The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft TP
Publisher: SelfMadeHero
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Price: $22.95
Creator: Reinhard Kleist
Format: 200 pgs., Black & White, 6 5/8" x 9 1/2", Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-9068-3877-5
Age Range: N/A
ICv2 Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
 
This isn't Maus or even the Diary of Anne Frank.  It's a grim and gritty look at the Holocaust, as seen through the eyes of a man who had to do terrible things in order to survive.  After literally boxing for his life while in a concentration camp, he finally reached America, only to be told by gangsters to lose in order to live.  The horrible irony of that was only one of the riveting moments in the life of Harry Haft.
 
Unfortunately, even told from his side of the story, Haft was simply not a nice man.  He killed in order to save his own life, but also perhaps beyond that need. In peacetime, he was a smuggler, pimp and perhaps worse, before returning to more legal pursuits.  Still, his lifelong obsession with finding a young woman from his home town was a touching, powerful story about the ways in which war tears lives apart.
 
This work, based on a biography of Harry Haft written by his son, Alan, pulls no punches in its portrayal of Nazi Germany.  The artwork is very severe, with most faces tormented and ugly.  While the artwork keeps us grounded in the horror and the violence of the times, it also provides no break from the dark story.
 
For older teens and adults, due to violence and subject matter.

--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.