Talk:Salamo Arouch

History

I am concerned that I see no effort in this article to verify a single claim made by Mr. Arouch. Some of his claims are wildly implausible, such as that of his (at 135 lbs) knocking out a 250 lb, 6 foot 6 inch Gypsy in 18 seconds. Also the dancing guard dogs seemed implausible, the over 200 fights in 2 years, even though sustained on nothing but bread and soup, and really the entire thing in general. I have undertaken briefly to find verification of anything he's said, and all I've found is the following, and is not in any way supportive of his claims:

amateur boxing.strefa is a website which lists amateur boxing results from 1900 to 2009. In 1943, the year in which Arouch claims to have won a middleweight "Balkan Championship" at the age of 17, the following contests are recorded as having taken place:

• Duals Germany-Sweden - Breslau, Germany - January 24 1943
• Duals Switzerland-Hungary - Zurich, Switzerland - February 27 1943
• 4.Soviet Union Absolute Championships - Moscow - August 17-21 1943
• Duals Spain-Hungary - Madrid, Spain - November 28 1943
• Duals Finland-Sweden - Helsinki, Finland - December 15 1943
• 20.Hungarian National Championships - 1943
• 3.Croatian National Championships - 1943
• Duals without bout results:
• Hungary-Spain 10:6 - Budapest, Hungary - June 26 1943

There is no listing there for a "Balkan Championship", and no mention of Salamon Arouch in the results of any listed contest in 1943. Meanwhile, Wikipedia itself has a listing for the local amateur sports organization Iraklis. The entry mentions the following:

# Iraklis Amateur Boxing (founded in 1965)

Amateur Boxing

Gymnastikos Syllogos Iraklis Thessaloniki (Greek: Γυμναστικός Σύλλογος Ηρακλής Θεσσαλονίκης, English: Iraklis Thessaloniki Gymnastic Club), commonly referred to as Iraklis, is a Greek sports club based in Thessaloniki. The club was founded in 1908 and is named after Hercules, the mythical Greek demigod. Its colours are blue and white.

So, while in Salamon Arouch's home town of Thessaloniki there was a long-established sports club that might have had an interest in amateur boxing, among other sports, it did not establish an amateur boxing club until 1965, more than 20 years after Arouch claims to have fought for a Balkan championship.

Then there's the article on amateur boxing I found at cctv.com , which states the following:

Boxing is supervised by the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), founded in 1946 in London and currently based in Lausanne.

Organised boxing bouts in Greece appeared in the pre-Second World War years, while its official recognition as a sport by the state came with the founding in 1952 of the Hellenic Boxing Federation (also known by its Greek initials E.O.P.). National and club tournaments take place every year, as well as two established international tournaments: the 'ALEXANDREIA' games which are held every autumn in Thessaloniki and the 'ACROPOLIS' Cup in Athens every Spring, in both cases presenting numerous participating countries.

The Hellenic Boxing Federation has also successfully organised major sporting events such as Men's Senior European Boxing Championship in Athens in 1989, European Junior (under 19) Championships in Thessaloniki in 1993, and European CADET (Under-17) Championships in Athens in the year 2000. Furthermore, Senior, Junior and Balkan championships have been organised in Patras in 1990 and 1987, in Thessaloniki in 1982 and in Athens in 1983.

Again, although the article recognizes that "organized boxing events" did in fact occur in Greece prior to the second world war, official recognition of it as a sport there didn't occur until 1952, hardly supportive of the claim that a "Balkan Champion" emerged there with an undefeated record only to have his blossoming career cut short by the events of the Holocaust.

Then there's the legitimate and recorded boxing record of Salamon Arouch, which consists of a single bout. It's listed at boxrec.com

It was a dismal fourth round knockout loss in Tel Aviv, Israel in the featherweight division on 06-08-1955 to an Italian fighter named Amleto Falcinelli, whose final record of 25-32-16 is hardly the stuff of legend. It was Falcinelli's 5th professional bout. He had lost every single one of his first four, would go on to lose his next one, draw twice, then lose again before managing the second win of his career by winning by points in his tenth match. He then won again, then lost nine more times, etc. Falcinelli was also older than Arouch.

And then there's the fact that his friend and fellow inmate at Auschwitz disputed his claims, though he claimed that it was his own story appropriated by Arouch.

