He retired from boxing in December 1938 with a record of 92 wins (28 of them knockouts), 26 losses, and 15 draws. On September 21, 1943, after being denounced by an acquaintance, Perez was arrested in Paris by the "Milice Francaise", a French collaborationist paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime. He was detained in the Drancy internment camp before being transported to the German extermination camp of Auschwitz where he was assigned to the Monowitz subcamp to serve as a slave laborer for I.G. Farben at the Buna-Werke. During his transport to Auschwitz on October 10, 1943, he became part of "Transport 60" a group of 1,000 prisoners shipped from Drancy, in France. During his internment, he was forced to participate in boxing matches for the amusement of the German guards and officers. By 1945, Perez was one of just 31 survivors of the original 1,000. To escape from the Russians rapidly advancing on German held territory, the Nazis abandoned Auschwitz in January, 1945. On January 18, 1945, Perez became one of the prisoners on the death march from Monowitz in Poland, 37 miles or 62 kilometers Northwest to the Gleiwitz concentration camp near the Czech border. Perez was reported to have been killed three days later on January 21. According to eye witness testimony he was shot to death by a guard while attempting to distribute bread he had found in Gleiwitz's kitchen to other starving prisoners. He was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2013, his life was made into the French and German language film Victor Young Perez (also known as "Surviving Auschwitz" or "Perez ha'tza'ir"). Perez's role was played by the 2000 French Olympic Gold medalist in light-flyweight boxing, Brahim Asloum.