The Plight of Jewish Footballers in Nazi occupied Europe.
During the European Championships in 2012, which was jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, the German national side were on a goodwill mission to the infamous Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz.The visit was led by coach Joachim Loew and Polish born players Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose. The idea for the visit was proposed by Germany's Jewish community, Catholic and Protestant leaders also championed the move.
Dieter Graumann, who is the president of the ‘Central Council for Jews in Germany’ said that “A visit like this sends a message to the world” he cited the role that young players, and also young people in the county have in promoting a positive image of modern Germany “the young players, of course carry no responsibility for what happened, but they do have a responsibility for the future” he explained.
The teams coaching staff and players laid wreaths and participated in a ceremony as a mark of respect. However the visit did draw criticism in some quarters due to the fact that only three members of Germanys squad where given permission to attend, team captain Philipp Lahm joined Podolski and Klose.
Other nations, such as Italy, The Netherlands and England visited the site where an estimated 1.3 million people lost their lives. In most cases it was the national governing bodies that suggested the players visit the site in order to learn the history of the area as well as make a stand against discrimination of any kind.
Chairman of the Football Association of England, David Bernstein explained that it would raise awareness for younger generations who may not have been inclined to research the Holocaust independently “The national teams visit will help teach young people in future generations to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust” he continued by saying “young people who are interested in soccer may not have been exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust in any other way”. This positive move by the game is testament to how attitudes of race and religion have changed over the decades; unfortunately this hasn’t always been the case.
In 1920 an organisation was formed in Germany that fought against the uprising of communist revolutionaries and any groups or organisations that they were affiliated with. The organisation combined the nationalistic ideology of the far right with the beliefs and practices of socialism on the left.The strategy focused on anti-Marxist and antI-Semitic themes ,they were called the ‘Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ‘ later to be known throughout the world as ‘The Nazi Party’.
At their height, the power of the Nazi Party encompassed all aspects of life in Germany, including the football leagues; sporting dominance was seen as the perfect propaganda platform, fit, strong, intelligent people dominating the physical world was the Aryan ideal.
Most existing sports club were taken over and re-branded by Nazi sponsored organisations; in order to join the German football association (Deutscher Fussball Bund or DFB for short) the members all had to have to recommendations from two non-Marxists in order to play.
Football clubs, like other organisations in Germany, were forced to release Jewish people from their ranks as ordered by the Nazi regime, but some clubs such as Alemannia Aachen and Bayern Munich resisted the ruling and supported their Jewish contingent when faced with such an action. Bayern Munich president Kurt Landauer was arrested and taken to a concentration camp in Dachau in 1938.
With Nazi ideology growing stronger throughout Germany, the party took the step that would change the course of human history forever. Various laws were passed to remove Jewish people from different aspects of life, The Nuremberg Laws are a case in point, these laws allowed ant-Semitism to be passed off as scientific racism in an attempt to prove the various Nazi theories and support propaganda campaigns against Jews. The persecution of Jewish communities wasn’t about to stop at firing workers from their jobs or ejecting them from their homes, the Nazis undertook a methodical and clinical approach to eradicating the race that they saw as ‘evil’.
This approach came in the form of rounding people into guarded ‘ghettos’ and labor camps and then ending with the mass genocide of the Jews. This plan was later called ‘The Holocaust’, and has since gone down as one of the greatest atrocities of all time.
The Holocaust was state sponsored murder sanctioned, by party leader Adolf Hitler and encompassed all Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Disabled people, Soviet prisoners and Jehovah’s Witnesses and happened regardless of any links the person had to Germany. The total number of victims is thought to have been between 11 and 16 million people, of which an estimated six million were Jewish.
People from all walks of life were sent to concentration camps throughout different locations in Nazi occupied Europe, rich, poor, men, woman, children and the elderly all shared over crowded cabins and had to work side by side. Footballers weren’t treated differently to anybody else, some lost their lives, others lived to see an end to the war and the atrocities that went with it. One such person who unfortunately didn’t make it was Hungarian Arpad Weisz (pictured).