Let's summarize. According to Arouch, he won over 200 bouts, never losing a match from the day he started, with only two draws (supposedly due to recent bouts with dysentery), fought people more than twice his size and knocked them out in seconds, fought at least one epic battle with an undefeated opponent, winning by KO, fought Nazi prison guards in a circus-like atmosphere, was a promising light-middleweight "Balkan Champion" before being incarcerated in Auschwitz, and even knocked out two British soldiers in exhibition matches upon his being freed from Auschwitz, yet upon finally making his professional debut, he couldn't match up to an older, winless fighter without a fraction of his supposed experience and who ended with a losing record. And his friend and fellow Auschwitz prisoner disputed it, claiming the story to be his own. What an astonishing turn of fate. My oh my, the things that posterity can record in the world when Hollywood offers to make a movie about a man without the slightest attempt at verifying his claims. Does Wikipedia want to make the same historical mistake? If so, I suggest it should obtain royalties from the movie.

I'm not out to get Arouch, nor to insult the memory of a dead man, but the real story of Auschwitz doesn't need to be cluttered with extraordinary exaggerations that damage its credibility any more than the truly admirable history of Jewish boxing needs to be mocked with such tales while the legacies of other fighters go unnoticed. Men like Benny Leonard, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, and the like were truly accomplished fighters, and some Jewish boxers apparently died in Auschwitz, men who may have inspired Arouch's "memories". Their stories deserve to be told, and not buried under the absurd claims which this man made in his lifetime.

I would also like to add that this is my first Wikipedia edit, and I am no professional historian, and would welcome correction based on legitimate and verifiable source material on any and all of the above points. But the material from which the present article has been culled, a few obituaries based on interviews with Arouch from no earlier than the 1980s, without any attempt at verification, and magazine articles which took him exclusively at his word, seem to me inadequate.--Ful Mudammas (talk) 18:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I tried to assemble an infobox for this individual, but found it difficult due to the fact that I've come across more than one listed birthdate. His biography page from boxrec.com lists his birthdate as January 1, 1918, and his age at death as 91. The obituaries which have been most frequently circulated list his age at death as 86, and the current Wikipedia listing declares his birth at an unspecified date in 1923 and death on April 26, 2009. There are also multiple spellings and variations of his name, presumably all of which should be included. Also, I notice that I seem to have checked the wrong dates for his "Balkan Championship", which appears to be for 1941 according to the current Wikipedia article. I then rechecked all the listings for that year at amateur boxing.strefa, and still no mention of either a "Balkan Championship" or of Salamo Arouch, or any similar name. Nor do I recall seeing the names of Jackie Rezon or Klaus Silber, though from the mention made of them one might have hoped to see them in some fashion. The contests for 1941 are as follows:

• Duals Denmark-Germany - Copenhagen, Denmark - January 10 1941
• Duals Finland-Sweden - Helsinki, Finland - January 19 1941
• 22.German National Championships - Breslau - January 26 - February 2 1941
• Duals Hungary-Italy - Budapest, Hungary - February 8 1941
• Duals Germany-Finland - Passau & Stettin, Germany - February 8-11 1941
• Duals Austria(Ostmark)-Silesia - Krems, Germany - March 2 1941
• Duals Germany-Sweden - Koenigsberg, Germany - March 30 1941
• Duals Slovakia-Germany - Bratislava, Slovakia - May 2 1941
• Duals Germany-Italy - Breslau, Germany - October 26 1941
• Duals Germany-Denmark - Munich, Germany - November 22 1941
• Duals Slovakia-Croatia - Bratislava, Slovakia - November 23 1941
• Duals Povazska Bistrica-Zagreb - Povazska Bistrica, Slovakia - November 25 1941
• Duals Vienna-Zagreb - Vienna, Germany - November 28 1941
• Duals Germany- Slovakia - Litzmannstadt, Germany - December 7 1941
• Duals Sweden-Germany - Stockholm, Sweden - December 11 1941
• 8.Belarussian Republic Championships - Bialystok - 1941
• 18.Hungarian National Championships - 1941
• Slovak National Championships - 1941
• Italian National Championships - 1941
• Swedish National Championships - 1941
• 1.Croatian National Championships - 1941
• Duals without bout results:
• Hungary-Italy 12:4 - Budapest, Hungary - December 6 1941

