Italian Soccer Fans Try To Drown Out Reading Of Anne Frank’s Diary
Image by Getty
By Ari Feldman October 27, 2017
As a portion of Anne Frank’s diary was read over the loudspeaker at an Italian soccer match Wednesday night, a number of fans chose to turn their backs to the field and sing the Italian anthem, Deadspin reported. The reading and a moment of silence at the game for S.S. Lazio had been planned to quell concerns over overtly racist and anti-Semitic behavior of the team’s fans.
The decision was made after soccer fans distributed images showing Anne Frank wearing the soccer jersey of Lazio’s rival, Roma.
The fans who shouted over Anne Frank’s diary were supporters of Juventus, Lazio’s opponents Wednesday evening. Lazio fans were encouraged not to attend the match by the club’s “ultras,” a term for radical fans that often operate as a kind of mob force within the soccer organization.
Meanwhile, the president of the Lazio soccer team reportedly was heard on tape calling his visit to a Rome synagogue “a charade” and, referring to Jews, saying “These people don’t count a damn.”
Lazio President Claudio Lotito is denying that he made the remarks. On Tuesday, he laid a wreath of blue and white flowers at the synagogue and announced he would take 200 fans every year to visit Auschwitz.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