Weisz was a semi-professional football player and represented his country at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris which was the highlight of a relatively unspectacular career. Where Weisz really made his name was as a coach and manager in Italy, winning three ‘Scudettos’ (league titles) in seven seasons, one with Inter Milan (then known as Ambrosiana) and two more with Bologna.
He was, and (at the time of writing) still is the youngest manager ever to win a league title in Italy, aged just thirty four. He also won the International Tournament of Paris, which was comprised of eight teams from around Europe and was pre-cursor to the European Cup, his Bologna side beat Chelsea 4-1 in the final.
In 1938 the Italian government introduced a set of legislative procedures known as ‘The Racial Laws’ which targeted mainly Jewish people. This meant Weisz had to leave his role at Bologna where he had been so successful and he and his family fled Italy to live in the town of Weisz in the Netherlands.
Following the German occupation of the country, Arpad Weisz and his family were taken to Auschwitz were they would remain until their deaths in 1944. As a mark of respect, Inter Milan unveiled a plaque at their ‘Giuseppe Meazza’ stadium honouring their youngest ever title winning manager, similarly Bologna have a plaque at their home ground the ‘Stadia Renato Dall’ara.
As previously mentioned, the Nazi Parties ideology was such that the extermination of Jewish people was at the forefront of their beliefs regardless of the ties the person had with Germany.
Someone who felt the full and tragic force of this was a man called Julius Hirsch, Hirsch was born in Achern, in south west Germany. He had a sixteen year playing career which saw him win the championship with Karlsruher FV and represent his country on seven occasions making him the first Jewish player ever to do so.
Hirsch was prepared to give the ultimate sacrifice for Germany by going into battle for his country during World War One, alongside his brother Leopold who died during the conflict. Hirsch was decorated with the Iron Cross and was viewed as a patriot and a defender of Germany, factors which he thought would work for him during the Second World War, tragically, it didn’t.
In 1943 Julius Hirsch was taken to Auschwitz and like Arpad Weisz, would never leave. The DFB have awarded the ‘Julius-Hirsch-Preis’ since 2005.The award honours individuals and organisations who have used their unique positions and profile as a force for good by promoting freedom, tolerance and humanity amongst the human race, the recipient is, in part, chosen by members of the Hirsch family.
There are of course other football players from that era whose experiences mirror that of Weisz and Hirsch. Jozef Klotz holds a unique place in the history of Polish football. He scored the first ever goal in the country’s history from the penalty spot which was also Poland’s maiden win as a nation, beating Sweden 2-1 in Stockholm.
His playing career saw him affiliated with two Jewish minority clubs, Jutrzenka Kraków and Maccabi Warszawa, Klotz was also murdered by the Nazis in 1941, whether this was at a labor camp or as part of Germany's occupation of Poland is still unknown.
Another legend of Polish football who perished in 1941 was Leon Sperling. Sperling was shot in a ghetto in Lwow, Ukraine, allegedly by a drunk Gestapo officer. Sperling played for Cracovia Kraków winning three league titles in 1921, 1930 and 1932.
Like Arpad Weisz, he also represented his country at the 1924 Olympics Games and made a total of sixteen appearances for his country. One of Poland’s greatest pre-war players Joseph Kaluza paints a nice picture when describing Sperlings playing style and the joy he would bring to those who witnessed it “He was an excellent left winger with first class ability. He was able to outmanoeuvre opponents with his dribbling; the entire audience would chuckle with laughter”.
American Eddy Hamel was plying his trade with Ajax Amsterdam in the 20’s, despite the clubs strong Jewish identity, Hamel was the first person with a Jewish background to play for the first team, and he did so until 1930 before going on to Coach Alcmaria Victrix. Hamel was murdered in Auschwitz in April 1943 and was the clubs only holocaust victim.