I must acknowledge that the link to Duals Povazska Bistrica-Zagreb - Povazska Bistrica, Slovakia - November 25 1941 was dead, so I could not check the results for that 1941 contest. But since it was listed as a Slovakian tournament between two towns or districts, not a pan-Balkan international affair, it seems unlikely that this is what Arouch was referring to anyway, and the results could probably be confirmed as irrelevant with a little more effort. So the question remains, what exactly was Arouch referring to, and is there any indication that it ever occurred?--Ful Mudammas (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the "championship" from the lead, since the New York Times evidently got it from the same source you did, albeit a different page. Boxrec.com also says that he had "a 24-0 (24 knockouts) record." However, the word claim is not the proper choice per WP:CLAIM. If there are other reliable sources that cast doubt on what he said, we can say "he claimed this; they claimed that." We can't use it for one side of an implied dispute. I don't know what you mean with respect to dancing guard dogs. I know nothing about this individual other than what I researched for replacing the previous version of this article, which was deleted as a copyright infringement, and I know little more about boxing. Sorts are not my area; cleaning up copyright infringement is. :) But Wikipedia is a tertiary source that relies on reliable secondary sources like The New York Times and People. If there are reliable sources questioning his accounts of his life, these should by all means be included in our article. We do need to be careful to avoid original research. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I've looked a bit more into this to see if there even are respectable sources regarding this information. Not a single source I've found supporting Arouch's account of anything predates the early 1980's, and all seem traceable back to... his word. On the other hand, more reliable sources that presumably have researched the matter to some degree, such as the Wollheim Memorial website, seem not to mention him or back his account of events, and prefer to treat the much milder claims of Jacko Razon as fact. The survivor interview at the Wollheim Memorial website with Ya'acov "Jack" Handeli vouches in part for the modest account of events given by Jacko Razon, but mentions nothing of Salamo Arouch. Also, I checked the Salonika entry for Jewish Virtual Library.org, and it also mentions a modest role for Jacko Razon, but does not acknowledge Arouch at all. I am not aware of a respectable source that does acknowledge him. Why should Wikipedia fall prey to the lapsed standards of modern journalism in sourcing all reference of a character to a People magazine article from the 80's, written to accomodate a Hollywood exercise in revisionist history? I understand what you mean about not doing original research, but if Wikipedia is going to put up an article at all, shouldn't some standard of accuracy be at least attempted? Technically, we haven't even verified his date of birth. Last I looked, his obituaries claimed a different date than Boxrec.com, though that site has changed a couple of times recently. This article also makes no mention of his pro loss to Amleto Falcinelli in 1955, though I haven't sourced that either (it's just listed in Falcinelli and Arouch's record on Boxrec.com). That's the kind of info that really brings his entire bio into question. So the question is, does a Wikipedia bio stand if there's nobody disputing it outside of Wikipedia, despite being utterly disregarded by historians and boxing aficionados despite its miraculous claims? Should the article be changed to leave a neutral impression of whether events actually occurred? Or maybe it should be deleted altogether as unverifiable and somewhat silly? The whole thing seems to be headed in the direction of misinforming the public despite definite indications that the article is deeply flawed.--Ful Mudammas (talk) 01:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

If you can find official sources, feel free to add whatever information you find. Meanwhile, we go with what the locatable, reliable sources have to offer. That's policy. The man is notable, and there are no official sources that I know of that challenge these details. If you want to nominate it for deletion, the venue would be WP:AFD. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:27, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this. I went ahead and closely reread the entry after your changes, and I think it's probably enough to cause people to at least think twice before definitively quoting the material as fact, which is good enough. Arouch probably deserves an entry just for having the movie made about him, if nothing else. I'd say things are good enough at this point to leave it be.--Ful Mudammas (talk) 01:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't have access to any material that could shed light on your concerns. I put pretty much everything I could find in when addressing the copyright matter. Boxrec.com, evidently, is not a reliable source; I'm surprised that New York Times quoted it. If you continue gathering material bringing his claims into question, you might want to seek a publisher for it--maybe in an industry publication. Then we'd have a new reliable source. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

That's okay, I've found it an interesting chance to look into the history of boxing. I've actually learned quite a few things in the process... but as far as trying to "expose" Arouch, Jacko Razon already did that, and got a hefty settlement out of it, remember? I figure this is pretty much a dead issue, which is kind of appropriate since it's an obituary. Though I do kind of find I want to know now about that 1955 fight in Tel Aviv... that one might have a story all its own to tell. : )--Ful Mudammas (talk) 01:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I was just reading that (I was out of touch; I didn't even know he'd died. He wasn't dead when I fixed the copyright infringement in the article back in November.) Apparently, the case was dismissed, though they paid him $30,000.00. Not that hefty, if he was asking for $20 million. Good money for most, though. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Just $30K? Wow... I just assumed he got more. Honestly, I haven't read much of anything about the suit. I just assumed "out of court settlement" meant the big bucks. Guess not. Just makes me more curious about their relationship... it must have been special, having grown up in the same town, been to the same camp, and then arguing over the same legacy.--Ful Mudammas (talk) 02:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Taking this to user talk, since it's going beyond article improvement. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Concentration Vs. DP Camp Correction?

