Tadeusz Pietrzykowski
Tadeusz "Teddy" Pietrzykowski was a Polish boxer, Polish Armed Forces soldier, and a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Neuengamme concentration camps run by the Nazis during World War II. He was part of the first mass transport to Auschwitz in June 1940, and was transferred to Neuengamme in 1943. He is remembered as the boxing champion of Auschwitz. His life story has been subject to several books and two movies.
Biography
Early life
Tadeusz Pietrzykowski was born on 8 April 1917 in Warsaw. In his youth he joined the boxing section of the Legia Warsaw club, where he trained under Feliks Stamm. He received a number of positive writeups in the interwar Polish sport press, and was nicknamed "Teddy" or "Teddi". The years 1936-1937 were the heights of his sports career as in 1935 his boxing section advanced to the A-rank in Warsaw; and in 1937 he qualified for the finals in the as well as became the Warsaw Champion in the bantamweight class. A 1938 edition of Polish sports magazine, Przegląd Sportowy declared him "the best bantamweight boxer in Warsaw" although unfortunately that time he also suffered an injury, was expelled from his school and his boxing section was disbanded.Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he took part in the defense of Warsaw, volunteering for a light artillery regiment. Following the Polish defeat, in early 1940 he attempted to travel to France, where Polish Army was being reformed. He was however arrested in Hungary, and deported back to Poland, where he was interrogated and tortured by Gestapo, On June 14 1940 he was moved from a regular prison in Tarnów to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He arrived there with one of the first prisoner transports, and received the camp prisoner number 77.
The boxer in the camps
In March 1941 he joined the Auschwitz resistance movement, Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, working directly under Witold Pilecki. Few months later he took part in the assassination plot against a high ranking German officer in the camp, commandant Rudolf Höss, helping to sabotage the saddle of his horse; the assassination attempt failed, but still resulted in Höss breaking a leg, and the incident was classified as an accident by the Germans, with no punishments for the prisoners. Later, Pietrzykowski killed Höss' dog, a vicious animal that has been trained to attack Jewish prisoners, and killed at least one of them. Pietrzykowski successfully lured and killed the beast, which they later cooked and ate with other prisoners. He was also involved in other resistance activities, such as passing information or sabotaging labor activities.Also that month he took part in his first unofficial boxing fight in the camp, motivated by the promise of additional food rations, against a German kapo and boxer, Walter Dünning, know as the German middleweight vice-champion. The match was judged by Bruno Brodniewicz. The fight was inconclusive, but Pietrzykowski was generally seen as the winner, despite his opponent being initially assumed to be guaranteed to win. His conduct in the fight gained him approval from the German personnel, and begun his career as a boxer within he camp. While intended as an amusement for the camp personnel, the fights became popular with many prisoners who could watch them, particularly as Pietrzykowski's victories over German opponents or collaborators where moral boosting events for the regular inmates.
He would go on to face a number of opponents, including other imprisoned Polish boxers such as Michał Janowczyk. Other times his opponents were prisoner volunteers. Pietrzykowski tried to adjust his style to his opponents, avoiding injuring them and prolonging the fights for the amusement of the onlookers. In particular, he tried to help the Jewish boxers he fought, recognizing that the matches are much more perilous for them; in at least one case the tied on purpose, drawing a compromise between maintaining his winning streak and avoiding drawing the guards ire on his Jewish opponent. Several times he fought German opponents, which were recognized as often particularly vicious. He was victorious against known German professional boxers such as Wilhelm Maier and Harry Stein. Some of his fights were more impromptu, for example in May 1941 with a permission of the guard he challenged another prisoner who was beating another prisoner; only later he learned that he rescued a priest, later the Saint - Maximilian Kolbe.
Due to his style which favored evasion, he became nicknamed by the Germans as the Weiss Nebel. Boxing fights for the amusement of the German personnel were common and happened most Sundays on a weekly basis. Pietrzykowski had a long winning streak, losing only a single fight in the summer of 1942 ; Pietrzykowski would go on to win a later rematch between the two. His reward for victories were the ability to chose his place to work, and extra food, the latter which he often shared with other prisoners. At one point he received a proposal to sign the Volksliste, which could help him leave the camp, but he refused. At another time he was subjected to a medical human experiment, having been intentionally infected by typhus by the camp medical personnel after a check up in the camp hospital, but survived.
Some of his victories over German opponents made him enemies among German personnel, and there were rumors that he will get executed in revenge by the enemies he made among the Gestapo personnel. In March 1943, however, a visiting German official, Hans Lütkemeyer of the newly opened Neuengamme concentration camp, recognized Pietrzykowski, whom he had met during a match in 1938. He invited him to transfer to a new camp, an offer which Pietrzykowski gladly accepted. He was transferred to Neuengamme on March 14. While in Auschwitz he fought between 40 to 60 matches, losing only once.
In Neuengamme again he acted as a boxer, defeating opponents, from German kapos to an Italian professional boxer. As in Auschwitz, his fights were popular not just among the guards, but among the prisoners, a number of whom mentioned in their diaries that they were one of the cultural and sport highlights of the otherwise miserable and even deadly life in the camps. Again, he was considered undefeated. One of his most notable opponents was German-American heavyweight boxer, Schally Hottenbach, nicknamed "Hammerschlag", whom Pietrzykowski defeated in August 1943. Once again, however, Pietrzykowski's undefeated string became an iritant to some Germans, and once again rumours started to spread that some German personel is planning to murder him. Pietrzykowski was however able to arrange a transfer for himself to another camp in Salzgitter. In Salzgitter he became ill, but was able to recover. Overall, in Neuengamme he has fought at least 20 boxer matches. His last opponent was a Russian soldier Kostia Konstantinow.
In March 1945 as the Eastern Front was approaching, he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He survived there until the camp was liberated a month later, on 15 April 1945.
After the war
After liberation from the camp, he joined the Polish 1st Armoured Division where he organized sport activities for the soldiers. He also sparred with other soldiers, winning his Division lightweight boxing champion in 1946. In 1947 he returned to Poland, where he testified in the process of Rudolf Höss. He tried to restart his sport career, but developed illnesses that prevented this. His official post-war match records is given as 15 victories and two ties.He got married three times.
In 1959 he finished his studies at the University of Physical Education in Warsaw. In 1960s he settled in Bielsko-Biała, where he became a sport and PE teacher and boxing instructor. He passed away on 17 August 1991.