Francesco Buonagurio

Francesco Buonagurio ( October 7, 1907 in Naples or Marseille - 1943 or 1945 in German custody), also called Kid Francis , was an Italian boxer in the bantam weight class who was murdered by the Nazi regime.

Life

Buonagurio learned boxing in Argentina and made his professional debut in 1923 at the age of 16. His brother, Guy Bonaugure , who was two years his junior , also became a boxer, known as Johnny (Kid) Francis or Young Kid Francis , when he was fighting in the United States. From 1924 onwards, Francesco Buonagurio lived alternately in Paris and in Buenos Aires and also fought the majority of his fights in France and Argentina. In 1924 he was able to beat the reigning South American flyweight champion, Humberto Guzman , and the following year he became French bantamweight champion . In 1926 he lost the fight for the European Championship just on points, his opponent was Henri Scillie . In the following years he fought regularly in the United States because better exchanges were paid for there. In 1931, in front of almost 8,000 spectators in New York's Madison Square Garden , he played an exhibition match against Fidel LaBarba and delighted the public and press with an "unleashed boxing performance," as the New York Times noted. In June 1931 he was featured on the cover of boxing magazine The Ring . He was very interested in literature and recommended that his boxing colleagues read Ovid and Kipling . In 1932 and 1934 he competed for the world championship against the legendary Panama Al Brown and both times lost only on points.

It is questionable whether he was of Jewish descent. This question arises because there are two completely different narratives about his fate after 1940.

Jungle World writes that Buonagurio was arrested as a Jew after the German Wehrmacht occupied Paris in 1940 and was eventually deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp . There he had to take part in the Sunday exhibition fights in front of the SS team. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.

The French website politique-auschwitz, on the other hand, which states Marseille as the place of birth and describes him as a naturalized French , traces the exact course of arrest, deportation and death. In doing so, she cites the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation (FMD) and Le Bureau des Archives des victimes de conflits contemporains (BAVCC) in Caen :

• Arrested in a café on the Vieux Port of Marseille on January 23, 1943.
• Deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on April 28, 1942 with the number 64769.
• Transfer to the Buchenwald concentration camp on February 4, 1945, then to the Buchenwald branch in Langenstein on February 18, 1945.
• Death march and death on April 16, 1945 in Trossin .

swell

• Silver, Mike: Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing: A Photographic History, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-1630761394 (Engl.)
• Déportés politiques à Auschwitz, le convoi du 6 juillet 1942 , Biographies et articles historiques par Claudine Cardon-Hamet, accessed several times in March 2016 (in French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Krauss: Fight for survival . Retrieved April 11, 2016 .  ; Jungle World , November 15, 2012
2. ↑ Kid Francis. Retrieved April 11, 2016 .  ; Entry on BoxRec
3. ↑ The source is: Livre-Mémorial de la FMD et archives du BAVCC, renseignements transmis par Paul Legoupil et Arnaud Bouligny.
4. ↑ Les archives de la Seconde Guerre mondiale: Les archives départementales ( Memento of the original of October 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 26, 2016  
5. ^ Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Deportation: Transport list of April 28, 1942 , accessed on March 26, 2016