Hungarian full back Jozsef Braun played twenty seven times for his country, and spent most of his club career with his home town team VAC Budapest where he rose through the youth ranks and played for nine years.
He then played in Brooklyn, USA, for Hakoah and Wanderers before making the ultimately fatal decision of moving back to Europe to coach ŠK Slovan Bratislava, his relationship with the beautiful game would come to an ugly conclusion as he to, was forced to work in a labor camp in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he died in 1943.
In 1942 the infamous ‘Death Match’ took place between FC Start of Ukraine and a German Luftwaffe eleven, the FC Start eleven where formed by a baker who recruited players from Dynmo and Lokomotyv Kiev.
FC Start won the game 5-3 and subsequently ten players were captured and tortured to death by the Gastapo, the one Jewish player in the team, the goalkeeper, was taken to the ‘Babi Yar’ (an infamous death camp in Ukraine) and executed, along with between 100-150,000 Soviet Prisoners of War, Ukranian Nationalists, Communists Romani Gypsies and civilians. In 1971 a monument was unveiled at the Zenit Stadium in Kiev, which has since been renamed the ‘Start Stadium’.
Since the atrocities of the Holocaust football and society has gone through many positive changes. The events from 1938 until 1945 will always been remembered and all of the people who lost their lives in those heinous times will of course never be forgotten.
It is also important that lessons are learnt from that dark period in human history, and they have been, anti-Semitism like any form of discrimination is rightly condemned and the perpetrator of such an offence can be held accountable by law.
In the football arena, clubs such as Ajax, Bayern Munich and Tottenham Hotspur loudly exhibit the Jewish influence on their clubs with flags, banners or chants used as self-identification, though the later example hasn’t always been seen as a positive.
British writer and comedian David Baddiel has launched a campaign, in conjunction with ‘Kick it Out’ the anti-discrimination organisation, to have the word ‘Yid’ removed from the stands at White Hart Lane.
The word has been used as a defamatory phrase for Jewish people throughout history. During games supporters of Tottenham Hotspur have been greeted with the word Yid, hissing sounds to mimic gas chambers and other anti-Semitic barbs.
The Tottenham faithful then took it upon themselves to"reclaim" the word and use it as a means to promote and protect the club, the clubs official nickname is listed as ‘The Spurs’ or ‘The Lilywhites’ but on the terraces of White Hart Lane you'll find ‘The Yids’ or ‘The Yid Army’ are the more common names that fans and supporters will use to identify themselves.
Despite being a well-known Chelsea fan, the behaviour of London rivals ‘Spurs has concerned Baddiel. His mother was forced to leave Nazi occupied Germany as a young girl, his short film ‘The Y Word’ focuses on the meaning and impact the word can have and will hope to change attitudes amongst football fans.
Baddiel has raised concerns that ant-Semitism isn’t taken as seriously as it should be “Anti-Semitism is the other racism in football, and because it so lags behind in visibility to the racial abuse of black players it’s hardly ever discussed”.
The film includes some high profile contributions from former Tottenham hero’s Gary Linekar and Ledley King as well as a figurehead from Chelsea in the form of Frank Lampard who has voiced his concerns on the matter “For some reason some fans still shout the ‘Y’ word, but racist chanting is against the law” he says.
Baddiel has stressed that he doesn’t want to stop songs and chants that carry humour or irony but raise awareness of the highly offensive nature of the word ““The film is not intended to censor football fans. It's simply to raise awareness that the Y-word is, and has been for many, many years, a race hate word”.
Donna Cullen, who is the executive director at Tottenham, agrees with Baddiel. She says that supporters shouldn’t have to endure such taunts “It is unthinkable and wholly unacceptable that, in this day and age, supporters are subjected to anti-Semitic abuse such as hissing to imitate the gas chambers used during the Holocaust in the Second World War.”
Spurs supporters feel that reclaiming the word has also let them reclaim their identity and doesn’t allow the club as well as the Jewish and non-Jewish fan base to be abused based on their religion or the football club they choose to support.