russian forces determined his fate after the war.

As a successful fighter, he was also given lighter duty in the coal mines. The Survivor true story confirms that like in the movie, the brutal matches gave Haft the opportunity to continue to survive, while at the same time entertaining the officers. In the film, the German officer is named Dietrich Schneider and is portrayed by Billy Magnussen (as stated earlier, the real Harry Haft did not remember the officer's name). Haft already had some basic boxing training as a youth in Poland. The SS officer who had been protecting Haft and feeding him extra had taken note of Haft's strong physique and told him he was to become a boxer in the camp. He also saved Harry's life when Harry broke his foot while working at the mines and was on the verge of being sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the movie changes this to a guard breaking Harry's hand).ĭid a German officer encourage Harry Haft to become a boxer in the camps in order to survive? He gave Harry extra food to fatten him up. The Survivor fact-check confirms that after having spent roughly a year at Jaworzno, the German officer who had helped Harry, Dietrich Schneider, arrived at the camp. Starvation, disease, and physical abuse were common. The brutality of the camp itself appears to be depicted accurately in the movie. Each month, roughly 200 Jewish prisoners who could no longer work were transported from the camp to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, resulting in thousands of deaths. Harry Haft endured hard labor in the coal mine at Jaworzno, a concentration camp that was considered a sub-camp of Auschwitz. Several years later, German cartoonist Reinhard Kleist adapted the book into the acclaimed graphic novel The Boxer. HBO's The Survivor movie is based on his son Alan's 2006 book Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano. Is The Survivor based on Harry Haft's son's book? The HBO movie changes much of this and has Officer Schneider step in and save Harry from being executed for beating on a German soldier who was about to kill another prisoner.

Luckily, Schneider saved him by putting him on a transport to the camp at Jaworzno (a sub-camp of Auschwitz). 'You live two days or three days tops,' recalled Harry of the unit. As punishment, they assigned him to the building that housed the Strafkommando and he was beaten severely. Though interrogated and beaten, he didn't tell them that he had been stealing the diamonds for Officer Schneider. When the inspector touched his bed, the bottle of diamonds fell out. He deposited the diamonds into a bottle and hid the bottle in his bed.ĭuring a barracks inspection, it was observed that his bed wasn't made right (Harry said that his bed was made correctly, but for some reason, the soldiers knew to go straight to it). Harry couldn't remember his actual name). Though it's not shown in the movie, while working in the concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau sorting prisoners' possessions, including clothes, silver, gold, and other valuables, Harry stole diamonds for a German officer named Dietrich Schneider, who he had known from back home (Dietrich Schneider is a fictional name used in the book and movie.