Football and anti-Semitism: Holocaust survivors at youth tournament – Sport

“I’m the handsome one,” explains an elderly gentleman, pointing to a 74-year-old team photo. Anyone who looks at Ernst Grube for the first time will notice his snow-white mustache, which now pulls up in a smile because of his own joke. A group of young people, laughing loudly, sits in a semicircle in front of him. The young players from FC Bayern Munich and Eintracht Frankfurt are in their heads, actually they are here in Nuremberg to play a U17 football tournament. The fact that they are meeting with Holocaust survivors this morning is new this time. Nobody expected them to have something to laugh about during these conversations. But that was exactly the idea behind the Walther Bensemann tournament.

The Jewish-German Walther Bensemann brought football to southern Germany at the end of the 19th century. By promoting “English sport” he rebelled against national conservative gymnasts and the chauvinistic empire. And football was more than just a sport for him: Bensemann worked for peaceful international understanding all his life.

The football tournament named after him has existed since 1937 – and this year for the first time with workshops. According to the organizer, the tournament should now take place every two years. This summer, four German youth teams – 1. FC Nuremberg, Bayern Munich, Karlsruher SC and Eintracht Frankfurt – and four international ones – Maccabi Tel Aviv, Chelsea FC, Bologna FC and KS Cracovia – met in Nuremberg. Soccer was played in the afternoon and Holocaust survivors were spoken to early in the morning.

It’s Friday, the first day of the tournament, when Ernst Grube turns his wristwatch in his hands in the seminar room and talks about his life. About the brutality of National Socialism and how, as the son of a Jewish mother, he didn’t belong right from the start, how he had to do forced labor as a child and how he was liberated from the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1945. After that he started playing football, at TSV 1860 and at Helios Munich: “That’s how I got in touch with young people my age.”

The young people here listen to Grube attentively. But they find it difficult to understand all that is being said: “What would have happened if you hadn’t done the work in the camp?” asks one of them. “There was no way to oppose it,” Grube replies. The deportation, the fear, nobody could imagine that.

Shaul Paul Ladany also spoke to the young footballers in Nuremberg. He is an Israeli engineer and track and field athlete and not only survived the Holocaust but also the 1972 hostage crisis in Munich.

(Photo: Michael Probst/AP)

A few hours later, fifteen-year-old Tim Binder from FC Bayern Munich is walking across an artificial turf pitch on the tournament grounds. His life revolves around sport, soon it will be decided whether it is enough for him to become a professional or not. He’s here to play soccer. But he found the conversation with Ernst Grube exciting: “Right from the beginning I remembered that football helped him out of the bad situation.” Tim thinks that someone like Ernst Grube is living history: “I can’t even imagine how the Nazis took Jewish children out of schools. It’s difficult to understand and quite far removed from how we live today.”

That’s why the 89-year-old Eva Szepesi travels all over Germany as a contemporary witness, and she’s also been to Tim Binder’s school before. Here in Nuremberg, as one of six Holocaust survivors, she speaks to the youth soccer players. She says: “I want the young people to know what happened back then. When they hear that someone is denying Auschwitz – that they heard from a survivor what it was really like there, what all the bad things happened, and that innocent people were killed. Like my parents and my brother.”

Eva Szepesi survived Auschwitz as a child. “A26877” is tattooed on her forearm, the prisoner number. Though she’s shared her story many times, the conversations still bother her: “I try to push it away from me like it’s not me.” Szepesi is an elegant lady, wearing white jeans with a matching striped blouse. Sport is also very important to her: “I danced a lot – Israeli dances. That made me happy,” says Szepesi with a smile.

Anti-Semitism in Germany – not a past, but a present

With a steady gaze and sparkling blue eyes, Eva Szepesi explains what she wants to achieve: “When the young people notice injustice, that they oppose it, that they are attentive and do not believe everything they are told, but think for themselves. They are not at all to blame for what happened then. But they are to blame for what might happen in the future.”

Anti-Semitism in Germany is not the past, but the present. Jewish kindergartens and schools have to be guarded by the police with machine guns. In the past, the Jewish-German football club TuS Makkabi Berlin has repeatedly been attacked for racial reasons.

At the Walther Bensemann Tournament, workshops and encounters are intended to sensitize young people to recognize anti-Semitism and racism. “Shalom!”, the spectators on the sidelines greet each other before the opening game and hug each other. Maccabi Tel Aviv against Bayern Munich is the name of the game. Tim Binder plays up front. Despite being one of the smallest, he is very present on the pitch.

Football means a lot to him: “Sport helps me a lot in social situations. The team spirit in general. You realize again that it doesn’t matter whether someone has a different skin color or religion. Sport does strengthen personality.” Ernst Grube and Eva Szepesi would probably confirm that. On Sunday, the final day of the tournament, the latter presented the Chelsea FC players with the trophy for winning the tournament.

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