From our archives
World’s ‘oldest living journalist’ tells how he boxed his way through Auschwitz
92-year-old Noah Klieger survived the Holocaust by narrowly avoiding the gas chambers, then faking his way onto the Nazi camp’s boxing squad
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAs a prisoner in Auschwitz, Noah Klieger narrowly escaped death through sheer audacity.
Selected for the gas chamber on account of his pneumonia, Klieger managed to talk himself out of the sentence in a personal encounter with the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
Later, he faked his way on to a boxing squad at Auschwitz that enjoyed better meal rations.
After liberation, he arrived in pre-state Israel aboard the Exodus ship and fought in the 1948 War of Independence.
Klieger went on to a storied career in journalism, authoring several books and a longtime column in the Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth.
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