Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp in World War II by winning fight after fight against fellow prisoners, to the delight of Nazi guards who had placed their bets on him, died in Israel on April 26. He was 86.

His family announced the death to the newspaper Haaretz; no immediate cause was given, but they said he had never recovered from a stroke 15 years ago.

Mr. Arouch’s literal fight for survival was the basis for the 1989 movie “Triumph of the Spirit,” directed by Robert M. Young, with Willem Dafoe playing the 5-foot-6, 135-pound boxer, who won hundreds of matches over two years at the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in southern Poland.

With a 24-0 record, Mr. Arouch had won the amateur junior middleweight championships for Greece and the Balkans, according to boxrec.com, an online boxing encyclopedia. Because of his fancy footwork, he was known as “the Ballet Dancer.”