Antoni Czortek

Antoni "Kajtek" Czortek (Polish pronunciation: [anˈtɔɲi ˈt͡ʂɔrtɛk]; 1915–2003) was a Polish boxing champion, one of the Polish legends of this sport. Czortek was a 1939 silver medalist of Amateur Championships of Europe, multiple champion of Poland and participant of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. He is also remembered due to his heroic struggle for life in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Czortek was born on July 2, 1915, in Grudziądz (German: Graudenz), then part of the German Empire. He started his career in the local club GKS Grudziądz, but soon afterwards, his talent was noticed in Warsaw. He moved to the capital of Poland and represented the team of Skoda Warszawa (team's name was in 1936 changed into Okęcie Warszawa). Finally, after World War II, he settled in Radom, where he fought for Radomiak Radom, and then become a successful coach.

His name was known to all boxing fans in Poland in the 1930s and late 1940s, as he participated in 23 official international boxing matches, out of which he won eighteen fights, lost four and tied one. In 1936 he took part in the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, in the bantamweight class. In the first round he beat French boxer Pierre Bonnet, but in the second round he lost to South African fighter Alec Hannan.

Czortek was much more successful during the 1937 European Amateur Boxing Championships. That year, in Milan, Italy, he was fourth in the bantamweight, losing to the future champion, Anton Osca from Romania. Two years later, during the 1939 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Dublin, he won silver, after beating Karl Käbi from Estonia and Lambert Genot from Belgium. In the final fight, Czortek lost to Patrick Dowdall from Ireland.

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