Jeffrey Sussman and the Holocaust Boxers

This episode is a little different because we don’t deal with organized crime but with our friend Jeffrey Sussman on boxers who fought for the Auschwitz Concentration Camp guards and other Jewish fighters and the Nazis.  One more thing, I am experimenting with placing a transcript of the show in the show notes. Let me know if you like or dislike this in the show note.

 

Gary Jenkins  1:33

Welcome, all you Wiretappers Gangland Wire is back here in the studio. We’re talking with our good friend Jeffrey Sussman back in New York City. Welcome Jeffrey, great to have you back.

Jeffrey Sussman 1:44

Thank you, Gary. It’s a pleasure to be back.

Gary Jenkins  1:47

Guys. Jeffrey’s working on a book on Las Vegas. And he just interviewed me a little bit about what I remembered about the skim and that era of Las Vegas asked me a lot of detailed questions is going to be an overall view of Las Vegas, I would say right.

Jeffrey Sussman Speaker 2:02

It’s going to be a view of how the mob first came to Vegas in the late 1940s. And then how corporate America kind of took it over in the 1980s 90s.

Gary Jenkins 2:12

Interesting. There’s a guy kind of working on a documentary about this overall view of the mob from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. And then the mob got involved in the casino business. I did a little bit of research working with him on it. And it’s interesting how back then, the Los Angeles Police was more like the mafia. And then they move up to Las Vegas one of them did and start one of the early casinos and then the Italian Mafia kind of moved in behind this Los Angeles vice commander. I heard about you have another book that came out recently called Holocaust Fighters, Boxers Resisters and an Avengers I’m sorry, folks, I’ll send I couldn’t read my own writing down here. These guys that used to be I, you know, I’m not the slickest podcast host in the world, but we have a good time here. But Jeff, I’m really interested in this topic. I know you have a long-standing interest in boxing for can’t really remember the reason now your father took you to boxing a lot when you were a kid and you knew some boxers.

Jeffrey Sussman 3:17

Well, my father was an amateur boxer. He gave me boxing lessons when I was 12 years old. And then after that, he knew a man named Lou Stillman, who had a famous boxing gym in New York called stillness. And he took me there and Lou Stillman arranged for a middle way. He gave me ten boxing lessons. And this was in the late 1950s. And the unbelievable price for the 10 boxing lessons was $100. And when I finished like a Stillman gym t-shirt, and I asked this guy the middleweight if I could get in the ring and box with someone, and I was a little skinny kid said to me, don’t be an idiot. You’re never gonna get out of the room. You’re gonna be killed.

Gary Jenkins 3:59

You were in Stillman gym in the 1950s era right in the middle of lot of mobsters.

Jeffrey Sussman 4:07

There were a lot of mobsters. And that’s where the subject of one of my books Rocky Graziano used to train. And as a matter of fact, the only film that I think is available of Stillman is in the movie Somebody Up There Likes Me, which is a film of that Rocky Graziano and part of it was filmed in that gym. I think it was torn down in the early 1960s. And there’s an apartment building.

Gary Jenkins 4:27

Interesting. I just met a guy named Fratto, from Des Moines and he said his uncle was in the plane when Rocky Graziano went down.

Jeffrey Sussman 4:37

That was Rocky Marciano.

Gary Jenkins 4:38

I mean, oh, that was Rocky Marciano. That’s right. I got my Rockys mixed up.

Jeffrey Sussman 4:42

A lot of people do.

Gary Jenkins 4:44

Okay, so let’s talk about the Holocaust fighters. How’d you get interested and find out about this interesting topic?

Jeffrey Sussman 4:52

My Interest in boxing led me into this because I came across a fighter named Harry Haft and I read a book about him and I became fascinated.