In the sentence "During a search for family at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April, 1945, he met Marta Yechiel, a 17-year-old survivor from his own hometown.[4]", shouldn't "Bergen-Belsen concentration camp" be changed to "Bergen-Belsen DP camp"? The concentration camp was run by the Germans. The DP, or "displaced persons" camp was run by the British and was constructed after the concentration camp was burned down as a health hazard.--Ful Mudammas (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

If I've described it incorrectly then please, by all means, fix it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I tried to sort out the issue of which camp he was released from, but I couldn't... the various sources all seem to conflict on that detail. Here are a selection from some of the sources referenced in this Wikipedia article:

The "Fighting for Life" article had him liberated by the Russians from Auschwitz-Birkenau and meeting his wife there the same day:

"(In fact, Mr. Arouch, who was an inmate of Birkenau, met his wife, who survived Auschwitz, the day they were liberated by the Red Army.)"

The New York Times Obituary had him released from Auschwitz-Birkenau and then meeting his wife at Bergen Belsen DP camp:

"After Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, Mr. Arouch began searching for relatives in other liberated camps. While searching Bergen-Belsen, he met Marta Yechiel, a teenager from his hometown. They were relocated to Palestine, married and eventually had four children and 12 grandchildren."

Haaretz's obit had Arouch released from Bergen Belsen concentration camp, which would have meant liberation by the British:

"The boxing allowed Arouch to survive until he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen in 1945. There, he worked at slave labor until the camp was liberated. After the war, he met and married Martha, a woman from Saloniki, and they immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1945."

There doesn't seem to be a standard version here. I can't sort it out, so I left it and just fixed the link to the Ha'aretz version of his obituary, which previously linked to Saddoboxing.com's copy of the Haaretz obit. Is there a standard way to choose one particular version over another, or a way to note conflicting sources without adding contentious text? --Ful Mudammas (talk) 02:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This is sad

Seriously, this page is so badly written I would almost suggest it be deleted entirely. Well, I'm not going to go overboard on it this time around, but I feel obligated to point out some blatant and major flaws and request that someone edit it properly. 1) Seriously, this article gives him credit in the statistics box for 238 wins, 2 draws and one loss? Based on what? His own guess? 2) Worse still perhaps, the "Professional Boxing Record (Career Highlights)" box. This is just blatantly false. There is only one fight listed on Salamo Arouch's boxing record, and it is the loss to Falcinelli. Seriously, where did the first 5 names listed as wins even come from? Documention, please? And the next 4... undocumented recollections of unlicensed, unsanctioned bouts supposedly fought in a concentration camp can hardly be included in a listing of one's "Professional Boxing Record". They might be listed under another heading more appropriately titled, or included in the main body of the article as undocumented material, but not as a pro record. That's just ridiculous. 3) Although I'm not going to make the changes myself, I think it appropriate that Salamo Arouch merely be listed as the inspiration for the film Triumph of the Spirit. There is more than enough doubt about his claims to justify minimizing the undocumented material in this article and leaving intact just the legitimate certainty that his account of his experiences was the inspiration for that film. That simple assertion would allow readers to take things at face value and decide for themselves what to believe. I would appreciate someone taking a moment to take this article seriously for once, perhaps using the Victor "Young" Perez bio as a model (it seems much more factual, well designed, and objective, though I have also left a note on the talk page of that one requesting a minor edit). Please.Ful Mudammas (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The text of this article (I am not talking about charts & tables) is backed up by numerous references and they are all of the type that Wikipedia calls reliable. The article is not badly written at all, and I see no grounds whatsoever for deleting it.--Geewhiz (talk) 08:23, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The charts and tables are as important as the text, and contain blatant misrepresentations. His professional record is being completely misrepresented with material which is not only unconfirmed, but outright definitively not part of his professional career. His professional career, as far as can be determined, consists of one fight. Unlicensed, unsanctioned bouts in a concentration camp, whether or not they occurred, are definitively not professional bouts. I don't object to the camp bouts being mentioned as part of his account of his life, but treating them as pro bouts in his record is just wrong. How it could even occur to someone to list them that way strikes me as just deliberately dishonest.Ful Mudammas (talk) 08:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I should also add after a review of the editing guidelines that few if any of the sources listed for this article are what Wikipedia considers reliable. I see numerous admonitions against including extraordinary claims, relying on circularly sourced material, relying on obituaries and weighing the reliability of news articles, etc. all of which this article is on very shaky ground with, particularly the admonition that "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Nearly everything written about Arouch was derived from his obituary, was circularly sourced, was written around the time of the release of Triumph of the Spirit apparently as a media push for the film or is entirely derived from the movie itself.Ful Mudammas (talk) 09:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)