Background
Kantor was the son of Elchanan and Barbara (née Bekier) Kantor.
Kantor was the son of Elchanan and Barbara (née Bekier) Kantor.
After finishing local primary school, he left for Paris in 1924 to continue his education. He played tennis, and was captain of the school soccer team He also started to train in fencing.
Shortly after, he received 3rd place in fencing at the academic championship of Paris, and 6th place at the Open Championship of France in 1929.
He then trained in England from 1931-1932 under the supervision of fencer Lefevre’a, and in Germany under the supervision of Italian coach Gatzera. He did, however, contributed to receiving an 8th spot finish by the Polish team
In December 1936 he moved to Łódzki Klub Sportowy. On May 14, 1939, he took the Olympic oath with other Łódź Olympians before the planned 1940 12th Summer Olympic Games.
When Lvov was taken over by the Germans, to escape the Nazis because he was Jewish, he obtained a passport and citizenship of a South American country, and waited for the German authorities" permit to leave for a neutral country.
In this time, he lived in a building at Sapieha Street. lieutenant turned out that the Germans were misleading the inhabitants of the building, and they were all later arrested and transported in 1942 to the Majdanek concentration camp and killing center. There, Kantor was forced to do work for Ostindustrie, and was mentioned in the 1943 register of prisoners.
He died there in 1943.
The Jewish Polish swimmer Ilja Szrajbman, who had also participated in the Berlin Olympics, was also killed by the Nazis that year. Kantor was one of approximately 3 million Polish Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
After receiving 2nd place at the Open Championship of Lvov, he was nominated a member of the Olympic delegation for the XI Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.