Victor Pérez was a famous Tunisian Jewish boxer, he became world flyweight champion in 1931 & 1932.
In 1945, when he was 33 years old he was murdered by a Nazi (THREAD).
In 1945, when he was 33 years old he was murdered by a Nazi (THREAD).
He was born to a Jewish family in the capital of Tunisia, his dream was to become a boxer. At age 17, he left Tunisia and emigrated to France where he worked and studied professional boxing. A few years later, when he was only 20yo, he was declared world boxing champion.
In 1941, he was taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp. He tried to escape, was caught and sent to a standing cell where he had to stand for two weeks without being able to move.
The Nazis formed a group of boxers, they organized fights between Jewish boxers and other boxers for their own personal enjoyment. Perez practiced in 133 boxing fights, he also fought against heavyweight German boxers and he won them all.
Perez’s friend, a Holocaust survivor, told he endangered himself by smuggling food to his friends, helping dozens of people and when he was warned he might die, Perez said “it doesn’t matter - a person is meant to help another”.
During the death march, a march of tens/hundreds of miles where many Jews were murdered or died due to harsh conditions, Peretz was caught attempting to distribute bread to his friends and was shot by a Nazi guard, his body was left on the snow and hasn’t been found to this day.
Victor Pérez was a talented boxer, a good person with a generous heart that was brutally murdered while trying to distribute bread to his friends so they could survive the hunger. In 2013, a French film came out describing his life ״Victor Young Perez״.
