Tadeusz "Teddy" Pietrzykowski - Polish boxing champion who boxed in Auschwitz to survive
One of the first prisoners taken to the camp was 23-year old Polish boxer, Tadeusz "Teddy" Pietrzykowski. Before the war, Teddy was the bantamweight vice-champion of Poland and a champion of Warsaw. ''He was a student of the legendary Polish trainer Feliks Stamm, whom Pietrzykowski credits with having made a 'gentleman' out of him, by teaching him the meaning of Poland's national motto: ''God, Honour, Homeland''.'' (''The Boxer's Encounter with a Saint'', Joseph Czarnecki). After the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, Pietrzykowski had hopes of joining the Polish army that was forming in France, as a fighter pilot, but he was arrested by the Germans on the Hungaro-Yugoslav border. He was transferred to Auschwitz in the first mass transportation. His camp number was 77. Once the prison guards became aware of his boxing talents they quickly forced him to compete for their entertainment. For Pietrzykowski, it was a fight for survival.
His first boxing opponent was Walter Dünning who, before the war, was a middleweight vice-champion of Germany. Dünning was 70kg, Pietrzykowski about 40/45kg. Dünning stopped the fight when he realised that he was losing, and Pietrzykowski got a loaf of bread and a bar of margarine as a prize.
More fights were to follow. Pietrzykowski threw himself into them, knowing full well that he risked death by starvation. For his fellow inmates, every blow he struck was a source of pride and hope. "We were elated. We said to ourselves, 'As long as there's a Pole punching a German in the face, Poland's not lost.'' His most celebrated Auschwitz match was against Schally Hottenach, a 96-kilo German. Teddy won with a second-round knockout. Those fights were like a hope transfusion in a place without hope. A Pole beating up a German in the German concentration camp, in the face of unspeakable horror. We are aware of 40 to 60 boxing matches. He lost only once – to a Jewish boxer, Leu Sanders, the Dutch light-middleweight champion. Eventually, Pietrzykowski won in a rematch. ''Sanders was a very good boxer, and in the fight with him I had to make the greatest effort of my life... His wife and children were gassed in Birkenau.'' (''The Boxer's Encounter with a Saint'', Joseph Czarnecki)
Pietrzykowski was collaborating with cavalry captain Witold Pilecki, who got into the camp voluntarily under a false name to gain proof of Nazi crimes and organise resistance. In his reports, Pilecki recalled Pietrzykowski as a boxer who shared the food he won with other resistance members.
One day Pietrzykowski noticed a guard severely maltreating Fr. Maximilian Kolbe (a Polish Catholic priest). The boxer decided to give the guard a lesson. He told the SS officers to stand up to him in a fist-fight. The Germans agreed and in the next moment the guard was knocked out on the ground with one blow. The beaten Kolbe asked Teddy to leave the guard in peace. Pietrzykowski met Father Maximilian once more. He gave him a piece of bread. The next day he learned that someone stole it from Kolbe. Pietrzykowski was enraged. He seized the thief but the Franciscan did not let to hurt him. “As I had a piece of bread in a pocket, I gave it to Kolbe and he, before my very eyes, gave it to the thief saying ‘he is also hungry’”, told Pietrzykowski.
On 14th of March, 1943, he was relocated to the Neuengamme camp near Hamburg, where he fought about 20 matches, and then to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where he was eventually liberated by British soldiers. After the liberation he joined the Polish 1st Armoured Division under Major General Maczek as a sports coach. Then he returned to Poland and became a PE teacher in Bielsko-Biała. He didn't pursue a boxing career after the war – he devoted himself to working with youth. In one of the gyms he worked in, he wrote a motivational slogan on the wall for his pupils: "To be, is to be the best."
