Encounter With Alekhine

Fallen Hero: Alexander Alekhine should have stuck to playing chess, not dabbling in politics. Image by Getty Images
My father, Otto Feuer, had been a chess champion (he won the Belgian title in 1936), and his hero had always been the Russian chess champion Alexander Alekhine. One day, in the Buchenwald latrine, Otto came upon what he thought was a miracle of sorts: There on the ground was a page from a recent German chess magazine, undoubtedly discarded by an SS guard, with an article by, of all people, Alekhine. Otto’s mood soared — until he began reading. Then he discovered that Alekhine had become a rabid anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer. The article was all about the evils of “Jewish chess.” Otto sank into an especially low depression. But then there was another uplift, because it occurred to him that if he was still capable of experiencing both joy and sorrow, it must mean that not even the Nazis could destroy his humanity. And this awareness, that he was still human, gave him hope and the will to continue. He was liberated April 11, 1945, when American troops came to Buchenwald. Aharon Appelfeld has written that “in the Holocaust there was no room for thought or feeling….” I have a different view, based on my father’s encounter with Alekhine.
Michael J Feuer, is a dean and professor of education at The George Washington University.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion Trump’s Israel tariffs are a BDS dream come true — can Netanyahu make him rethink them?
- 2
Fast Forward Cory Booker’s rabbi has notes on Booker’s 25-hour speech
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Muslim prayer room at NYU vandalized with name of Jewish fraternity
-
News Jewish cultural institutions reeling as Trump defunds arts and humanities
-
Fast Forward A publisher is reissuing a 1931 novel to bolster Jewish representation in Hollywood
-
Fast Forward It’s official: Southeast Florida’s Jewish population is growing — and getting younger
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.