Andrey Borzenko Biography

The story of the Soviet boxer Borzenko, who remained undefeated in the concentration camp legend from Buchenwald. As the Soviet boxer became the best gladiator of the concentration camp on October 20, MSC to share comments Andrei Borzenko held more than 80 battles in the dungeons, won everything and survived. It was rumored that the Germans crippled him, and he won the champions from the SS.

Boxer Andrei Borzenko did not win the world championships and did not earn millions of dollars. But at the same time, he was not just famous, but became a half -legendary hero. He boxed in the Buchenwald concentration camp in the terrible years of the war. It is known that he shone and survived, but the details of his biography in different sources diverge. Some, for example, attribute to him active work in the camp underground, others claim that the Germans deliberately took his leg from him, but he continued to fight and win even on a prosthesis.

We remember all the details and try to figure out who Borzenko was actually. The battles for barbed wire Borzenko was born in Tashkent in metro station in the section of the legendary coach of Sydney Jaxon, an American who settled in the southern republic back in m. Before the war, he repeatedly became the champion of Uzbekistan in heavyweight, won twice at the championship of the southern republics of the USSR.

In the year, a few months before the start of the war, a native of Tashkent Andrei Borzenko was drafted into the army. He participated in hostilities from the first days of the Great Patriotic War, was wounded twice and was captured during the retreat of the Soviet troops through the Dnieper. After two attempts to escape in M, he was sent to the Buchenwald camp. Boxing helped him to survive in this terrible concentration camp.

Buchenwald's leadership arranged boxing fights. In these battles, prisoners of war fought not only among themselves, but also with local overseers, and sometimes professional boxers who served in the SS. Borzenko was the best boxer among all who participated in these gladiatorial battles. Almost always, he completed the fights by knockouts. In one of the battles, he knocked out a German criminal who was a bandit in Hamburg before the war and participated in underground contractions.

In another, he won supposedly the best boxer of all SS units named Willy. In total, before the liberation in April, Borzenko held more than 80 fights and won all. How is this possible if the Germans themselves called the fights between the prisoners of the "fight of skeletons"? Can a prisoner exhausted by work to defeat the athletes specially prepared for battle?

How did he remain alive, sending German soldiers and officers to the knockouts? In fact, it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to find out. But for Buchenwald Borzenko became a legend. True or fiction is that Borzenko is not a fictional character is not subject to any doubt. The daughter of Sydney Jaxson studied with him after the war at one faculty, and the coach himself told about him.

About Borzenko in his memoirs in the middle of X told the former prisoner of Buchenwald Vladimir Vlasov, who himself took part in boxing battles in the concentration camp.

He spent only five of them, was sent to Knockout with a Pole and no longer went to the ring. The Soviet boxer Andrei Borzenko was considered an invincible boxer in the camp ring. He did not lose a single fight. We lived with him in the same block, were very friendly. To this day, we correspond. He lives in Tashkent and works as a doctor of a physical education dispensary.

We go to visit each other, ”said Vlasov more than 30 years ago. But the vast majority of information about Borzenko is known only from the writer Georgy Sviridov and his book “Ring behind the barbed wire”, which was reprinted in the USSR and abroad many times. Sviridov himself, the first chairman of the USSR boxing Federation, Borzenko learned from a personal meeting at one of the tournaments.

He sent Helmut to nine knockdowns and boxed with incredible cruelty for Soviet athletes. After graduating from the tournament, I talked to him ... ”, Sviridov recalled, not specifying what kind of championship it was. Based on these conversations, the book was written. The writer later claimed that he was sitting in the KGB archives, found out the correctness of the names that Borzenko called, and said that almost all the characters mentioned in the “ring behind the barbed wire” are genuine characters.

Watch with 6. The story of what was actually with Andrei Borzenko from for a year, is known only with his own words. For example, the fact that he was an active participant in the underground of Buchenwald. The memoirs of the leaders and active participants in the underground of Nikolai Kyung, Konstantin Leonov and Lev Dipkina about Borzenko are not said. The death of Borzenko in poverty after the end of the war has overgrown with slightly great details.

He entered the medical institute, became one of the leading surgeons of the city, the first to conduct heart operations in Tashkent. Here is what Eli Luxembourg, a student of Sydney Jaxon, said about him, who often talked with his family family and, in particular, his daughter Paia Jaxon. Materials on the topic Brothers in the camp. Why did the wrestler tattoo forced the judge to cry “Borzenko became the pride of prisoners.He began to participate in numerous fights, in the same death camps, among gas chambers and crematoriums - always in a balance from death.

And miraculously survived. The story of Andrei Borzenko is largely unique. When I was a beginner boxer, he came to judge our competitions as a referee, a lateral judge. I remember a beautiful, courageous face, with a typically boxing nose, high cheekbones. I never limped, did not go with a wand. Borzenko had no right foot, there were rumors that the Germans deliberately crippled him. Despite this, he continued to fight with one foot, being on a prosthesis, and invariably won.

After the war, Borzenko became a surgeon. By the way, Paia Jaxon also studied with him in the same course, ”wrote Luxembourg in the publication“ Jewish observer ”. These words diverge from Sviridov's words. It is unlikely that the boxer on the prosthesis could take even in the championship of Uzbekistan. The writer does not say a word about it. According to information from various sources, Borzenko only received the medal “for participating in the Great Patriotic War” only in the year.

Unfortunately, in poverty in a rented apartment in the Leningrad region.